When one holds a thumb to an open spigot one cannot prevent some water from spewing. Similarly, Dems in any position which smacks of restoration to their "rightful" domination are simply unable to restrain their disdain for any who venture to oppose them or to prevent their snobbish antipathy from spurting forth with haught and abandon. This was obvious in the recent confrontation of MINORITY Leader Senator Charles Schumer and the presumptive Prime Minister of the U.S., Madame Pelosi, with our President in our White House. I do not imagine for a moment that a canny player like the President expected anything other than the gratuitous disrespect he was afforded by the Democrat duo and I do not fault his firm response to it - no, not at all. More power to him. His example has helped to push the spineless RINOS to virtual extinction.
First of all, Charles was in manifestly revealing form, yes he was. He sniffed "When the President brags he won North Dakota and Indiana ( Senate seats), he's in trouble " with his signature unctuous sneer/smile . A more revealing and reckless statement of his stereotypical NYC contempt for "flyover country" can hardly be imagined (in saying this I know there are millions of down to earth people in NYC for whom the stereotype does not apply- they showed that on Sept. 11 - but Charles is Charles.) Ehh, Charles, each state gets two Senators, with votes equal to your's regardless of the size or political correctness of its electorate, dontcha know?
Now the frantic and, well perhaps, still hopefully alluring Nancy makes disparaging references to the President's "manhood". Oh my,my. Surely she has decimated his fragile psyche, yes?
All of this is of course to be expected. Personal attacks on those who thwart them are de rigueur for leftists and President Trump is WELL aware of it. Maybe one must refrain from faulting Charles and Nancy from acting as true products of their coastal origins: the tumor on the Hudson and smoky dreamy Frisco. But they ought really to disabuse themselves of the self deception that they are widely perceived as anything other than totalitarian pretenders and essentially anti American. That is, of course, a passport to celebration of them for some.
In a recent film depicting the very dark days of the American Revolution a patronizing British General says to Washington, during what he believes to be surrender negotiations, " Ah General, you cannot but have known your effort was doomed to failure; it is the better part of wisdom for you to admit as much". Nancy and Charles embarked upon their parley with our President with much the same attitude. They are certain that victory and consequent retribution is within their grasp due to their "decisive" takeover of Federal power in November in having accomplished temporary control of one 6th of it (really?).
Let them be put on notice: President Trump is OUR President; and though he's not one of us he knows us and he stands by his promises to us. He has proven time and again to be far more resolute than you, in your imperious detachment, can have imagined. You haven't begun to broach his political demise . He's ours and when you attack him you attack us. How do we know? Because you and your ilk have been doing the same since the '60's . We in the real America know your destructive intent for what it is. Jack
Friday, December 14, 2018
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Virtual revolution
Very plausible arguments, to the effect that revolution is highly unlikely in the U.S., are often made. Factors such as the apparently increasing appeal of the Democrat party to wealthy people and the continuing material well being of most Americans are often cited. Revolutions such as the French, Russian and Chinese certainly were motivated by actual and dominant destitution and injustice which does not obtain in our country. But what if you could convince enough Americans that it does? Perception in a communication and information technologically rich society is powerful and often decisive. Is it enough to provide the perfectionist, ever revolution seeking American left the means to force unwarranted change on us?
In the book Fan Shen, William Hinton describes the extraordinary measures communist cadre took to persuade the Chinese population that they had been oppressed far more than they had realized and that fundamental change was necessary and just. Intense public discussions known as "struggle sessions" were often the means employed, though torture and murder were, ehh, not unknown. Hinton was a declared Marxist who appeared to think this process justified, despite such consequent "problems" as the malnourishment rife Great Leap Forward, which finished some 20 million lives and the insane Cultural Revolution of the '60's. Mao Tse-tung remained comfortably corpulent during the former and he wasn't out there with the bustling mobs in the latter so there had to have been alot of perception changing going on to muster the needed coercive manpower. I can imagine none but an intellectual sociopath maintaining it was honest or positive.
A recent article presented a debate over the desirability of a carbon emissions tax in the U.S. The opposition presented the reality of the U.S. being a leading cutter of carbon emissions through the wisely increased use of our abundant natural gas enabled by now proven technology and the thwarting of those for whom all fossil fuels are "icky'". Here indeed is a test of the "unquestionable" responsibility of mankind (but especially of profligate U.S.kind) for perceived "global warming", yes? In support: "why this evidence is but nothing, nothing; we are just getting started toward the environmental perfection we know to be unattainable but without which our lives of noblesse will be bereft of meaning. Accordingly we are blithe to advance to the full the perception that sans revolutionary change, planetary immolation is assured and that 'ANY means necessary 'to meet it is justified and if you disagree you deserve complete legal, social, economic, intellectual and perhaps existential proscription."
It has been argued well by Dr. Nicholas Waddy that the Dem party does not purpose the elimination of the wealthy and that many of the rich believe they stand to benefit from the porcinely expanded government assuredly the mission of the Dems to force on us. But that party put Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both very possibly convinced Marxists, at the executive pinnacle and willingly employs openly declared Communists. ( Why not Nazis then; Marxists are historically proven equal to them in subhumanity) The Bolsheviks were but a faction of a Social Democrat party which might have brought somewhat less draconian change to Russia. But the Reds did not acquire their murderous power by heralding Stalin, universal suffering and the Gulag.Instead, they promised unattainable ultima.
In his blog Waddyisright, Dr. Waddy, as I see it, recently asserted that the climate change lobby is a conduit for the transfer of wealth from those the left disfavors to those it does and that the left's egalitarian rhetoric is a sham . I believe that but would note in addition that leftists are ineluctably perfectionist (why? in America maybe it was all that flouride in the water in the '50's) and that consequently environmentalists will never cease their meddling, never. Second, that leading leftists always presume mundane profit for themselves (eg. Madame Mao and Daniel Ortega with his multitudinous designer sunglasses, ad nauseum across the detestable proven Marxist spectrum), while forcing"heroic"sacrifice on their unwilling subjects. And as long as general and reasonable material well being is readily available to all willing to live positive lives, as it is in the U.S., inequality of income is not, I think, a national fault. Why should we care if others have more than us as long as most have enough to lead the decent lives purposed by the just? The left trumpets the certainty of blasphemy in that but in power cynically thrives(remember "Comrade" Leonid and his 100 cars in a time when everyday Russians saved ten years to buy a charcoal burning Soapbox Derby contraption, in a country able to put men into space?).
Most Dems and their public supporters are not totalitarian monsters but their party has its Bolsheviks who see in it a convenient vehicle for disingenuous passage to a far left future. To use Lenin's term "useful idiots" for Dems who naively countenance this is reasonable.
The far left has grievously infected the MSM , the American academy, including secondary and elementary education and librarianship, publishing, the entertainment industry and the governments and judiciaries of several of the states. The Federal deep state has a certain leftist cast and the struggle to repel the imminent radical takeover of the Federal Judiciary has yet a long road to victory. The business management world shows alarming symptoms of spineless surrender to an ideology which loathes it. In all of these settings leftists command harrowingly powerful organs of manipulation of perception and its ancillary, opinion.
In consequence: the slanderous calumny that the police are essentially and endemically determined to oppress minorities and that the only just reaction to that is forceful resistance to them and discrediting of their mission, despite the anarchy promised by the same and amply demonstrated! And: that a plutocratic 1% of the population controls all American financial security and plenty and that it requires an "impoverished" 99% underclass for its continued dominance. And: that all elections lost by Democrats are now by definition suspect because of the manifest determination of the atavistic and primitive real America to suppress dissent. And: well, this putatively miraculous and painfully evolved American haven of life as it should be is nothing of the sort. It is a seething "racist" , "sexist" and you fill in the blank at your pleasure, hell hole and is overdue for complete "transformation" on a model which caused one hundred million in country murders in the 20th century.
The generation of such virtual misconceptions could be the road to a virtually generated revolution with very concrete , onerous and disastrous consequences for all who embrace solidly evolved American institutions and values. Jack
In the book Fan Shen, William Hinton describes the extraordinary measures communist cadre took to persuade the Chinese population that they had been oppressed far more than they had realized and that fundamental change was necessary and just. Intense public discussions known as "struggle sessions" were often the means employed, though torture and murder were, ehh, not unknown. Hinton was a declared Marxist who appeared to think this process justified, despite such consequent "problems" as the malnourishment rife Great Leap Forward, which finished some 20 million lives and the insane Cultural Revolution of the '60's. Mao Tse-tung remained comfortably corpulent during the former and he wasn't out there with the bustling mobs in the latter so there had to have been alot of perception changing going on to muster the needed coercive manpower. I can imagine none but an intellectual sociopath maintaining it was honest or positive.
A recent article presented a debate over the desirability of a carbon emissions tax in the U.S. The opposition presented the reality of the U.S. being a leading cutter of carbon emissions through the wisely increased use of our abundant natural gas enabled by now proven technology and the thwarting of those for whom all fossil fuels are "icky'". Here indeed is a test of the "unquestionable" responsibility of mankind (but especially of profligate U.S.kind) for perceived "global warming", yes? In support: "why this evidence is but nothing, nothing; we are just getting started toward the environmental perfection we know to be unattainable but without which our lives of noblesse will be bereft of meaning. Accordingly we are blithe to advance to the full the perception that sans revolutionary change, planetary immolation is assured and that 'ANY means necessary 'to meet it is justified and if you disagree you deserve complete legal, social, economic, intellectual and perhaps existential proscription."
It has been argued well by Dr. Nicholas Waddy that the Dem party does not purpose the elimination of the wealthy and that many of the rich believe they stand to benefit from the porcinely expanded government assuredly the mission of the Dems to force on us. But that party put Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both very possibly convinced Marxists, at the executive pinnacle and willingly employs openly declared Communists. ( Why not Nazis then; Marxists are historically proven equal to them in subhumanity) The Bolsheviks were but a faction of a Social Democrat party which might have brought somewhat less draconian change to Russia. But the Reds did not acquire their murderous power by heralding Stalin, universal suffering and the Gulag.Instead, they promised unattainable ultima.
In his blog Waddyisright, Dr. Waddy, as I see it, recently asserted that the climate change lobby is a conduit for the transfer of wealth from those the left disfavors to those it does and that the left's egalitarian rhetoric is a sham . I believe that but would note in addition that leftists are ineluctably perfectionist (why? in America maybe it was all that flouride in the water in the '50's) and that consequently environmentalists will never cease their meddling, never. Second, that leading leftists always presume mundane profit for themselves (eg. Madame Mao and Daniel Ortega with his multitudinous designer sunglasses, ad nauseum across the detestable proven Marxist spectrum), while forcing"heroic"sacrifice on their unwilling subjects. And as long as general and reasonable material well being is readily available to all willing to live positive lives, as it is in the U.S., inequality of income is not, I think, a national fault. Why should we care if others have more than us as long as most have enough to lead the decent lives purposed by the just? The left trumpets the certainty of blasphemy in that but in power cynically thrives(remember "Comrade" Leonid and his 100 cars in a time when everyday Russians saved ten years to buy a charcoal burning Soapbox Derby contraption, in a country able to put men into space?).
Most Dems and their public supporters are not totalitarian monsters but their party has its Bolsheviks who see in it a convenient vehicle for disingenuous passage to a far left future. To use Lenin's term "useful idiots" for Dems who naively countenance this is reasonable.
The far left has grievously infected the MSM , the American academy, including secondary and elementary education and librarianship, publishing, the entertainment industry and the governments and judiciaries of several of the states. The Federal deep state has a certain leftist cast and the struggle to repel the imminent radical takeover of the Federal Judiciary has yet a long road to victory. The business management world shows alarming symptoms of spineless surrender to an ideology which loathes it. In all of these settings leftists command harrowingly powerful organs of manipulation of perception and its ancillary, opinion.
In consequence: the slanderous calumny that the police are essentially and endemically determined to oppress minorities and that the only just reaction to that is forceful resistance to them and discrediting of their mission, despite the anarchy promised by the same and amply demonstrated! And: that a plutocratic 1% of the population controls all American financial security and plenty and that it requires an "impoverished" 99% underclass for its continued dominance. And: that all elections lost by Democrats are now by definition suspect because of the manifest determination of the atavistic and primitive real America to suppress dissent. And: well, this putatively miraculous and painfully evolved American haven of life as it should be is nothing of the sort. It is a seething "racist" , "sexist" and you fill in the blank at your pleasure, hell hole and is overdue for complete "transformation" on a model which caused one hundred million in country murders in the 20th century.
The generation of such virtual misconceptions could be the road to a virtually generated revolution with very concrete , onerous and disastrous consequences for all who embrace solidly evolved American institutions and values. Jack
Monday, November 12, 2018
Good Samaritans must beware of such as Cuomo.
A commentator today wished for more Matt Wennerstroms: Mr. Wennerstrom courageously aided and saved the lives of ,several who might otherwise have been shot by the gunman in Thousand Oaks, CA. Now pay attention, Andrew Cuomo, that is if you can refrain from preening and planning your latest crusade to disarm the lawful.
Though apparently Mr. Wennerstrom did not use a gun to defend the unarmed, it is conceivable that armed citizens have contemplated, either in anticipation of the possibility or in the intensity of such a moment, actually using armed force to attempt to stop a monster. Since it is impossible to carry an AR-15 or a 12 Gauge concealed regularly, the heroic citizen will probably be out gunned by a subhuman bent on mass murder. He or she will probably face great physical danger by intervening. But that is not the only extreme hazard faced by those willing to risk all to protect others.
In New York State the minute you draw a licensed firearm, your life is threatened with complete and onerous change at the hands of a government determined to treat gunowners as guilty until proven innocent. I do not at all fault most police and Sheriffs in NYS for this; they do their duty of enforcing, not making law, faithfully. But leftist dominated government in NY, including many prosecutors, manifests one of the fondest of leftist dreams - the complete disarmament of the law abiding public. The certainty that they cannot do this to the criminal element is of no moment to them; it is plausible to think that that is, to some of them, just. Too much you say? Consider the British farmer who was as insolent as to finally make armed defense of his repeatedly assaulted person and property, did hard time for it and was sued at public expense by his attackers. That was in Britain, one of the most advanced of democracies but lacking a Second Amendment and NRA.
Oh that pesky Constitution; you know, leftists often think like the criminals for whom they have such sympathy; by golly, when they like a Constitutional right its a RIGHT (like the right to scald or dismember unborn humans, even on the cusp of birth). Ehh,but if they don't like it, why its a privilege which can be withdrawn by government at will. Funny isn't it, how the left finds in the "penumbras and emanations" of the Constitution a tenuously and ghoulishly established "right" like abortion but when the very Second Amendment is invoked, become devoted but highly selective "strict constructionists" maintaining that only organized militias can touch firearms and then preferably only those in use in 1787. The left relishes the prospect of subjects unable to resist when leftists take over , as the leftists surely intend and it dreams that to enact ever more restrictive gun control will be to discredit the NRA, which the left knows to be very effective in support of candidates and office holders conservative on a wide range of issues also and aside from gun rights.
But for now, not withstanding, the Second Amendment forces the left to innovate other means to advance its goal of reducing the reprehensible American polity to peonage, largely through rendering it defenseless. New York is a good example of it. It has Cuomo's"toughist in the nation" sanctions on law abiding gun owners (but not, God forbid, on cop killers). Since the election enabled Cuomo's ascension to dictatorship, many more restrictions, meant only to discourage the lawful and encourage their exodus and giggled at by criminals, are imminent. Coupled with these is the continuing refusal to protect those lawful and of good will should they venture to actually use their Constitutionally protected firearms to protect themselves, their families or the innocent. NY (read NY City) just elected a radical leftist Attorney General who will hasten to punish DAs who are less than zealous in taking good samaritans to task. Imagine having to use your own financial resources to defend yourself, against the infinite wealth of heavily taxed NY, for having selflessly come to the aid of the victims of some sociopathic yeg. In most of the rest of the country you can buy NRA insurance to help you pay for your defense over defending yourself or others but such protection is outlawed in NY, courtesy of you know who! Could this be a deterrant to those with the physical courage to face savages? Uh, I think so . Could it discourage those who look on such as Matt Wennerstrom for example? Well,yes! Let us pray for more Matt Wennerstroms and resolutely oppose those who would punish ones who, in response to atrocities generated by the moral breakdown of our society, would emulate him. Andrew Cuomo forced his unconstitutional "Safe Act" restrictions on gunowners through the legislature in the middle of the night by pleading a necessity arisen from mass shootings. That he was insincere in this concern is shown by his active opposition to legal protection for those who have the guts to use firearms in the defense of the threatened.
Why do I cite NY? Because it realistically predicts what is in store for the rest of America should it carelessly admit radicals like Cuomo or his ilk to national power. We in the real America must assume that any accomodation of the resolutely and demonstrably far leftist Democrat party will expose our entire country to what is now assuredly in store for New Yorkers. Now, an increasingly law abiding Federal judiciary may ultimately save us but meanwhile we in NY will bleed. Take heed America! Jack
Though apparently Mr. Wennerstrom did not use a gun to defend the unarmed, it is conceivable that armed citizens have contemplated, either in anticipation of the possibility or in the intensity of such a moment, actually using armed force to attempt to stop a monster. Since it is impossible to carry an AR-15 or a 12 Gauge concealed regularly, the heroic citizen will probably be out gunned by a subhuman bent on mass murder. He or she will probably face great physical danger by intervening. But that is not the only extreme hazard faced by those willing to risk all to protect others.
In New York State the minute you draw a licensed firearm, your life is threatened with complete and onerous change at the hands of a government determined to treat gunowners as guilty until proven innocent. I do not at all fault most police and Sheriffs in NYS for this; they do their duty of enforcing, not making law, faithfully. But leftist dominated government in NY, including many prosecutors, manifests one of the fondest of leftist dreams - the complete disarmament of the law abiding public. The certainty that they cannot do this to the criminal element is of no moment to them; it is plausible to think that that is, to some of them, just. Too much you say? Consider the British farmer who was as insolent as to finally make armed defense of his repeatedly assaulted person and property, did hard time for it and was sued at public expense by his attackers. That was in Britain, one of the most advanced of democracies but lacking a Second Amendment and NRA.
Oh that pesky Constitution; you know, leftists often think like the criminals for whom they have such sympathy; by golly, when they like a Constitutional right its a RIGHT (like the right to scald or dismember unborn humans, even on the cusp of birth). Ehh,but if they don't like it, why its a privilege which can be withdrawn by government at will. Funny isn't it, how the left finds in the "penumbras and emanations" of the Constitution a tenuously and ghoulishly established "right" like abortion but when the very Second Amendment is invoked, become devoted but highly selective "strict constructionists" maintaining that only organized militias can touch firearms and then preferably only those in use in 1787. The left relishes the prospect of subjects unable to resist when leftists take over , as the leftists surely intend and it dreams that to enact ever more restrictive gun control will be to discredit the NRA, which the left knows to be very effective in support of candidates and office holders conservative on a wide range of issues also and aside from gun rights.
But for now, not withstanding, the Second Amendment forces the left to innovate other means to advance its goal of reducing the reprehensible American polity to peonage, largely through rendering it defenseless. New York is a good example of it. It has Cuomo's"toughist in the nation" sanctions on law abiding gun owners (but not, God forbid, on cop killers). Since the election enabled Cuomo's ascension to dictatorship, many more restrictions, meant only to discourage the lawful and encourage their exodus and giggled at by criminals, are imminent. Coupled with these is the continuing refusal to protect those lawful and of good will should they venture to actually use their Constitutionally protected firearms to protect themselves, their families or the innocent. NY (read NY City) just elected a radical leftist Attorney General who will hasten to punish DAs who are less than zealous in taking good samaritans to task. Imagine having to use your own financial resources to defend yourself, against the infinite wealth of heavily taxed NY, for having selflessly come to the aid of the victims of some sociopathic yeg. In most of the rest of the country you can buy NRA insurance to help you pay for your defense over defending yourself or others but such protection is outlawed in NY, courtesy of you know who! Could this be a deterrant to those with the physical courage to face savages? Uh, I think so . Could it discourage those who look on such as Matt Wennerstrom for example? Well,yes! Let us pray for more Matt Wennerstroms and resolutely oppose those who would punish ones who, in response to atrocities generated by the moral breakdown of our society, would emulate him. Andrew Cuomo forced his unconstitutional "Safe Act" restrictions on gunowners through the legislature in the middle of the night by pleading a necessity arisen from mass shootings. That he was insincere in this concern is shown by his active opposition to legal protection for those who have the guts to use firearms in the defense of the threatened.
Why do I cite NY? Because it realistically predicts what is in store for the rest of America should it carelessly admit radicals like Cuomo or his ilk to national power. We in the real America must assume that any accomodation of the resolutely and demonstrably far leftist Democrat party will expose our entire country to what is now assuredly in store for New Yorkers. Now, an increasingly law abiding Federal judiciary may ultimately save us but meanwhile we in NY will bleed. Take heed America! Jack
Thursday, November 8, 2018
"Blue Seep", not "Blue Wave"
Take heart; our glass is much more than half full. The "Blue Wave" did not crest. The real America remains in charge of the executive branch, more secure in the judiciary and strengthened in the Senate. Bright breathless youngsters like Gillum and O'Rourke, eager to inherit the exalted Democrat mantle, were slapped down, leaving the 2020 Dem nomination race, which starts now, to atavistic would be saviors of a country which does not want or need earthly salvation. We must look to the Democrats in the House to reenthrone Madame Pelosi, an ideal contrast to gutsy President Trump. She is sure to disgust just about everyone between Binghamton and Bakersfield; leftists in power always overreach. In the Senate, reconfirmed Minority Leader Schumer is a continuing disaster for the Dems. In two very conservative Western NY House districts the disgrace and injustice of leftist representation was apparently avoided .We took some hits yesterday, yes, but we are still in very good shape.When one adds in our recent triumph in returning the Supreme Court to judicial integrity by seating Justice Kavanaugh, we are more than holding our own in our existential struggle with the totalitarian left.
The Senate results almost guarantee that any Supreme Court vacancy occurring in the next two years will be filled by a Trump nominee . That this may be backlash from the vicious and haughty assault on Justice Kavanaugh by the presumptuous Schumer is fitting. If a leftist leaves, the dominance on the Court of lawful judges will be cemented and the radical American left will have lost its cherished bastion of dictatorial imposition of its unpopular convictions.
(The loss of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is a blow to us; he is a warrior and a stalwart.)
Now: the House. Sure, it would have been better if we had retained it and we almost did but this may redound to our favor. There was no Alamo of murderous massacre in the vote. Aside from haughty and dismissive Pelosi (regrettably yes, possibly soon to be two improbable steps from the Presidency), now Maxine Waters, the bulless in the China shop, will be,get this, a Committee Chair! Good; from such a pulpit she will pontificate ceaselessly and with even more recklessness than that with which she has already disgraced herself and her party (that is, if that is possible). Rep. Nadler, just the kind of shrill, know it all "New Yawka"we need to raise hackles across the land , will tender us lessons in alienation from his Chair Should oh so levelingly compassionate Pelosi be distracted on the way to the limousine dealership by a deposition vote, we may rest assured of her succession by an equally radical dreamer motivated by tiresome"leftist in power" franticness. Should they get an unexpectedly canny political operative in the Speakership (a Newt Gingrich) they might disingenuously exercise restraint and sweet reason; beware! To bustle in their impending and probably temporary incumbency in control would be to remind the real America of how it would be should they ever achieve complete sway and the means to expunge the very memory of Donald Trump's insolent defense of American values. Trump nation would take due note and act accordingly in 2020. Yes, the Dems will block the President's legislative agenda for the next two years but he has already done good things they cannot undo and six possible years of progress against their onslaught on American democracy will still be to be celebrated. As for their threats of impeachment of the President or Justice Kavanaugh - why bring it on Dems! You can't get a conviction; the Senate will not allow it. As for subpoena and investigative power, well, the President is now free to nominate an Attorney General who can empower one with the authority to investigate the "investigators". So lay on! You'll simply reinforce your "disempowering" and genuine image as peevish obstructionists and you'll wear your welcome out in jack time.
( As for the subject millions of us in Upstate N.Y. ; well, say a prayer for us and get ready for our refugees. Chairman Cuomo, who regards us as on a level one above Arachnids , now has the State Senate and is making haste to bustle in far left lunacy. Take heed, America; he and his avatars have you in their sights.)
All in all, instead of the " Blue Wave" craved and supported by the MSM , we saw a "Blue Seep" , feckless and readily containable. The America hating left is still very much in the shadow and faces, in 2020, probably greatly aided by its predictably presumptuous behavior in its newly won but besieged island of power in the House ,a finishing blow in 2020. Civil War II is prolonged but then , so was Civil War I. Jack
The Senate results almost guarantee that any Supreme Court vacancy occurring in the next two years will be filled by a Trump nominee . That this may be backlash from the vicious and haughty assault on Justice Kavanaugh by the presumptuous Schumer is fitting. If a leftist leaves, the dominance on the Court of lawful judges will be cemented and the radical American left will have lost its cherished bastion of dictatorial imposition of its unpopular convictions.
(The loss of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is a blow to us; he is a warrior and a stalwart.)
Now: the House. Sure, it would have been better if we had retained it and we almost did but this may redound to our favor. There was no Alamo of murderous massacre in the vote. Aside from haughty and dismissive Pelosi (regrettably yes, possibly soon to be two improbable steps from the Presidency), now Maxine Waters, the bulless in the China shop, will be,get this, a Committee Chair! Good; from such a pulpit she will pontificate ceaselessly and with even more recklessness than that with which she has already disgraced herself and her party (that is, if that is possible). Rep. Nadler, just the kind of shrill, know it all "New Yawka"we need to raise hackles across the land , will tender us lessons in alienation from his Chair Should oh so levelingly compassionate Pelosi be distracted on the way to the limousine dealership by a deposition vote, we may rest assured of her succession by an equally radical dreamer motivated by tiresome"leftist in power" franticness. Should they get an unexpectedly canny political operative in the Speakership (a Newt Gingrich) they might disingenuously exercise restraint and sweet reason; beware! To bustle in their impending and probably temporary incumbency in control would be to remind the real America of how it would be should they ever achieve complete sway and the means to expunge the very memory of Donald Trump's insolent defense of American values. Trump nation would take due note and act accordingly in 2020. Yes, the Dems will block the President's legislative agenda for the next two years but he has already done good things they cannot undo and six possible years of progress against their onslaught on American democracy will still be to be celebrated. As for their threats of impeachment of the President or Justice Kavanaugh - why bring it on Dems! You can't get a conviction; the Senate will not allow it. As for subpoena and investigative power, well, the President is now free to nominate an Attorney General who can empower one with the authority to investigate the "investigators". So lay on! You'll simply reinforce your "disempowering" and genuine image as peevish obstructionists and you'll wear your welcome out in jack time.
( As for the subject millions of us in Upstate N.Y. ; well, say a prayer for us and get ready for our refugees. Chairman Cuomo, who regards us as on a level one above Arachnids , now has the State Senate and is making haste to bustle in far left lunacy. Take heed, America; he and his avatars have you in their sights.)
All in all, instead of the " Blue Wave" craved and supported by the MSM , we saw a "Blue Seep" , feckless and readily containable. The America hating left is still very much in the shadow and faces, in 2020, probably greatly aided by its predictably presumptuous behavior in its newly won but besieged island of power in the House ,a finishing blow in 2020. Civil War II is prolonged but then , so was Civil War I. Jack
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Hate
Oh my, how the American left loves to hate "hate". But how very much in love with it they are when it serves their purposes and how very convinced they are that their embrace of it is licensed and justified. I want to acknowledge here the effect Dr. Nick Waddy's comments in his recent post "The' Blue Wave'is Fading to Red as we Speak" in his blog Waddyisright.com have had on this post.
Hate: the dictionary defines it as "a strong feeling of dislike or ill will"; its that alright but its more too. Its a superlative ; there is not a stronger word to describe intense antipathy. Its staccato simplicity increases its impact. It comes complete with its own exclamation point. It should be used carefully and advisedly but that requires the ability and willingness to perceive one's own shortcomings.
Leftists use the word with presumption and ease, as if to say "that we are just is self evident; therefore if we say its so, it is, by definition. We are free to make the accusation of hate and we need not inform it further; if you disagree we will direct it at you through the powerful media we dominate in politics, government, the press, broadcasting , employment, academia and should we work it so, as we intend, criminal law".
The ordeal of calumny forced upon our President ,as he knew it would be and for which his willingness to endure it at an age when most of us want to kick back stands exemplary of courage, principle and moxie, is proof of the left's blithe and vindictive disposition to excoriate any who venture to oppose it, with the radical charge of hate. His resistance to them, his open scorn for their self righteousness, his insolent enactment of measures such as the nomination of Supreme Court Justices the left rightly expects to be at cross purposes with them, garners for him perfervid remonstrances of "hate filled divisiveness and obvious empathy with groups who thrive on insane prejudices and antipathies".
I wish there were available a doctrinal mirror similar to the optical kind which we could direct to the left; it would reveal, though probably not to their deadened perception, that the left is essentially imbued with those faults they energetically ascribe to anyone who questions them; they are the very definition of full blown, vicious and relentless HATERS and they forfeit thereby all moral authority to task others for this offense.
Why are they this way? I've written about this before. Its because they conveniently reject painfully evolved standards, traditions and laws as "irrelevant, oppressive, summarily dismissable ". Marx, their muse, misused the Enlightenment to make this leap of onerous faith and the leftist boomers in their consummate naivete embraced his legacy to enable their airy assumption of Promethean insight and their terribly ungrateful rejection of their parents' values. That historic mistake, due to their multitude only had a tragically inordinate effect on our culture and our polity.
The left hates everything positive about American history, culture, religion, morals, law, economics, self defense and laboriously accomplished progress in human well being because these realities put the lie to their conviction that America is unforgiveably flawed and deserving of punishment and forced transformation at their hands. That anyone would disagree with this generates on their part the demonstrated at the very least, "strong feelings of dislike or ill will" which satisfy the nominal definition of hate and for which the left provides endlessly repeated affirmation.
Our history, yes, shamed by profound oppression yet found in the histories of most nations but in our national progress addressed in an affirmative and sincere manner which has yielded considerable though perhaps not yet fulfilled mitigation, is hatefully dismissed by the left, (eg. by thoroughly leftist thankfully former President Obama, in his "doubt America first" policies). Our culture is debased by debauched popular entertainment which is our shame before the world but which is celebrated by the left in their embrace of its exemplars in the leftist dominated world of television, film and song. Our dominant religion, Christianity,a belief meaningless without its embrace of primal love, the elemental opposite of hate, is joyfully attacked by unsupportably atheistic leftists with vigor and relish ,its every human fault foreseen by those who wish for its demise but have nothing, nothing with which to begin replacing it. The great Catholic Church is especially targeted by this purposeful assault. Our morals are sneered at by a leftist subculture which excuses all personal irresponsibility. Our capitalist and advisedly free economics, which have provided, for virtually all willing to work them, miraculous human well being, are dismissed by neo Marxists completely forgiving of Marxism's amply demonstrated brutality and inhumanity , as unproductive of "equality", as if human nature, given its inherent differentiation in intent and ability could ever manifest such a dream. Our military, which has demonstrated the most merciful and humane use of measured force ever, is yet undermined and defiled by a left nonetheless supportive of the savage war measures employed by Marxist states and Islamist entities such as Communist Vietnam and the murderous faction of Islam . Our law, a product of the most enlightened system of Western legal thought and democratic reform, that of the English and American tradition, is rejected by a considerable leftist faction of the profession and its schools as simply "elites protecting their privileges". Its principled, learned and laboriously accomplished devotion to accumulated wisdom reflected in predecedent is casually and recklessly replaced by the substitution of currently fashionable trends (eg. the dismissal of the fetus as uncomprehending tissue and the unrestrained redefinition of the millenia old institution of marriage). Our tortured American progress toward wisely administered order and acknowledgement of soundly developed social progress, is laughable to the detached and profoundly arrogant left.
They are, in all of this, enabled by essential and for them, indispensable, HATE, in all of its hypocritical destructiveness. Jack
Hate: the dictionary defines it as "a strong feeling of dislike or ill will"; its that alright but its more too. Its a superlative ; there is not a stronger word to describe intense antipathy. Its staccato simplicity increases its impact. It comes complete with its own exclamation point. It should be used carefully and advisedly but that requires the ability and willingness to perceive one's own shortcomings.
Leftists use the word with presumption and ease, as if to say "that we are just is self evident; therefore if we say its so, it is, by definition. We are free to make the accusation of hate and we need not inform it further; if you disagree we will direct it at you through the powerful media we dominate in politics, government, the press, broadcasting , employment, academia and should we work it so, as we intend, criminal law".
The ordeal of calumny forced upon our President ,as he knew it would be and for which his willingness to endure it at an age when most of us want to kick back stands exemplary of courage, principle and moxie, is proof of the left's blithe and vindictive disposition to excoriate any who venture to oppose it, with the radical charge of hate. His resistance to them, his open scorn for their self righteousness, his insolent enactment of measures such as the nomination of Supreme Court Justices the left rightly expects to be at cross purposes with them, garners for him perfervid remonstrances of "hate filled divisiveness and obvious empathy with groups who thrive on insane prejudices and antipathies".
I wish there were available a doctrinal mirror similar to the optical kind which we could direct to the left; it would reveal, though probably not to their deadened perception, that the left is essentially imbued with those faults they energetically ascribe to anyone who questions them; they are the very definition of full blown, vicious and relentless HATERS and they forfeit thereby all moral authority to task others for this offense.
Why are they this way? I've written about this before. Its because they conveniently reject painfully evolved standards, traditions and laws as "irrelevant, oppressive, summarily dismissable ". Marx, their muse, misused the Enlightenment to make this leap of onerous faith and the leftist boomers in their consummate naivete embraced his legacy to enable their airy assumption of Promethean insight and their terribly ungrateful rejection of their parents' values. That historic mistake, due to their multitude only had a tragically inordinate effect on our culture and our polity.
The left hates everything positive about American history, culture, religion, morals, law, economics, self defense and laboriously accomplished progress in human well being because these realities put the lie to their conviction that America is unforgiveably flawed and deserving of punishment and forced transformation at their hands. That anyone would disagree with this generates on their part the demonstrated at the very least, "strong feelings of dislike or ill will" which satisfy the nominal definition of hate and for which the left provides endlessly repeated affirmation.
Our history, yes, shamed by profound oppression yet found in the histories of most nations but in our national progress addressed in an affirmative and sincere manner which has yielded considerable though perhaps not yet fulfilled mitigation, is hatefully dismissed by the left, (eg. by thoroughly leftist thankfully former President Obama, in his "doubt America first" policies). Our culture is debased by debauched popular entertainment which is our shame before the world but which is celebrated by the left in their embrace of its exemplars in the leftist dominated world of television, film and song. Our dominant religion, Christianity,a belief meaningless without its embrace of primal love, the elemental opposite of hate, is joyfully attacked by unsupportably atheistic leftists with vigor and relish ,its every human fault foreseen by those who wish for its demise but have nothing, nothing with which to begin replacing it. The great Catholic Church is especially targeted by this purposeful assault. Our morals are sneered at by a leftist subculture which excuses all personal irresponsibility. Our capitalist and advisedly free economics, which have provided, for virtually all willing to work them, miraculous human well being, are dismissed by neo Marxists completely forgiving of Marxism's amply demonstrated brutality and inhumanity , as unproductive of "equality", as if human nature, given its inherent differentiation in intent and ability could ever manifest such a dream. Our military, which has demonstrated the most merciful and humane use of measured force ever, is yet undermined and defiled by a left nonetheless supportive of the savage war measures employed by Marxist states and Islamist entities such as Communist Vietnam and the murderous faction of Islam . Our law, a product of the most enlightened system of Western legal thought and democratic reform, that of the English and American tradition, is rejected by a considerable leftist faction of the profession and its schools as simply "elites protecting their privileges". Its principled, learned and laboriously accomplished devotion to accumulated wisdom reflected in predecedent is casually and recklessly replaced by the substitution of currently fashionable trends (eg. the dismissal of the fetus as uncomprehending tissue and the unrestrained redefinition of the millenia old institution of marriage). Our tortured American progress toward wisely administered order and acknowledgement of soundly developed social progress, is laughable to the detached and profoundly arrogant left.
They are, in all of this, enabled by essential and for them, indispensable, HATE, in all of its hypocritical destructiveness. Jack
Friday, October 26, 2018
Auto da fe today.
Auto da fe was the ritual act of abject admission of insolent and unforgiveable wrong required (on pain of yet "lingering sufferance"), of the already condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. Today's auto da fe, required of those found guilty of political incorrectness and "insensitivity", always summarily and by definition upon accusation, while not followed by strangulation or immolation anymore, is yet demanded of the blatantly unelect and is backed by the "assurance" of social, political and professional death. Commentator Megan Kelly, in her regrettable act of contrition for posing a half serious legitimate question on the limits of public humor (on "blackface", the mention of which by any other than the elect is "verboten" ), in this oh so peevish era, is the latest example. She has worked very hard for her position in her craft and cannot be gainsaid in her wish not to see her efforts wasted. It is the latter day profoundly and characteristically leftist Inquisition which is to blame for her apparent fears.
A long tenured and formidable Professor of Political Science at SUNY New Paltz, N.Y., a taxpayer supported "university" college which displays a nonetheless heartfelt contempt for that portion of the involuntarily taxpaying public which disagrees with its thoroughgoing far leftist biases, was recently driven to an extensive public statement of regret for having expressed the opinion that rap music had little influence on rural populations. The President of the college clucked that this "raised the spectre of 'racism' " ( whatever that term means after decades of misuse and misapplication). The Professor's shame filled missive, from one, who from decades of lauded scholarly and popular accomplishment had gained a reputation for principled and well asserted intellectual exposition, bore the marks of auto da fe. "Oh I have been so very blind" was the possibly disingenuous sense of it. Someone who has been for decades a willing member of a professional and social community does not easily surrender his place on pure principle; that's only human. A pox on those who may well have coerced his "confession".
Many more recent examples are available; what put me in mind of this is the left's reaction to the transmission of apparently explosive devices to many prominent leftists. The left is shocked! - so very shocked! - that it has come to this! It is of course, fully evident to and much to be wished for by them that it be attributed to one of the "hate filled" faction which supports the detested President Trump. Conspicuously ignored by them are their equivocal and disingenuous reactions to the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise, the attempted bombing of the annual Cedar Creek, Va. Civil War reenactment last year, the violent opposition to conservative speakers on many "university" campuses (the administrations of which are shamefully intimidated by far leftist thugs) and the threats of "incivility" advanced by oh so proven Presidential Hillary. Remember the redoubtable Alec Baldwin urging the stoning of Ken Starr, the prosecutor of William Clinton for Clinton's having denied a U. S. citizen her day in court and redress for his obscene advances on her. Just imagine the actual sounds and sights of a stoning; there are people alive now who have beheld such a horror. What can be said of those who nominated, defended and excused the most debauched and blatantly physically criminal person ever to disgrace our White House? They maintain that President Trump is crude, do they? Why, they embrace an intense and reprehensible antipathy they think their due.
Auto da fe was and is incredible because it is coerced. Its time for a credible admission by the left of its reckless indulgence in pure hate and vindictiveness for all who venture to question it and of the fell effect this injustice and outrage has had on our political life. But I'm not holding my breath.
And oh yes: Barack Obama is understandably upset at these acts of terrorism.He seemed not to be concerned though about his good buddy William Ayers having tried to bomb the U. S. Capitol, which does host human beings. Ehhh, well, maybe he was a little bit mistaken on that, yes? I'm sure he meant well.Jack
A long tenured and formidable Professor of Political Science at SUNY New Paltz, N.Y., a taxpayer supported "university" college which displays a nonetheless heartfelt contempt for that portion of the involuntarily taxpaying public which disagrees with its thoroughgoing far leftist biases, was recently driven to an extensive public statement of regret for having expressed the opinion that rap music had little influence on rural populations. The President of the college clucked that this "raised the spectre of 'racism' " ( whatever that term means after decades of misuse and misapplication). The Professor's shame filled missive, from one, who from decades of lauded scholarly and popular accomplishment had gained a reputation for principled and well asserted intellectual exposition, bore the marks of auto da fe. "Oh I have been so very blind" was the possibly disingenuous sense of it. Someone who has been for decades a willing member of a professional and social community does not easily surrender his place on pure principle; that's only human. A pox on those who may well have coerced his "confession".
Many more recent examples are available; what put me in mind of this is the left's reaction to the transmission of apparently explosive devices to many prominent leftists. The left is shocked! - so very shocked! - that it has come to this! It is of course, fully evident to and much to be wished for by them that it be attributed to one of the "hate filled" faction which supports the detested President Trump. Conspicuously ignored by them are their equivocal and disingenuous reactions to the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise, the attempted bombing of the annual Cedar Creek, Va. Civil War reenactment last year, the violent opposition to conservative speakers on many "university" campuses (the administrations of which are shamefully intimidated by far leftist thugs) and the threats of "incivility" advanced by oh so proven Presidential Hillary. Remember the redoubtable Alec Baldwin urging the stoning of Ken Starr, the prosecutor of William Clinton for Clinton's having denied a U. S. citizen her day in court and redress for his obscene advances on her. Just imagine the actual sounds and sights of a stoning; there are people alive now who have beheld such a horror. What can be said of those who nominated, defended and excused the most debauched and blatantly physically criminal person ever to disgrace our White House? They maintain that President Trump is crude, do they? Why, they embrace an intense and reprehensible antipathy they think their due.
Auto da fe was and is incredible because it is coerced. Its time for a credible admission by the left of its reckless indulgence in pure hate and vindictiveness for all who venture to question it and of the fell effect this injustice and outrage has had on our political life. But I'm not holding my breath.
And oh yes: Barack Obama is understandably upset at these acts of terrorism.He seemed not to be concerned though about his good buddy William Ayers having tried to bomb the U. S. Capitol, which does host human beings. Ehhh, well, maybe he was a little bit mistaken on that, yes? I'm sure he meant well.Jack
Friday, October 12, 2018
RINOS and desperate leftists
I read American Thinker regularly. An article today in that site opined that RINO is a legitimate label but that DINO is unheard of. The author offered reasons for this but did not mention what I think to be a salient factor. That is, that the last fifty years have proven the Dem party to be the fount of the following convictions: the U.S., in its established economic, political, legal and governmental institutions, is fundamentally unjust and deserving of comprehensive transformation and that any doubting this are reprehensible and should be outlaw. That this conviction is unjustified is at best timorously countenanced and at worst ignored by those in the GOP who still think accomodation of a Dem party obviously united in its opposition to all the positive aspects of American life(public and private) can be lived with (or that their surrender is a redeeming affirmation of a "tolerance" they yet cannot define).They should know better. Its been five decades! And for that reason they should continue to be resolutely countered by those in the GOP who know them to be wrongheaded and stand determined to save our country from the existential threat of the Americanleft. We need not be "open minded" and spinelessly "tolerant" of its clearly totalitarian intent. You can be "f-----n' A" sure that the radicals who own the Dems "tolerate" no doubt or dissension within or without their fold and surely would, if allowed the comprehensive power they seek ,extend that dictatorship to us all. Want proof?Watch the "People's Correctional Facility of NY" under Warden Cuomo come January for a preview.So lets suck it up and act like we stand for principles worth standing for!
Here we go again. Whenever the Dems lose they start pontificating about conciliation, cooperation and all that good garbage which in their times of triumph and haught they disdain. Now they are all for judicial restraint and nonpartisanship and they lament what they expect to be a brazen advancement of a conservative "agenda" on SCOTUS. I think they are right on both counts.
Ever since the left preempted the Federal judiciary to force upon us laws which they know our elected representatives would never have approved (eg. the eligibility of unborn children - God help them and us - for summary scalding ,dismemberment, expulsion from the very womb itself and the denial of blessed life , and a redefinition of the milleniums old institution of marriage stunning in its presumptuousness), the conservative "agenda" has been driven by a determination to restore democracy in America. Our purpose on the right is to restore law origination to legislators, construction of those laws to judges and enforcement to the executive branch so that our laws faithfully reflect the will of the majority and not that of a frantic and dangerously willful elite. We may have the means to do so now with a SCOTUS graced by a majority of law abiding justices and partnered with a truly American President and a to be hoped for continuation of a responsible Federal legislature . Yes, the reaffirmation of judicial principle and rectitude may well advance the cause of the right and we can rejoice at that prospect and resolve to carry it forward, with the midterms being our next challenge. Jack
Here we go again. Whenever the Dems lose they start pontificating about conciliation, cooperation and all that good garbage which in their times of triumph and haught they disdain. Now they are all for judicial restraint and nonpartisanship and they lament what they expect to be a brazen advancement of a conservative "agenda" on SCOTUS. I think they are right on both counts.
Ever since the left preempted the Federal judiciary to force upon us laws which they know our elected representatives would never have approved (eg. the eligibility of unborn children - God help them and us - for summary scalding ,dismemberment, expulsion from the very womb itself and the denial of blessed life , and a redefinition of the milleniums old institution of marriage stunning in its presumptuousness), the conservative "agenda" has been driven by a determination to restore democracy in America. Our purpose on the right is to restore law origination to legislators, construction of those laws to judges and enforcement to the executive branch so that our laws faithfully reflect the will of the majority and not that of a frantic and dangerously willful elite. We may have the means to do so now with a SCOTUS graced by a majority of law abiding justices and partnered with a truly American President and a to be hoped for continuation of a responsible Federal legislature . Yes, the reaffirmation of judicial principle and rectitude may well advance the cause of the right and we can rejoice at that prospect and resolve to carry it forward, with the midterms being our next challenge. Jack
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Hillary's threat
Sometime in the course of Richard Nixon's first attempt to be elected President the then famous political cartoonist Herblock executed arguably the most hideous parody of a public figure seen until the vicious "journalistic" onslaught on President Trump. It portrayed Nixon rising from a street gutter, unshaven ( a sure sign of degradation in those button down days), dripping with no doubt redolent effluent and accosting Herblock's customary "John Q. Public" figure with the promise "but I'll be different if you elect me". Throughout their disgraceful public lives the Clintons ( who bid fair to grace us with, one must earnestly hope for the gastric health of the nation, a valedictory progress through the provinces this election season - I had hoped to see them playing mildewed tents at sweltering county fairs by now to raise the funds necessary to support their "politically correct" lifestyle in far suburbia but. . . ) have always said , with crossed and hidden fingers in the style of the carnival huckster he is, the same to the real America. How especially she loathes our country but they managed to avoid the common touch which so excited the disdain of the fashionable against Nixon and Pat's cloth coat. We need a latter day Herblock to portray Slick Willy and his consort. Yesterday, Hillary, in a disingenuous pronunciamento, allowed as how Dems owe no civility to those in the electoral majority who seek to destroy everything progressives believe in (by definition, those who dare to disagree with them and who oppose their crusade to expunge all beliefs which seek to counter their "Democratic" convictions). BUT, she added, in a hilariously transparent calm and reasonable manner , we will generously relent should the electorate return to its senses and restore us to the dominance which is our right, in November. Believe us, believe us, we do (reluctantly) implore you (as we chuckle).
A little background; I worked twenty years with intense inmate contact in a state prison system. So many times I beheld or experienced directly, veiled inmate threats worded so: "You should give me a break - Oh no? Maybe there should be a riot and some people in here should get their throats cut (in response to my having held him responsible for a violation of prison regulations ). In other words," if you give me what I want, you can count on me to be good". Necessary to the hoped for effectiveness of such ominous suggestion was the universally known reality of past lethal events of this nature and the obvious and immediate possibility of repeat.
Now all of us, including Hillary, are aware of what physical sanctions have already been visited upon those willing to stand up to the thoroughly bigoted American left since President Trump ascended. Rand Paul and his wife have expressed credible fears for their lives and the lives of other prominent conservatives from unstable extremists blithely provoked by such as Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton and now, yes, Hillary.
Hillary, just as did the semi and some full sociopaths I dealt with in my career , knew just what she was doing in her remarks yesterday. It was a THREAT, cynically and haughtily delivered with a measured demeanor thinly disguising a withering sneer at the real America. Jack
A little background; I worked twenty years with intense inmate contact in a state prison system. So many times I beheld or experienced directly, veiled inmate threats worded so: "You should give me a break - Oh no? Maybe there should be a riot and some people in here should get their throats cut (in response to my having held him responsible for a violation of prison regulations ). In other words," if you give me what I want, you can count on me to be good". Necessary to the hoped for effectiveness of such ominous suggestion was the universally known reality of past lethal events of this nature and the obvious and immediate possibility of repeat.
Now all of us, including Hillary, are aware of what physical sanctions have already been visited upon those willing to stand up to the thoroughly bigoted American left since President Trump ascended. Rand Paul and his wife have expressed credible fears for their lives and the lives of other prominent conservatives from unstable extremists blithely provoked by such as Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton and now, yes, Hillary.
Hillary, just as did the semi and some full sociopaths I dealt with in my career , knew just what she was doing in her remarks yesterday. It was a THREAT, cynically and haughtily delivered with a measured demeanor thinly disguising a withering sneer at the real America. Jack
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Thank you Mitch McConnell!
Senator McConnell is a droll person; I'd expect to see a man of his countenance in a picture of the Senate 70 years ago. But luckily for us, we have him now, when he need him so much (thank you Kentucky) and do we ever owe him.
When Justice Scalia passed we were within the ninth part of a hair of facing the permanent marginalization on SCOTUS which could be the lot of the left in the near future. But Mitch said " naw, it ain't happening on my watch" and he used his power to prevent Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland from reaching the Senate floor. Well, it was only common sense to expect that any jurist advanced by Obama would enact Obama's leftist intentions. "Foul!" cried the hilariously and disingenuously miffed Dems although they would surely have done the same in the same situation. "Oh well, Hillary will deliver us soon enough" was their consolation. Didn't happen.
How Mitch was able to contain his mirth when the Dems bade President Trump renominate Garland ("why that's only fair" bleated "realpolitikian" Charles Schumer) I don't know. He faithfully and skillfully guided Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh onto the court in a masterpiece of consummate skill and devotion, especially in defeating the vicious personal assault on Judge Kavanaugh. He was aided greatly by Senator Grassley.
By this time, had Hillary and a Democrat Senate been elected, we would have faced this onerous prospect: two new radical leftist "Justices" and a safe 6 rubber stamps on SCOTUS for Hillary's dissembling pronunciamentos. Maybe Justice Kennedy wouldn't have left but she would still have had five . Instead we have a resolute conservative President, a majority of law abiding SCOTUS Justices and a yet GOP Congress. We must DETERMINE to keep it that way in November . It is imperative that we keep the staggering Dems on the run, by electoral confirmation of the numerical dominance which is the only thing which can stop them. Appeals to their good will are sadly futile and pitiably wrong headed. Crush them, I say, as they would do us!
Mitch took a gutsy chance on an adverse reaction by the electorate in 2016; a RINO in his place might have tried to appease the implacable Dems, whose lips curl in contemplation of such weakness, by enabling Garland. But Mitch is no RINO and we must needs rejoice at that as a key part of our continuing good fortune. Jack
When Justice Scalia passed we were within the ninth part of a hair of facing the permanent marginalization on SCOTUS which could be the lot of the left in the near future. But Mitch said " naw, it ain't happening on my watch" and he used his power to prevent Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland from reaching the Senate floor. Well, it was only common sense to expect that any jurist advanced by Obama would enact Obama's leftist intentions. "Foul!" cried the hilariously and disingenuously miffed Dems although they would surely have done the same in the same situation. "Oh well, Hillary will deliver us soon enough" was their consolation. Didn't happen.
How Mitch was able to contain his mirth when the Dems bade President Trump renominate Garland ("why that's only fair" bleated "realpolitikian" Charles Schumer) I don't know. He faithfully and skillfully guided Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh onto the court in a masterpiece of consummate skill and devotion, especially in defeating the vicious personal assault on Judge Kavanaugh. He was aided greatly by Senator Grassley.
By this time, had Hillary and a Democrat Senate been elected, we would have faced this onerous prospect: two new radical leftist "Justices" and a safe 6 rubber stamps on SCOTUS for Hillary's dissembling pronunciamentos. Maybe Justice Kennedy wouldn't have left but she would still have had five . Instead we have a resolute conservative President, a majority of law abiding SCOTUS Justices and a yet GOP Congress. We must DETERMINE to keep it that way in November . It is imperative that we keep the staggering Dems on the run, by electoral confirmation of the numerical dominance which is the only thing which can stop them. Appeals to their good will are sadly futile and pitiably wrong headed. Crush them, I say, as they would do us!
Mitch took a gutsy chance on an adverse reaction by the electorate in 2016; a RINO in his place might have tried to appease the implacable Dems, whose lips curl in contemplation of such weakness, by enabling Garland. But Mitch is no RINO and we must needs rejoice at that as a key part of our continuing good fortune. Jack
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Lawless Dems
I would guess that Justice Kavanaugh will not seek revenge for the detestable ordeal visited upon him and his family by Dems perversely determined to have their way (in other words, blatant bigots). He is a Christian and a jurist of demonstrated judicial rectitude, marked competence, intellectual integrity and philosophical and thoroughly professional allegiance to our deathless Constitution. But he cannot, I think, nor should he, ignore one of the salient lessons of the lamentable process this time; those who sought his rejection from a public trust for which he is very well qualified are a presumptuous and lawless lot and I hope that perception guides his future judgement of their appeals to the institution which they have regarded as rightfully theirs and which is slipping from their grasp. "Why, sexual misconduct by our boy? Machts nichts! Their boy? Intolerable! Why? Because we Dems say so". "Due process? Its whatever we 'feel' is due". You know who else thinks that way? Criminals.
Charles Schumer is their spokesman and their leader; fair enough, let us assume that when he speaks it is with their leave and that he truly represents them. He is surely the most enthusiastically scornful and contemptuous Senator of all; when he confronts positions opposite to his, all of which he reflexively regards as by definition discredited, he sees his duty fulfilled by the mere expression of his disapproval. After all, he holds his truths to be self evident and he takes obvious pleasure in excoriation of those who dare to disagree.
Examples?: When he was in the House he bade critics of the futile and summarily abandoned "Assault Weapons Law" (which he disingenuously championed as "common sense gun control" rather than the incremental step toward unconstitutional bans and confiscation which was his wish) to "get over it!" Well! When the trial of William Clinton, impeached for having denied an American a meaningful day in court to seek redress of him for sexual assault upon her person, lying about it under oath and supporting the focusing of the full weight of his office upon the savaging of others who had also probably suffered such outrage at his uncontrollable and debauched impulses, commenced, Charles remarked "let's get this ridiculous process over with". That statement alone puts the lie to any criticism he has leveled at Judge Kavanaugh in this cynical outrage. Gads how I would love to see a refereed debate between Senator Schumer and Judge Kavanaugh on legal issues. After all, Charles is a lawyer, yes? Judge Kavanaugh would humiliate him. Well, to build on an old shibboleth; them that can, do, them that can't, expectorate. That one possessed of an inferior legal mind like that of Charles should sniff that Judge Kavanaugh is "woefully unqualified" is laughable.
Charles regularly shames our state beyond measure; believe me, so many of us New Yorkers of real American persuasion wish him turned out of office but we cannot prevail over the numbers of apparently indifferent downstate voters who empower him and his factotum, "Presidential contender" Kirsten Gillibrand.
Now the emphasis is on the midterms and we in Trump nation must rise to the challenge and turn out in order to take advantage of our victory in this confirmation fight. Its vital. If we prevail we deal the Dems a devastating two punch combination to build on our 2016 haymaker. Much more of this and we will put them down for the count and deliver our real America from the curse of the America hating left. Our battle cry? - "Remember Judge Kavanaugh and disempower those who wronged him." (Check out Dr. Nick Waddy's latest post at Waddyisright.com).
You probably aren't reading my comments but I know there are some of you Dems who are patriotic and people of good will.Why do you support nascent and reckless totalitarians like Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi? The rule of law is sine qua non to democracy and those two have affirmed beyond any reasonable doubt their contempt for the painfully evolved law of the land. Not for them its sanctions and remonstrances,oh no, because such inconveniences stand in the way of the willful exercise of FIAT - the unrestricted exercise of the incidental judgement of an unquestionable elite (why, "progressives" of course) as to right, wrong and justice. You have within your party one who has faithfully heeded the call of his state, West Virginia, a bulwark of the real America, to do right by Judge Kavanaugh. That is Senator Joe Manchin. You should follow his lead. Your present leader who, in a hilariously vintage Schumerism denounced Judge Kavanaugh's understandably emotional defense of his good name as "partisan screed", is a capital disgrace. Jack
Charles Schumer is their spokesman and their leader; fair enough, let us assume that when he speaks it is with their leave and that he truly represents them. He is surely the most enthusiastically scornful and contemptuous Senator of all; when he confronts positions opposite to his, all of which he reflexively regards as by definition discredited, he sees his duty fulfilled by the mere expression of his disapproval. After all, he holds his truths to be self evident and he takes obvious pleasure in excoriation of those who dare to disagree.
Examples?: When he was in the House he bade critics of the futile and summarily abandoned "Assault Weapons Law" (which he disingenuously championed as "common sense gun control" rather than the incremental step toward unconstitutional bans and confiscation which was his wish) to "get over it!" Well! When the trial of William Clinton, impeached for having denied an American a meaningful day in court to seek redress of him for sexual assault upon her person, lying about it under oath and supporting the focusing of the full weight of his office upon the savaging of others who had also probably suffered such outrage at his uncontrollable and debauched impulses, commenced, Charles remarked "let's get this ridiculous process over with". That statement alone puts the lie to any criticism he has leveled at Judge Kavanaugh in this cynical outrage. Gads how I would love to see a refereed debate between Senator Schumer and Judge Kavanaugh on legal issues. After all, Charles is a lawyer, yes? Judge Kavanaugh would humiliate him. Well, to build on an old shibboleth; them that can, do, them that can't, expectorate. That one possessed of an inferior legal mind like that of Charles should sniff that Judge Kavanaugh is "woefully unqualified" is laughable.
Charles regularly shames our state beyond measure; believe me, so many of us New Yorkers of real American persuasion wish him turned out of office but we cannot prevail over the numbers of apparently indifferent downstate voters who empower him and his factotum, "Presidential contender" Kirsten Gillibrand.
Now the emphasis is on the midterms and we in Trump nation must rise to the challenge and turn out in order to take advantage of our victory in this confirmation fight. Its vital. If we prevail we deal the Dems a devastating two punch combination to build on our 2016 haymaker. Much more of this and we will put them down for the count and deliver our real America from the curse of the America hating left. Our battle cry? - "Remember Judge Kavanaugh and disempower those who wronged him." (Check out Dr. Nick Waddy's latest post at Waddyisright.com).
You probably aren't reading my comments but I know there are some of you Dems who are patriotic and people of good will.Why do you support nascent and reckless totalitarians like Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi? The rule of law is sine qua non to democracy and those two have affirmed beyond any reasonable doubt their contempt for the painfully evolved law of the land. Not for them its sanctions and remonstrances,oh no, because such inconveniences stand in the way of the willful exercise of FIAT - the unrestricted exercise of the incidental judgement of an unquestionable elite (why, "progressives" of course) as to right, wrong and justice. You have within your party one who has faithfully heeded the call of his state, West Virginia, a bulwark of the real America, to do right by Judge Kavanaugh. That is Senator Joe Manchin. You should follow his lead. Your present leader who, in a hilariously vintage Schumerism denounced Judge Kavanaugh's understandably emotional defense of his good name as "partisan screed", is a capital disgrace. Jack
Monday, October 1, 2018
The presumption of innocence until or unless guilt is proven . . .
Its a mainstay of our English/ American history founded legal system. I don't know where it started; I know some accused Anglo-Saxons employed "oath helpers", individuals willing to swear (in a time when an oath put one's soul at hazard),to the veracity of the accused's protestations of innocence. I do not know what other factors. subjective or objective, were considered. I'm confident that by the late 18th century founding of America, knowledge among our founding fathers of the ability of monarchy, of nobility, of high clergy and of their dependents to summarily ruin or end lives prompted measures meant to protect the accused against such as torture and the presumption of guilt upon accusation. Can it be that their concern is no longer timely? All educated westerners must needs recoil from such a supposition but principled intellectuals must now be willing to defend it against a new and appalling attack from those who believe that evil and fell intent assuredly accrues to an entire group, (eg. today, all who have penises).
The view, expressed by some radical feminists, that all men are potential rapists, is fundamental to the conviction championed by Dems that Dr. Ford is unassailably believable. Enabled by this is the principle that any man, upon identification by any woman as an attacker ( or for that matter, any manner of oppressor of women) is, by definition, guilty. The central argument against this presented by our legal tradition is that guilt must be proven, not innocence, upon principled and ordered examination of objective factors particular to the accused individual. Is this a defendable position? Has history brought us to a point where this heretofore fundamental assumption must be reexamined?
Are all men potential rapists? No! Because as any man knows the act of penetration is short circuited by emotional upheaval in normal men. Sociopaths are free of such psychological sanctions and can function without the torment of conscience. Then, Susan Brownmiller; do you maintain that all men are sociopathic? The assumption that all men are capable of such evil is a tactical principle championed often by women bearing a myriad of animi, justified and unjustified, against some men and determined to exact revenge on all men.
What about the heartfelt assumption of some women, a reaction to true and widespread offense, that all physically defined members of a certain group, men, are by definition guilty and should, accordingly, receive that which was visited upon the guilty heretofore by due process? Is the assumption of innocence outmoded? Has it served them badly?
The consequences of such an assumption must be considered. For example,man hating white women, regardless of their freely chosen actions, might well be assumed by members of minorities to also be automatically responsible for racial injustice.
The initial presumption of innocence was a choice made by the civilizations born of English history. It was assumed that this would be productive of justice more often than not and that that, in the absence of human omniscience, was the best we could do. Today, in much of the West we see ferocious, widespread rejection of that principle by groups seeking redress for substantial claims of widespread injustice against many women. Why?
First, because it is convenient and if successful can yield a satisfying sense of retribution well done. Second, the continuing widespread commission of abuse of women persuades some women that they have no choice. Third, Marxism, which is the fount of radical feminism, fully endorses the proscription and condemnation of entire groups for which it assumes that all members either participate in or willingly benefit from the wrongs ascribed to them by those who perceive they are oppressed. Fourth, the American legal system has been seriously compromised by a doctrine grounded in the last fifty years, again with Marxist inspiration and instruction, that our legality is simply a sordid history of dominant groups perpetuating their sway and that that justifies rejecting legal, philosophical and political verities painfully evolved over centuries, usually in often courageous opposition to injustice.
A salient characteristic of our progress in rendering justice has been the European Enlightenment guided replacement of subjective procedures(emotion based or irrational standards such as belief in witchcraft or ambiguous signs and omens) with objective requirements (eg. evidence, due process based on the rule of law, which in principle eschew emotion, unverifiable perceptions and prejudgement). Could this have evolved and can it continue to be refined without the primary presumption of innocence, fealty to which demands strict and exhaustive investigation and cross examination, even more so in an information rich world? I think not.
Some historians believe history is cyclical; are we returning to days when oath helpers, trial by ordeal or combat and other mostly subjective methods of determination of culpability ruled? The process which has "tried" Judge Kavanugh's fitness for office by emphasizing emotion, precondemnation of half of the human race, and reckless reliance on juvenile hearsay, suggests a highly disturbing trend in that direction by a sizeable and much misled faction of our polity. Jack
The view, expressed by some radical feminists, that all men are potential rapists, is fundamental to the conviction championed by Dems that Dr. Ford is unassailably believable. Enabled by this is the principle that any man, upon identification by any woman as an attacker ( or for that matter, any manner of oppressor of women) is, by definition, guilty. The central argument against this presented by our legal tradition is that guilt must be proven, not innocence, upon principled and ordered examination of objective factors particular to the accused individual. Is this a defendable position? Has history brought us to a point where this heretofore fundamental assumption must be reexamined?
Are all men potential rapists? No! Because as any man knows the act of penetration is short circuited by emotional upheaval in normal men. Sociopaths are free of such psychological sanctions and can function without the torment of conscience. Then, Susan Brownmiller; do you maintain that all men are sociopathic? The assumption that all men are capable of such evil is a tactical principle championed often by women bearing a myriad of animi, justified and unjustified, against some men and determined to exact revenge on all men.
What about the heartfelt assumption of some women, a reaction to true and widespread offense, that all physically defined members of a certain group, men, are by definition guilty and should, accordingly, receive that which was visited upon the guilty heretofore by due process? Is the assumption of innocence outmoded? Has it served them badly?
The consequences of such an assumption must be considered. For example,man hating white women, regardless of their freely chosen actions, might well be assumed by members of minorities to also be automatically responsible for racial injustice.
The initial presumption of innocence was a choice made by the civilizations born of English history. It was assumed that this would be productive of justice more often than not and that that, in the absence of human omniscience, was the best we could do. Today, in much of the West we see ferocious, widespread rejection of that principle by groups seeking redress for substantial claims of widespread injustice against many women. Why?
First, because it is convenient and if successful can yield a satisfying sense of retribution well done. Second, the continuing widespread commission of abuse of women persuades some women that they have no choice. Third, Marxism, which is the fount of radical feminism, fully endorses the proscription and condemnation of entire groups for which it assumes that all members either participate in or willingly benefit from the wrongs ascribed to them by those who perceive they are oppressed. Fourth, the American legal system has been seriously compromised by a doctrine grounded in the last fifty years, again with Marxist inspiration and instruction, that our legality is simply a sordid history of dominant groups perpetuating their sway and that that justifies rejecting legal, philosophical and political verities painfully evolved over centuries, usually in often courageous opposition to injustice.
A salient characteristic of our progress in rendering justice has been the European Enlightenment guided replacement of subjective procedures(emotion based or irrational standards such as belief in witchcraft or ambiguous signs and omens) with objective requirements (eg. evidence, due process based on the rule of law, which in principle eschew emotion, unverifiable perceptions and prejudgement). Could this have evolved and can it continue to be refined without the primary presumption of innocence, fealty to which demands strict and exhaustive investigation and cross examination, even more so in an information rich world? I think not.
Some historians believe history is cyclical; are we returning to days when oath helpers, trial by ordeal or combat and other mostly subjective methods of determination of culpability ruled? The process which has "tried" Judge Kavanugh's fitness for office by emphasizing emotion, precondemnation of half of the human race, and reckless reliance on juvenile hearsay, suggests a highly disturbing trend in that direction by a sizeable and much misled faction of our polity. Jack
Thursday, September 27, 2018
The left is vicious
Almost 35 years ago I described to my lawyer a person with whom I was having problems as "vicious". He said"that's a strong word, you'd better be sure it applies". I am sure it does apply to the American left. Their sociopathic effort to derail Judge Kavanaugh's deserved seating on the Supreme Court reemphasizes it; it was confirmed a long time ago by their totalitarian behavior.
The 20th century history of the left, of course, is objectively described by terms perhaps unprecedented,unexpressed and inconceivable. How else to attempt to apply lessons the Vikings, the Mongols, Vlad Tepes, the TaiPing rebellion, seared into human memory, than to acknowledge that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot outdid them all. And good old "Che", beloved yet of the sophomore class, would probably have energetically reprised their feats had he not been prevented. The once leftist hypnotised writer Nat Hentoff recalled having asked "Che" when democracy would be restored in Cuba. "Che's" response was, well , viciously dismissive of that comical notion.
The left has demonstrated its viciousness ad nauseum. Eg. spitting on Vietnam veterans. Eg. putting Justice Thomas through an ordeal he survived only with unconquerable courage and self control. Eg. savaging the accusers of probable serial rapist ( not to mention draft dodger, convicted perjuror and probable salesman of top U.S. military secrets to China) William Clinton . Eg. nominating the Savagess in Chief, Hillary, as their Presidential candidate. Eg. Denying President Trump's Supreme Court nominations any consideration on the left's part of the nominees' professional legal competence ( a consideration inadvisedly extended by naive Republicans to President Obama's nominees ). Eg. subjecting Judge Kavanaugh to trial for his professional life by high school and freshman year hearsay.
The American left is singlemindedly devoted to the acquisition of totalitarian power by any means it thinks workable. What message does that send about their intentions should they succeed? It should be obvious. Take a look at our "universities" (eg. SUNY New Paltz) for a preview of your life in the "Politically Correct States of America".
When, oh when, will a decisive majority resolve that they have seen enough? That it is abundantly clear that the left will stop at NOTHING to destroy our country's fundamentals and then impose its own, murderously definite standards on us all (excepting their cadre) should be crystal clear by now and should absolutely confirm our resolve to defeat them, by any means they make necessary. The alternative? Hundreds of millions alive and dead in the myriad nations enslaved by subhuman leftists in the 20th century and even beyond bear irrefutable witness.
OK, "vicious" is a superlative, a term the application of which requires credible evidence, lest the accuser be intellectually discredited. The past and present conduct of the left provides plenty of evidence. Jack
The 20th century history of the left, of course, is objectively described by terms perhaps unprecedented,unexpressed and inconceivable. How else to attempt to apply lessons the Vikings, the Mongols, Vlad Tepes, the TaiPing rebellion, seared into human memory, than to acknowledge that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot outdid them all. And good old "Che", beloved yet of the sophomore class, would probably have energetically reprised their feats had he not been prevented. The once leftist hypnotised writer Nat Hentoff recalled having asked "Che" when democracy would be restored in Cuba. "Che's" response was, well , viciously dismissive of that comical notion.
The left has demonstrated its viciousness ad nauseum. Eg. spitting on Vietnam veterans. Eg. putting Justice Thomas through an ordeal he survived only with unconquerable courage and self control. Eg. savaging the accusers of probable serial rapist ( not to mention draft dodger, convicted perjuror and probable salesman of top U.S. military secrets to China) William Clinton . Eg. nominating the Savagess in Chief, Hillary, as their Presidential candidate. Eg. Denying President Trump's Supreme Court nominations any consideration on the left's part of the nominees' professional legal competence ( a consideration inadvisedly extended by naive Republicans to President Obama's nominees ). Eg. subjecting Judge Kavanaugh to trial for his professional life by high school and freshman year hearsay.
The American left is singlemindedly devoted to the acquisition of totalitarian power by any means it thinks workable. What message does that send about their intentions should they succeed? It should be obvious. Take a look at our "universities" (eg. SUNY New Paltz) for a preview of your life in the "Politically Correct States of America".
When, oh when, will a decisive majority resolve that they have seen enough? That it is abundantly clear that the left will stop at NOTHING to destroy our country's fundamentals and then impose its own, murderously definite standards on us all (excepting their cadre) should be crystal clear by now and should absolutely confirm our resolve to defeat them, by any means they make necessary. The alternative? Hundreds of millions alive and dead in the myriad nations enslaved by subhuman leftists in the 20th century and even beyond bear irrefutable witness.
OK, "vicious" is a superlative, a term the application of which requires credible evidence, lest the accuser be intellectually discredited. The past and present conduct of the left provides plenty of evidence. Jack
Monday, September 17, 2018
Kavanaugh nomination, Murkowski and Collins
A salient fact I have yet to hear mentioned in the brief time since the accusation against Judge Kavanaugh surfaced, is that Senator Murkowski from Alaska will not face reelection until 2022 and
Senator Collins from Maine will not face it until 2020. It has been speculated that if any Republican(s) were to vote against Judge Kavanaugh it might well be one or both of them.
If they wish to be reelected they must consider two possibilities: They sink the nomination and, if the Dems were to take the Senate, make the establishment of a conservative SCOTUS majority far less likely, and they anger their conservative states. If they support him, regardless of the outcome of further investigation into the accusation, regardless of whether or not he is seated, they will have excited the wrath of the MeToo movement, which is presently on a tear. Though many MeTooers are possessed of good will, their movement has probably been hijacked by those for whom accusation is condemnation and by man haters possessed of consuming bad will toward all men. Usurpation of this movement's prospective power is far too promising a power grab for the latter to pass up.
Should this accusation result in Judge Kavanaugh's defeat, the Senatorial election in November assumes critical import. President Trump will of course continue to nominate conservative judges for the post and he'll get one if we keep the Senate. If we don't, Charles Schumer will have far too much to say about the next Supreme Court Justice and the return of the Court to its true function of respectful and restrained construction. Jack
Senator Collins from Maine will not face it until 2020. It has been speculated that if any Republican(s) were to vote against Judge Kavanaugh it might well be one or both of them.
If they wish to be reelected they must consider two possibilities: They sink the nomination and, if the Dems were to take the Senate, make the establishment of a conservative SCOTUS majority far less likely, and they anger their conservative states. If they support him, regardless of the outcome of further investigation into the accusation, regardless of whether or not he is seated, they will have excited the wrath of the MeToo movement, which is presently on a tear. Though many MeTooers are possessed of good will, their movement has probably been hijacked by those for whom accusation is condemnation and by man haters possessed of consuming bad will toward all men. Usurpation of this movement's prospective power is far too promising a power grab for the latter to pass up.
Should this accusation result in Judge Kavanaugh's defeat, the Senatorial election in November assumes critical import. President Trump will of course continue to nominate conservative judges for the post and he'll get one if we keep the Senate. If we don't, Charles Schumer will have far too much to say about the next Supreme Court Justice and the return of the Court to its true function of respectful and restrained construction. Jack
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Environmentalist misanthropy
Today I caught the 2008 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still , with a surprisingly convincing Keanu Reeves portraying an alien whose declared purpose in landing in Central park in a really nifty space ship is to "save the Earth". Love the special effects, those spherical vessels were, well, awesome. In the end humanity is spared imminent destruction by very advanced intelligent beings concerned enough with our "misuse" of the good earth to purpose our demise, by the ministrations of an earnest spokesperson for our species who declares "we can change!" In the end they spare us but at the cost of the disabling of modern technology like the use of electricity and motorized transportation. Rousseau would have approved but then, Rousseau - the French revolution and all(after all). The heavy handed symbolism was manifest in the film.
It reminded me of how the left, clearly the creative force behind this work, demonstrates its disdain for human life and the blessedly evolved technological miracles which have transformed much of our life from one burdened by unrelenting physical labor to one which can be enjoyed by multitudes and masses with prolonged relative leisure. I'm confident that the most comfortable and learned of inhabitants of the Western world in the 1700's (some of whom have had something to say about how we arrived at this happy state) would have rejoiced to know that human well being would be so advanced.
The summary dispatch of our modern "conveniences" depicted in this pedantic entertainment puts me in mind of the Khmer Rouge's insane overnight depopulation of politically sinful Cambodian cities in the wake of Pol Pot's ( who might as well have been an alien) dreadful triumph. But then, perhaps not so; at least the criminally insane Pol thought he was doing eventual good for humankind. Not so the dear , hirsute young man I sat next to on a bus from Albany to Buffalo, N.Y. a few years ago. Our conversation quickly revealed that we both had enjoyed extensive experience of the wonderful Adirondack mountains just north of our bus's route. But then he opined that he favored the depopulation of the Adirondacks in order to preserve them ( I suppose, for brief sojourns for such as he and I in their sylvan and airy haven). There was no hint in his aspect of concern for the population of the area, eh, some of which has deep roots in that rugged, beautiful region. He gave the distinct impression that consideration of their values, feelings or material well being were of negligible import. I hope he has not ascended to the policy making level.
Physically luxurious Al Gore has held forth, to acclaim in some quarters , on the perfidy of the internal combustion engine which he nonetheless employs with alacrity in transporting his considerable girth to organized public excoriations of the means he himself employs to enjoy this life. He sneers and then, he makes wassail!
The left has been thoroughly discredited by history in the political and economic spheres, though some do retain perverse devotion to those regrettable efforts. Having been so (except in the American academy and the Cuban junta) the left has glommed on to "environmentalism" as its latest power grab, and "human generated global warming" as its newest rallying cry. In doing so it has laid bare its always misanthropic essence for all to see. Lenin, Stalin,Mao - they lived it and hundreds of millions perished. Saul Alinsky bade the left conceal it but he may be exiting the fevered leftist scene. Jack
It reminded me of how the left, clearly the creative force behind this work, demonstrates its disdain for human life and the blessedly evolved technological miracles which have transformed much of our life from one burdened by unrelenting physical labor to one which can be enjoyed by multitudes and masses with prolonged relative leisure. I'm confident that the most comfortable and learned of inhabitants of the Western world in the 1700's (some of whom have had something to say about how we arrived at this happy state) would have rejoiced to know that human well being would be so advanced.
The summary dispatch of our modern "conveniences" depicted in this pedantic entertainment puts me in mind of the Khmer Rouge's insane overnight depopulation of politically sinful Cambodian cities in the wake of Pol Pot's ( who might as well have been an alien) dreadful triumph. But then, perhaps not so; at least the criminally insane Pol thought he was doing eventual good for humankind. Not so the dear , hirsute young man I sat next to on a bus from Albany to Buffalo, N.Y. a few years ago. Our conversation quickly revealed that we both had enjoyed extensive experience of the wonderful Adirondack mountains just north of our bus's route. But then he opined that he favored the depopulation of the Adirondacks in order to preserve them ( I suppose, for brief sojourns for such as he and I in their sylvan and airy haven). There was no hint in his aspect of concern for the population of the area, eh, some of which has deep roots in that rugged, beautiful region. He gave the distinct impression that consideration of their values, feelings or material well being were of negligible import. I hope he has not ascended to the policy making level.
Physically luxurious Al Gore has held forth, to acclaim in some quarters , on the perfidy of the internal combustion engine which he nonetheless employs with alacrity in transporting his considerable girth to organized public excoriations of the means he himself employs to enjoy this life. He sneers and then, he makes wassail!
The left has been thoroughly discredited by history in the political and economic spheres, though some do retain perverse devotion to those regrettable efforts. Having been so (except in the American academy and the Cuban junta) the left has glommed on to "environmentalism" as its latest power grab, and "human generated global warming" as its newest rallying cry. In doing so it has laid bare its always misanthropic essence for all to see. Lenin, Stalin,Mao - they lived it and hundreds of millions perished. Saul Alinsky bade the left conceal it but he may be exiting the fevered leftist scene. Jack
Friday, September 7, 2018
Supreme Court: Are We Home Free Yet?
Let's assume that Judge Kavanaugh is seated, as he very probably will be. We will have realized a tremendous boost in our security against a Supreme Court which would force unwanted and unneeded social engineering on us with presumptuous abandon. Moreover we will have gone a very long way toward realizing the existential good fortune we got when Hillary was defeated. Just imagine her nominees esconsed with the four radicals already there. Too, Ruth Bader Ginsburg might well have retired in order that a younger dreamer be put in her place. Its reasonable to think that those who would blithely legislate from the bench that which true legislatures would never pass, would have at least a 5-4 majority by now, with excellent prospects for expansion to unassailable dominance should more openings occur.
When Justice Kavanaugh sits the mostly conservative bloc will have gone from 4.5 (Justice Kennedy was not an assured conservative vote, though he sided with the real America in some very critical votes) to 5.0. Chances are we will hold the Senate and should another opening occur before at least 2021, we may expand the majority of Justices who believe in judicial restraint to 6 or even 7. The following is a real reach but one might hope that such an unassailable margin might prompt Justices (sic)Sotomayor and Kagan to resign in despair. Breyer and Ginsburg are paying increasingly burdensome tribute to Father Time.
But so is Justice Thomas; he is 70. We are still, given some bad luck
(loss of the Senate and a Biden Presidency in 2020) in some conceivable danger of the enthronement of a much more destructive Warren court. Judge Kavanaugh's ascension is an enormous victory, as is shown by the frantic gnashing of teeth displayed by Dems and their anarchic supporters in their present unendurably powerless state. But we must stay the course of support for this faithful President and a Republican Senate to enjoy probably final return of the Supreme Court to its proper role of construction, not legislation.
I've been reading about the role the Federalist Society has played in the return of the Court to integrity. Apparently, after Roe v. Wade confirmed the determination of philosopher-kings to drag the U.S. into that which they alone "knew" to be justice, the founders of the Society determined to nurture prospective judges and Justices who would stand against this totalitarian wrongheadedness. They have been spectacularly successful in having earned President Trump's respect, reflected in his nomination of Judge Kavanaugh. Charles Schumer knew it, oh yes he did, when he foamed at the mouth about the perfidy of the Society's having been a decisive factor in Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. His coastal blinders will admit of him no other conclusion. Again, I apologize to the real America for his onerous occupation of both our Senate seats but we real Americans in NY just don't have the numbers to outvote the People's Republic of the Mouth of the Hudson. Thank God you do! Jack
When Justice Kavanaugh sits the mostly conservative bloc will have gone from 4.5 (Justice Kennedy was not an assured conservative vote, though he sided with the real America in some very critical votes) to 5.0. Chances are we will hold the Senate and should another opening occur before at least 2021, we may expand the majority of Justices who believe in judicial restraint to 6 or even 7. The following is a real reach but one might hope that such an unassailable margin might prompt Justices (sic)Sotomayor and Kagan to resign in despair. Breyer and Ginsburg are paying increasingly burdensome tribute to Father Time.
But so is Justice Thomas; he is 70. We are still, given some bad luck
(loss of the Senate and a Biden Presidency in 2020) in some conceivable danger of the enthronement of a much more destructive Warren court. Judge Kavanaugh's ascension is an enormous victory, as is shown by the frantic gnashing of teeth displayed by Dems and their anarchic supporters in their present unendurably powerless state. But we must stay the course of support for this faithful President and a Republican Senate to enjoy probably final return of the Supreme Court to its proper role of construction, not legislation.
I've been reading about the role the Federalist Society has played in the return of the Court to integrity. Apparently, after Roe v. Wade confirmed the determination of philosopher-kings to drag the U.S. into that which they alone "knew" to be justice, the founders of the Society determined to nurture prospective judges and Justices who would stand against this totalitarian wrongheadedness. They have been spectacularly successful in having earned President Trump's respect, reflected in his nomination of Judge Kavanaugh. Charles Schumer knew it, oh yes he did, when he foamed at the mouth about the perfidy of the Society's having been a decisive factor in Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. His coastal blinders will admit of him no other conclusion. Again, I apologize to the real America for his onerous occupation of both our Senate seats but we real Americans in NY just don't have the numbers to outvote the People's Republic of the Mouth of the Hudson. Thank God you do! Jack
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Judges do make law.
Let me presume as certainly no more than a sort of legal paraprofessional ( 20 years a prison law librarian and instructor to inmates in basic legal research but lacking a law degree) to hold forth on the issue of judges making law. It is of course a central issue in the confirmation process for Judge Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court. By the way, I am 100% in favor of the elevation of this fine jurist to SCOTUS.
There has been much exposition lately of the idea that judges should not make law. But it is firmly and beneficially in our legal tradition that, usually at the appellate level where issues of legal construction (interpretation) dominate over the issues of fact which are customarily decided in primary trial courts, that judges DO make law. When this power is exercised with full recognition of its terrible importance and a determination to proceed advisedly, it is a good thing.
First, because it is a legacy of the blessed, though tortured history of our mother country, England, the civilization most productive of humane and democratic institutions, certainly in the "West" and arguably in the world. I say this while freely acknowledging and admiring Islamic law's intolerance for criminality and the long practiced Chinese dependence upon highly educated officials' personal and incidental interpretation of justice case by case. Both systems may well be best suited to the societies which embrace or embraced them but they are not in our tradition.
American law is a child of the English synthesis of "common law" (judge made law), statutes promulgated by historically increasingly democratic bodies of legislators (Parliament in Britain, Congress and state legislatures in America) and rules having the force of law, made to enforce statutes and Executive will by subordinates of the Executive branch (administrative law) (eg. IRS or state motor vehicle dept's). In America, accordingly, when state and federal appellate level judges render decisions, they make law: it may be in the authoritative interpretation of a single word (eg. "viable" in abortion law or "militia" in Constitutional law) ) or in far more extensive explanation of federal or state statutes or in landmark construction of Constitutional amendments themselves, such as to whom the overall protection of the Second Amendment is extended, as it was brilliantly construed by majority spokesman Justice Scalia in the landmark Heller case which established the right to bear arms as being guaranteed to each and every U.S. citizen.
The concept of precedent, for which, at least until the '60's, the legal profession expected its members to pay close and often decisive attention, is much discussed now. It embraces the conviction that past decisions, especially those subsequently much cited and affirmed , provide very credible guidance in making present decisions (and hence, law). But the religious devotion to precedent trumpeted by the left in its castigation of Judge Kavanaugh is disingenuous in at least two ways: the left blithely ignores the landmark precedents set for gun rights in the recent Heller and McDonald Supreme Court decisions in its expressed contempt for the decisions (Hillary in 2016) and in its continuing campaign to abrogate this liberty enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Too, it knows that Judge Kavanaugh will strengthen a majority on the court which demonstrates caution and restraint in the use of its power to write new, far reaching law. The prospective permanent reestablishment of this principle on the court would doom the leftist dream of unfettered social engineering. The courts are all they have; the real America will never elect a Congress content with the unrestrained killing of unborn babies and Van Jones will never be elected President.
The multitudinous and anarchic baby boomer generation which blithely enabled attack on seemingly all American verities , generated the rise to influence in the '60's of modes of legal thought which maintained that all American judicial construction , though represented as the product of scrupulous examination of past decisions on cases involving analogous circumstances , was in reality simply a reflection of the Justices' personal values, reflecting in the main, the predominant contemporary standards in the economic, political , social and legal spheres . In addition, it was maintained, such decisions simply provided ruling elites with sanctimonious covers. Why not then, such leftist thinkers maintained, reject dry and intellectual adherence to outmoded wisdom and apply contemporary, revolutionary '60's standards of justice to current legal issues? "Why, it was what past jurists had done !" Precedent and jurisdiction (the legal principle that a judge or court's construction was law only in those geographical or institutional territories over which it presided) be damned. This school of thought has infected perhaps the majority of U.S. law schools and consequently a massive Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appointed faction of the Federal judiciary only now being providentially and courageously pared down by President Trump .
The confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court could mark a tipping point in the 50 year struggle between tradition and recklessness in our legal polity over the proper use of the law making power appellate judges have. No wonder leftists are beside themselves with frantic dread; their vision of assured totalitarian sway, decreed by compliant courts, is fading fast.Jack
There has been much exposition lately of the idea that judges should not make law. But it is firmly and beneficially in our legal tradition that, usually at the appellate level where issues of legal construction (interpretation) dominate over the issues of fact which are customarily decided in primary trial courts, that judges DO make law. When this power is exercised with full recognition of its terrible importance and a determination to proceed advisedly, it is a good thing.
First, because it is a legacy of the blessed, though tortured history of our mother country, England, the civilization most productive of humane and democratic institutions, certainly in the "West" and arguably in the world. I say this while freely acknowledging and admiring Islamic law's intolerance for criminality and the long practiced Chinese dependence upon highly educated officials' personal and incidental interpretation of justice case by case. Both systems may well be best suited to the societies which embrace or embraced them but they are not in our tradition.
American law is a child of the English synthesis of "common law" (judge made law), statutes promulgated by historically increasingly democratic bodies of legislators (Parliament in Britain, Congress and state legislatures in America) and rules having the force of law, made to enforce statutes and Executive will by subordinates of the Executive branch (administrative law) (eg. IRS or state motor vehicle dept's). In America, accordingly, when state and federal appellate level judges render decisions, they make law: it may be in the authoritative interpretation of a single word (eg. "viable" in abortion law or "militia" in Constitutional law) ) or in far more extensive explanation of federal or state statutes or in landmark construction of Constitutional amendments themselves, such as to whom the overall protection of the Second Amendment is extended, as it was brilliantly construed by majority spokesman Justice Scalia in the landmark Heller case which established the right to bear arms as being guaranteed to each and every U.S. citizen.
The concept of precedent, for which, at least until the '60's, the legal profession expected its members to pay close and often decisive attention, is much discussed now. It embraces the conviction that past decisions, especially those subsequently much cited and affirmed , provide very credible guidance in making present decisions (and hence, law). But the religious devotion to precedent trumpeted by the left in its castigation of Judge Kavanaugh is disingenuous in at least two ways: the left blithely ignores the landmark precedents set for gun rights in the recent Heller and McDonald Supreme Court decisions in its expressed contempt for the decisions (Hillary in 2016) and in its continuing campaign to abrogate this liberty enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Too, it knows that Judge Kavanaugh will strengthen a majority on the court which demonstrates caution and restraint in the use of its power to write new, far reaching law. The prospective permanent reestablishment of this principle on the court would doom the leftist dream of unfettered social engineering. The courts are all they have; the real America will never elect a Congress content with the unrestrained killing of unborn babies and Van Jones will never be elected President.
The multitudinous and anarchic baby boomer generation which blithely enabled attack on seemingly all American verities , generated the rise to influence in the '60's of modes of legal thought which maintained that all American judicial construction , though represented as the product of scrupulous examination of past decisions on cases involving analogous circumstances , was in reality simply a reflection of the Justices' personal values, reflecting in the main, the predominant contemporary standards in the economic, political , social and legal spheres . In addition, it was maintained, such decisions simply provided ruling elites with sanctimonious covers. Why not then, such leftist thinkers maintained, reject dry and intellectual adherence to outmoded wisdom and apply contemporary, revolutionary '60's standards of justice to current legal issues? "Why, it was what past jurists had done !" Precedent and jurisdiction (the legal principle that a judge or court's construction was law only in those geographical or institutional territories over which it presided) be damned. This school of thought has infected perhaps the majority of U.S. law schools and consequently a massive Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appointed faction of the Federal judiciary only now being providentially and courageously pared down by President Trump .
The confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court could mark a tipping point in the 50 year struggle between tradition and recklessness in our legal polity over the proper use of the law making power appellate judges have. No wonder leftists are beside themselves with frantic dread; their vision of assured totalitarian sway, decreed by compliant courts, is fading fast.Jack
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
New York State:"Land of Four Mouths"
In my previous post I attempted to parody our Governor's oratorical pomposity. But I've just realized that he is not the only "Mighty Mouth" by which our state is regrettably represented to the real America.
Yesterday, Senate MINORITY Leader, New Yorker Charles Schumer, said in a tone characteristically dripping with contempt, "Mr.President, you'd better not mention the possibility of pardons for Mr. Cohen or Mr. Manafort". Well! I guess you've been warned Mr. President. Charles never has minced words in expressing his disdain for those who dare to disagree with him. I'm reminded of his preamble to the deciding vote in the Senate trial of William Clinton, which confirmed the conviction of a majority in the U.S. Congress that Slick Willy should be sent packing, in which Charles sniffed "well,let's get this ridiculous procedure over". That, for a "President" who had denied a U.S. citizen a meaningful day in court(while serving, by oath, as the supreme law enforcer in the nation) in order to save his debauched hide. Charles has been known for a long time as perhaps the most verbally dismissive and sarcastic member of Congress - a distinction he apparently regards as justified by his personally undoubted righteousness.
Then there is Presidential stalking horse (for Charles, no less, for whom she is factotum), perky but given to foul wording when referring to the despised majority, very junior Senator Kirsten Gillibrand - loyal daughter of rural stock (well, at least as "rural" applies to the collegial Albany-NYC corridor from which she hails) and a declared "defender", consequently, of the 2nd Amendment . She's Mouth #3 despite her transparent pretensions to the ultimate pulpit, from which she would execute Charles' bidding, notwithstanding her man hating feminist front these days.
The fourth but probably not final mouth in a state full of blatherers (including me) is the mouth of the river upon which sits the source of our shame as New Yorkers, the Hudson. Its a great metropolis, a world class city it must be admitted but it is our burden - we of the real America who yet abide here in this diverse state. Somehow the multitude living and voting there tends to look at things its own way and it doesn't know from others. Would that we were dominated by those of a mind with the residents of the mountainous Adirondack North Country which is the source of that notable watercourse. But that is electorally impossible for us. Forgive us our baleful contribution to the nation's polity. Maybe, just maybe, we'll make a change in our state house in November. We did it in '94. Jack
Yesterday, Senate MINORITY Leader, New Yorker Charles Schumer, said in a tone characteristically dripping with contempt, "Mr.President, you'd better not mention the possibility of pardons for Mr. Cohen or Mr. Manafort". Well! I guess you've been warned Mr. President. Charles never has minced words in expressing his disdain for those who dare to disagree with him. I'm reminded of his preamble to the deciding vote in the Senate trial of William Clinton, which confirmed the conviction of a majority in the U.S. Congress that Slick Willy should be sent packing, in which Charles sniffed "well,let's get this ridiculous procedure over". That, for a "President" who had denied a U.S. citizen a meaningful day in court(while serving, by oath, as the supreme law enforcer in the nation) in order to save his debauched hide. Charles has been known for a long time as perhaps the most verbally dismissive and sarcastic member of Congress - a distinction he apparently regards as justified by his personally undoubted righteousness.
Then there is Presidential stalking horse (for Charles, no less, for whom she is factotum), perky but given to foul wording when referring to the despised majority, very junior Senator Kirsten Gillibrand - loyal daughter of rural stock (well, at least as "rural" applies to the collegial Albany-NYC corridor from which she hails) and a declared "defender", consequently, of the 2nd Amendment . She's Mouth #3 despite her transparent pretensions to the ultimate pulpit, from which she would execute Charles' bidding, notwithstanding her man hating feminist front these days.
The fourth but probably not final mouth in a state full of blatherers (including me) is the mouth of the river upon which sits the source of our shame as New Yorkers, the Hudson. Its a great metropolis, a world class city it must be admitted but it is our burden - we of the real America who yet abide here in this diverse state. Somehow the multitude living and voting there tends to look at things its own way and it doesn't know from others. Would that we were dominated by those of a mind with the residents of the mountainous Adirondack North Country which is the source of that notable watercourse. But that is electorally impossible for us. Forgive us our baleful contribution to the nation's polity. Maybe, just maybe, we'll make a change in our state house in November. We did it in '94. Jack
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Cuomo: 'the Mouth of the Hudson"
I'm wondering if NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is a step in human evolution. There has perhaps never been a public person for whom his mouth is a more conspicuous feature, both in his physical aspect and in his personality, than this histrionic and impetuous individual.
Sure, there have been notable orators, like Churchill or FDR; Andrew is celebrated for his presentations but is notable, I think, mainly for an insipid pseudo Shakespearean style employed on momentous occasions like abrogating the 2nd Amendment , welcoming killers of police to the society of the lawful and bidding apostates exit his principality but also, I suspect, when ordering quiche. I would love to see a test of the oxygen content in an arena in which Andrew embarks on one of his transcendent and epic journeys of pontification; as the capacious maw swings open and the basilisk eyes briefly roll and his moment of narcissistic and stentorian expectoration bodes nigh, it is to be wondered that any element vital to life remains to sustain the audience. Presently, fulsome profundities sally forth as to battle bound while the world bears witness. Oh, its all too cool; real America; you've got see this to believe it (and you may if he continues his dreamy crusade).
Now his cavernous orifice has delivered of him, quite possibly, his "basket of deplorables" moment. He maintains that the U.S. "was never that great" and in doing so has drawn howls even from his acolytes. It wasn't really necessary in order to torpedo his preposterous Presidential hopes. It was already an object of fervent activity in gambling circles whether he would be supported by fifty or, at the outside, one hundred fifty voters living between Binghamton and Bakersfield, in his quixotic quest for what he regards as his due - our White House. And though that America which manages to get on between the coasts is of nothing to him, it did put Donald Trump in the office Andrew wants so much to redeem.
Let us not suppose for one moment that in these faux pas Andrew or Hillary were less than completely honest. For Alinskyite radicals like them, forthright admission of far leftist intentions is to be avoided if one hopes to trick the rubes into support. But for those driven, as they surely are, by emotion and unanswerable when reminded of the less than favorable record of the left since 1917, one cannot but expect some spillover of perfervid and unassailable conviction.
Andrew has never had a chance of being elected President; his comparably self righteous father wisely refrained. Andrew was born without such relative humility and yet dreams. But you just can't be elected President or, perhaps, even be reelected Governor of lala land NY when you lead with your mouth. Oh, it always gets you in trouble and Andrew, your "never that great" winner may have consigned you to canasta and Chardonnay with Hillary up in the airy reaches of that place in Westchester County where your ilk hides. Meanwhile, you are, the consummate "Mouth of the Hudson". Jack
Sure, there have been notable orators, like Churchill or FDR; Andrew is celebrated for his presentations but is notable, I think, mainly for an insipid pseudo Shakespearean style employed on momentous occasions like abrogating the 2nd Amendment , welcoming killers of police to the society of the lawful and bidding apostates exit his principality but also, I suspect, when ordering quiche. I would love to see a test of the oxygen content in an arena in which Andrew embarks on one of his transcendent and epic journeys of pontification; as the capacious maw swings open and the basilisk eyes briefly roll and his moment of narcissistic and stentorian expectoration bodes nigh, it is to be wondered that any element vital to life remains to sustain the audience. Presently, fulsome profundities sally forth as to battle bound while the world bears witness. Oh, its all too cool; real America; you've got see this to believe it (and you may if he continues his dreamy crusade).
Now his cavernous orifice has delivered of him, quite possibly, his "basket of deplorables" moment. He maintains that the U.S. "was never that great" and in doing so has drawn howls even from his acolytes. It wasn't really necessary in order to torpedo his preposterous Presidential hopes. It was already an object of fervent activity in gambling circles whether he would be supported by fifty or, at the outside, one hundred fifty voters living between Binghamton and Bakersfield, in his quixotic quest for what he regards as his due - our White House. And though that America which manages to get on between the coasts is of nothing to him, it did put Donald Trump in the office Andrew wants so much to redeem.
Let us not suppose for one moment that in these faux pas Andrew or Hillary were less than completely honest. For Alinskyite radicals like them, forthright admission of far leftist intentions is to be avoided if one hopes to trick the rubes into support. But for those driven, as they surely are, by emotion and unanswerable when reminded of the less than favorable record of the left since 1917, one cannot but expect some spillover of perfervid and unassailable conviction.
Andrew has never had a chance of being elected President; his comparably self righteous father wisely refrained. Andrew was born without such relative humility and yet dreams. But you just can't be elected President or, perhaps, even be reelected Governor of lala land NY when you lead with your mouth. Oh, it always gets you in trouble and Andrew, your "never that great" winner may have consigned you to canasta and Chardonnay with Hillary up in the airy reaches of that place in Westchester County where your ilk hides. Meanwhile, you are, the consummate "Mouth of the Hudson". Jack
Friday, August 10, 2018
Gun owners - get ready for the next round
Chicago is urban dysfunction gone berserk. The infernal summer weather there has to exacerbate it but the fundamental reason is that there is a considerable population in the city of people who have, all their lives, been immersed in a culture of cynicism ,negativism, and hate in which criminal prowess is celebrated by far too many. Read the novel Horror of Cabrini Green, published by Holloway House of Los Angeles. Cabrini Green was a notorious public housing complex in Chicago. Many courageous youth have chosen to reject this dominant culture's values but they face harrowing dangers in doing so - dangers that young people in the U.S. should not have to face.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel; well what can you say? You have to respect the fact that he served in the Israeli Defense Force. But his political career in America shows him to be a doctrinaire Barack Obama feckless leftist. He is completely at sea in his reaction to Chicago's past murderous weekend and utterly unable to address it in decisive terms. Oh, he gives grudging lip service to the fact that the inhuman violence from last weekend is the product of people for whom human values are laughable absurdities. But he emphasizes that it is because "too many guns are available" that this commotion is happening.
He knows full well that confiscation of firearms from those perpetrating this mayhem is impossible and it is of no moment to him. What he does see is an opportunity to promote the following view: "Yeah, we tried some of the most restrictive gun control in the country in Chicago and it hasn't worked". The obvious conclusion? "It wasn't enough and we need much more because if these misguided miscreants were not enabled by irresponsibly loose gun control laws, they would not have gone amok!" Oh yeah, he did pontificate on "values" but he was fronting, he was fronting!
Look for this to be the prime message of the "common sense gun control" types: " because Chicago has descended into madness, we must enact stricter, far stricter gun control measures; that is the very essence of our stand and if you question it you are detestable."
So get ready for it, lawful gun owners, that's the path they'll take. How to fight it? First, do everything you can to get Judge Kavanaugh confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is by far our best present prospect for a return of the nation's laws to respect for the Constitution, including the 2nd Amendment. The left's particular and devoted animus to this organic right confirmed in the Bill of Rights' yet SECOND Amendment, confirms their determination to pick and choose among those of our rights of which they approve.
Of course they oppose our right to be armed. They know that we gun owners and our organizations support office holders and candidates conservative on a wide range of issues well beyond guns and just as a deer hunter concentrates on the "bread basket", they aim at destruction of our gun owning rights as a key victory in their yet relentless crusade to force unwanted social change on us. If they can take our 2nd Amendment rights they discredit us as a mainstay of conservatism.
By the way, it is possible to return Chicago to sanity. It takes a courageous and perceptive leader, guided by common sense principles on crime, to get it done. Rudolph Guiliani did it in NY (maybe he should run for Mayor of Chicago) but Rahm Emanuel is utterly incapable of it. He's way too far left. Jack
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel; well what can you say? You have to respect the fact that he served in the Israeli Defense Force. But his political career in America shows him to be a doctrinaire Barack Obama feckless leftist. He is completely at sea in his reaction to Chicago's past murderous weekend and utterly unable to address it in decisive terms. Oh, he gives grudging lip service to the fact that the inhuman violence from last weekend is the product of people for whom human values are laughable absurdities. But he emphasizes that it is because "too many guns are available" that this commotion is happening.
He knows full well that confiscation of firearms from those perpetrating this mayhem is impossible and it is of no moment to him. What he does see is an opportunity to promote the following view: "Yeah, we tried some of the most restrictive gun control in the country in Chicago and it hasn't worked". The obvious conclusion? "It wasn't enough and we need much more because if these misguided miscreants were not enabled by irresponsibly loose gun control laws, they would not have gone amok!" Oh yeah, he did pontificate on "values" but he was fronting, he was fronting!
Look for this to be the prime message of the "common sense gun control" types: " because Chicago has descended into madness, we must enact stricter, far stricter gun control measures; that is the very essence of our stand and if you question it you are detestable."
So get ready for it, lawful gun owners, that's the path they'll take. How to fight it? First, do everything you can to get Judge Kavanaugh confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is by far our best present prospect for a return of the nation's laws to respect for the Constitution, including the 2nd Amendment. The left's particular and devoted animus to this organic right confirmed in the Bill of Rights' yet SECOND Amendment, confirms their determination to pick and choose among those of our rights of which they approve.
Of course they oppose our right to be armed. They know that we gun owners and our organizations support office holders and candidates conservative on a wide range of issues well beyond guns and just as a deer hunter concentrates on the "bread basket", they aim at destruction of our gun owning rights as a key victory in their yet relentless crusade to force unwanted social change on us. If they can take our 2nd Amendment rights they discredit us as a mainstay of conservatism.
By the way, it is possible to return Chicago to sanity. It takes a courageous and perceptive leader, guided by common sense principles on crime, to get it done. Rudolph Guiliani did it in NY (maybe he should run for Mayor of Chicago) but Rahm Emanuel is utterly incapable of it. He's way too far left. Jack
Monday, August 6, 2018
"Enemy of the people" - Yes!
President Trump continues to rattle the truly faint of heart, those who have plausible concerns about his tactics and of course those who cannot abide the fact that he won. Let's examine his assertion that the press is the enemy of the people.
First, I thank him for this gutsy and perceptive observation ;the mainstream media, which the President meant when he said "the press" has long and richly deserved such a thumb in the eye. Oh, they've been begging for it for ever so long. Churchill said that democracy was the worst form of government until you considered all the other forms. I've long thought that the conduct of much of the western "free" press is the best argument against a free press but... .
First, there has been a monumental reaction to the MSM in the form of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and those encouraged by them. Limbaugh, in my opinion, is the most consequential public figure in the U.S. over the last 25 years along with (gag) the Clintons and President Trump. That we do have a "diverse" press is proven by the effect Limbaugh (an exceptionally perceptive observer and commentator, who nonetheless does not falsely present himself as an unbiased newscaster ) has had. Had they the means, the Clintons would have silenced him.
And , uhhh, what should you MSM types have expected of any half way self respecting guy who has been savaged the way you have, with blithe abandon and presumptuously self righteous conviction,done the President? He's hitting back! How do yuh like that? 'Course the spinelessness of much of the right must have convinced you that you had us down. Well yeah, he surprised us too but he's our's; he's sure not your's.
For decades and generations now since the '60's the majority of journalists have been blithe to subordinate journalistic principles like editorial balance and objectivity to political advocacy. "Yeah, we got Nixon and we can get any of them". Having become consummate politicians, they have been blindsided by the ascent of a disdainful non politician who is not loath to confront them.
And the sight of that oh so wounded CNN hypocrite taking Presidential Press Secretary Sara Huckabee Sanders to task: " Now the President shouldn't ought ta talk like that about the press! After all, a free press is what ya need in a democracy, don't ya know!" "Please Bre'r Bear, don' wing me in at there briar patch". Ok, but democracy can't work without a free and objective flow of information especially from terribly important sources like "the press",libraries and the "universities", which educate journalists among a whole lot of others. Unconscionably large numbers of professionals in those fields have surrendered their integrity to the siren call of unfettered leftist idealism and the dream that they may be its historic catalyst.
The President is right to call them out on it! He was empowered by the real America, all of them certified members of the entity "the people". The MSM is doing its best to undo their 2016 decision and that is the action of an enemy, I'd say. Jack
First, I thank him for this gutsy and perceptive observation ;the mainstream media, which the President meant when he said "the press" has long and richly deserved such a thumb in the eye. Oh, they've been begging for it for ever so long. Churchill said that democracy was the worst form of government until you considered all the other forms. I've long thought that the conduct of much of the western "free" press is the best argument against a free press but... .
First, there has been a monumental reaction to the MSM in the form of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and those encouraged by them. Limbaugh, in my opinion, is the most consequential public figure in the U.S. over the last 25 years along with (gag) the Clintons and President Trump. That we do have a "diverse" press is proven by the effect Limbaugh (an exceptionally perceptive observer and commentator, who nonetheless does not falsely present himself as an unbiased newscaster ) has had. Had they the means, the Clintons would have silenced him.
And , uhhh, what should you MSM types have expected of any half way self respecting guy who has been savaged the way you have, with blithe abandon and presumptuously self righteous conviction,done the President? He's hitting back! How do yuh like that? 'Course the spinelessness of much of the right must have convinced you that you had us down. Well yeah, he surprised us too but he's our's; he's sure not your's.
For decades and generations now since the '60's the majority of journalists have been blithe to subordinate journalistic principles like editorial balance and objectivity to political advocacy. "Yeah, we got Nixon and we can get any of them". Having become consummate politicians, they have been blindsided by the ascent of a disdainful non politician who is not loath to confront them.
And the sight of that oh so wounded CNN hypocrite taking Presidential Press Secretary Sara Huckabee Sanders to task: " Now the President shouldn't ought ta talk like that about the press! After all, a free press is what ya need in a democracy, don't ya know!" "Please Bre'r Bear, don' wing me in at there briar patch". Ok, but democracy can't work without a free and objective flow of information especially from terribly important sources like "the press",libraries and the "universities", which educate journalists among a whole lot of others. Unconscionably large numbers of professionals in those fields have surrendered their integrity to the siren call of unfettered leftist idealism and the dream that they may be its historic catalyst.
The President is right to call them out on it! He was empowered by the real America, all of them certified members of the entity "the people". The MSM is doing its best to undo their 2016 decision and that is the action of an enemy, I'd say. Jack
Sunday, July 29, 2018
The left, dissent and "climate change"
I published this in April,2016 in another blog I had and I reprise it now prompted by Dr. Nick Waddy's latest post on his courageous and well argued blog Waddyisright.com., concerning climate change and America's considerable achievements so far in addressing this concern. The big difference is, of course, that we now have a loyal American and his direct appointees in charge of policy in this regard, so though that doesn't change my original theme, I did update some wording :
Original title - Crushing Dissent: A Leftist Goal. In this post I will describe an ongoing, relentless, purposeful process enacted by the American left to destroy dissent from its views to aid it in achieving a dominance it cannot attain legislatively. With its inspiration being the successful Federal legal effort against the tobacco industry, which was enabled by a true scientific consensus based on overwhelming empirical evidence, the left attempts, in its proposals to take to law industries and some individuals who express doubt about "global warming" and its ostensible human provenance, to employ a new, far less rigorous standard for scientific consensus. ("The Enlightenment be damned".) Once established, this new model, based on the concept, already shamefully rampant in the American academy, of "social scientific consensus" (my term for forced unanimity among social "scientists" about ideas deemed "correct" by the leftists who dominate most social science faculties), would give future radical governments wide latitude and consequent full power, to discourage and punish dissent from irresponsible government measures based on badly supported conclusions. Once the left turns any issue into a social issue, the sanctimonious engine of "political correctness" kicks on with characteristic fuss, fume and totalitarian vindictiveness.
The Obama administration explored the possibility of prosecuting both some researchers who express doubts about possible "global warming" and its origins, and fossil fuel corporations which
uncooperatively encourage such doubt in hopes of defending their financial viability and that of their employees and stock holders from questionable concerns. I would assume that many fossil fuel corporation executives have science degrees and that, being human, they have exercised a reasonable and conceivably honorable belief in the virtue and the soundness of their companies' enterprises. This is naturally denounced by such as Al Gore,with all their experience in the real world of free enterprise, despite Al's conspicuous enjoyment of the fruits thereof.
The left still, despite its monumental setback in the election of a man who knows it and does not fear it, yet seeks the dismantling of free enterprise, capitalism, and the "undeserved" well being they generate. Successful Federal prosecution of the tobacco industry provided useful precedent and practice for confronting powerful industries and for this purpose.. The government argued that researchers were unanimous in finding tobacco smoke consumption addictive and poisonous. The public, using common sense and experience, eventually agreed. I remember my 9 year old classmate in the '50's telling his father "here are your cancer sticks". The present day left is loath to trust such a democratic process and looks longingly to the fact that Federal courts convicted several tobacco companies under the RICO statute; it would dearly love to do the same to the fossil fuel producers and the heretics who doubt Ol' Al .
The standards of proof and credibility satisfied by scientific inquiry into the dangers of smoking are not satisfied by current research about possible global warming. Much credible dissent from the view that it is happening and that it is caused by humans, is readily available in creditable informational resources and direct personal experience of human culpability is impossible. Who can claim to have actually witnessed human warming of the good old earth? But we've all seen smokers coughing their lungs out.
The human provenance of "global warming" is devoutly to be wished for by the left because it provides justification for yet another hellish trek toward a perfect world with the left at the helm. That's where it becomes a social issue for them.
Can it be that the left's scientific objectivity (it is, after all, the child of Marx) is yet to be doubted? Not by its lights to be sure. Its breathless and essentially emotional idealism having been tragically and thoroughly discredited in the laboratory of the murderous 20th century, the always predominantly very far left nonetheless glimpses vindication in this issue.
Within the left it is consensus - it just "feels" right and so is, as in all issues on which radicals have "fallen in" in unserried ranks, unquestionably true and just. This visceral conviction informs and motivates the left's determination to destroy the still quite legal and perhaps even beneficial fossil fuel industry in hopes of seriously wounding the real America. Should it reacquire governmental sway, it will again seek to make researchers and doubters fear Federal lawsuits and criminal prosecution . In doing so it would suppress open minded inquiry and debate and thereby, reduce the possibility of convincing empirical evidence contradicting its views ever being gathered and freely disseminated. The consequent establishment of a new, far less empirically rigorous definition of "scientific consensus" , requiring nonetheless, the draconian measures taken against big tobacco, would set for the left an incalculably useful precedent as an outcome even beyond the defeat of "global warming" doubters. Here is how it would be used:
Most government decision makers and all lawyers are college educated. The American academy is dominated , at the very least in the social sciences and humanities, by leftists who view dissent from their unquestionably just outlook as incorrect, morally reprehensible and deserving of punishment and suppression. This is the fruit of the boomer '60's, where painfully evolved and established verities were dismissed, out of hand and overnight. Already well regarded in perhaps the majority of such "university" departments is the concept of "social science consensus" (again, my term). And its infection of the physical sciences is apparent. After all, scientists need gainful employment too. But the social sciences are not as beholden to empirical evidence are they? Could a sociologist have caused Saturn V to lift off? In the politicized anti intellectual atmosphere in today's academia its not a very long step, is it, from "scientific consensus" to "social science consensus" to "consensus", especially when it serves already resolved "social justice" ends. If you have no compunctions against excoriating those who disagree with you and have the means to do them material dirt, why you're good to go. Those who imprudently depart from the leftist view won't be hired or promoted and will be ridiculed and marginalized in their discipline.
All this is only to be expected; the totalitarian essence of the American left is long established and has already turned much of the American "university" into a swamp of bigotry infested with a determination to force leftist change by any means and by an appalling hostility to academic freedom. Check out SUNY New Paltz these days.
It is from this setting that lawyers and Federal bureaucrats have and will have graduated into settings which may afford them unlimited power to intimidate and coerce (eg. with taxpayers' money). A marriage, at their disposal, of a new and corrupted definition of consensus would give government what it needs to shut down opposition to its fiddling and meddling with American life and could in the hands of its progenitors, the America hating left, permanently tip the balance in the conflict in our country between democracy and a "scientific" totalitarianism of which Stalin and his terrified factotum, "biologist" T.D. Lysenko, would have approved. Jack
Original title - Crushing Dissent: A Leftist Goal. In this post I will describe an ongoing, relentless, purposeful process enacted by the American left to destroy dissent from its views to aid it in achieving a dominance it cannot attain legislatively. With its inspiration being the successful Federal legal effort against the tobacco industry, which was enabled by a true scientific consensus based on overwhelming empirical evidence, the left attempts, in its proposals to take to law industries and some individuals who express doubt about "global warming" and its ostensible human provenance, to employ a new, far less rigorous standard for scientific consensus. ("The Enlightenment be damned".) Once established, this new model, based on the concept, already shamefully rampant in the American academy, of "social scientific consensus" (my term for forced unanimity among social "scientists" about ideas deemed "correct" by the leftists who dominate most social science faculties), would give future radical governments wide latitude and consequent full power, to discourage and punish dissent from irresponsible government measures based on badly supported conclusions. Once the left turns any issue into a social issue, the sanctimonious engine of "political correctness" kicks on with characteristic fuss, fume and totalitarian vindictiveness.
The Obama administration explored the possibility of prosecuting both some researchers who express doubts about possible "global warming" and its origins, and fossil fuel corporations which
uncooperatively encourage such doubt in hopes of defending their financial viability and that of their employees and stock holders from questionable concerns. I would assume that many fossil fuel corporation executives have science degrees and that, being human, they have exercised a reasonable and conceivably honorable belief in the virtue and the soundness of their companies' enterprises. This is naturally denounced by such as Al Gore,with all their experience in the real world of free enterprise, despite Al's conspicuous enjoyment of the fruits thereof.
The left still, despite its monumental setback in the election of a man who knows it and does not fear it, yet seeks the dismantling of free enterprise, capitalism, and the "undeserved" well being they generate. Successful Federal prosecution of the tobacco industry provided useful precedent and practice for confronting powerful industries and for this purpose.. The government argued that researchers were unanimous in finding tobacco smoke consumption addictive and poisonous. The public, using common sense and experience, eventually agreed. I remember my 9 year old classmate in the '50's telling his father "here are your cancer sticks". The present day left is loath to trust such a democratic process and looks longingly to the fact that Federal courts convicted several tobacco companies under the RICO statute; it would dearly love to do the same to the fossil fuel producers and the heretics who doubt Ol' Al .
The standards of proof and credibility satisfied by scientific inquiry into the dangers of smoking are not satisfied by current research about possible global warming. Much credible dissent from the view that it is happening and that it is caused by humans, is readily available in creditable informational resources and direct personal experience of human culpability is impossible. Who can claim to have actually witnessed human warming of the good old earth? But we've all seen smokers coughing their lungs out.
The human provenance of "global warming" is devoutly to be wished for by the left because it provides justification for yet another hellish trek toward a perfect world with the left at the helm. That's where it becomes a social issue for them.
Can it be that the left's scientific objectivity (it is, after all, the child of Marx) is yet to be doubted? Not by its lights to be sure. Its breathless and essentially emotional idealism having been tragically and thoroughly discredited in the laboratory of the murderous 20th century, the always predominantly very far left nonetheless glimpses vindication in this issue.
Within the left it is consensus - it just "feels" right and so is, as in all issues on which radicals have "fallen in" in unserried ranks, unquestionably true and just. This visceral conviction informs and motivates the left's determination to destroy the still quite legal and perhaps even beneficial fossil fuel industry in hopes of seriously wounding the real America. Should it reacquire governmental sway, it will again seek to make researchers and doubters fear Federal lawsuits and criminal prosecution . In doing so it would suppress open minded inquiry and debate and thereby, reduce the possibility of convincing empirical evidence contradicting its views ever being gathered and freely disseminated. The consequent establishment of a new, far less empirically rigorous definition of "scientific consensus" , requiring nonetheless, the draconian measures taken against big tobacco, would set for the left an incalculably useful precedent as an outcome even beyond the defeat of "global warming" doubters. Here is how it would be used:
Most government decision makers and all lawyers are college educated. The American academy is dominated , at the very least in the social sciences and humanities, by leftists who view dissent from their unquestionably just outlook as incorrect, morally reprehensible and deserving of punishment and suppression. This is the fruit of the boomer '60's, where painfully evolved and established verities were dismissed, out of hand and overnight. Already well regarded in perhaps the majority of such "university" departments is the concept of "social science consensus" (again, my term). And its infection of the physical sciences is apparent. After all, scientists need gainful employment too. But the social sciences are not as beholden to empirical evidence are they? Could a sociologist have caused Saturn V to lift off? In the politicized anti intellectual atmosphere in today's academia its not a very long step, is it, from "scientific consensus" to "social science consensus" to "consensus", especially when it serves already resolved "social justice" ends. If you have no compunctions against excoriating those who disagree with you and have the means to do them material dirt, why you're good to go. Those who imprudently depart from the leftist view won't be hired or promoted and will be ridiculed and marginalized in their discipline.
All this is only to be expected; the totalitarian essence of the American left is long established and has already turned much of the American "university" into a swamp of bigotry infested with a determination to force leftist change by any means and by an appalling hostility to academic freedom. Check out SUNY New Paltz these days.
It is from this setting that lawyers and Federal bureaucrats have and will have graduated into settings which may afford them unlimited power to intimidate and coerce (eg. with taxpayers' money). A marriage, at their disposal, of a new and corrupted definition of consensus would give government what it needs to shut down opposition to its fiddling and meddling with American life and could in the hands of its progenitors, the America hating left, permanently tip the balance in the conflict in our country between democracy and a "scientific" totalitarianism of which Stalin and his terrified factotum, "biologist" T.D. Lysenko, would have approved. Jack
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
My take
After having resolved never to venture upon the campus of the "University" of Minnesota, lest I commit capital blasphemy by uttering any word hinting at difference between the sexes (dare I use even that word?) and be denounced first to the tender mercies of the Inquisition and then to deserved public immolation prior to the Minnesota/ Wisconsin game - after all that - I got thinking about the summit conference.
We don't really know much yet about what went on during the four hours of private conversation between the Presidents. Perhaps significant progress was made toward the preservation of relative concord between the nations. Within peaceful parameters there is much wiggle room and if I had to go only on the look on Putin's face when they entered upon the news conference, maybe our President did a little more wiggling than he did. Still, wiggling is better than marching sometimes and this was not Vienna in 1961.
President Trump committed an embarrassing verbal faux pas when he appeared to place more credence in the word of a former KGB guy than in our intelligence services . Ecstatic denunciation from the usual suspects can be discounted because the form of it, if not the content, was (yawnnn) preordained. The President swiftly and credibly explained himself, to the satisfaction of discerning critics like Newt Gingrich; Rush Limbaugh correctly pointed out that the consequences of the private conversation are very much more important. Sorry Nancy, I'm not coming over.
I believe, because it has come from credible sources, that Russia did meddle in the 2016 election but I don't think it made a bit of difference to the real America, which stood up and sent Hillary packing (or unpacking, I should say). We should take note of it, assure the Russians we are fully aware of it and let them wonder what our next move might be. They've been fiddling around with our culture and our politics ever since Trotsky had his pipedream of world revolution and Uncle Joe seduced some of the nuke scientists. The Dems, who are their apologists and their avatars in many ways, especially since 1972, are just catching on to that? Ask Van Jones about it.
Also, I understood President Putin to say, in his post news conference interview on Fox, that any move toward drawing Ukraine closer to NATO would be met with a "very negative" reaction on the part of Russia. Uh huh. Jack
We don't really know much yet about what went on during the four hours of private conversation between the Presidents. Perhaps significant progress was made toward the preservation of relative concord between the nations. Within peaceful parameters there is much wiggle room and if I had to go only on the look on Putin's face when they entered upon the news conference, maybe our President did a little more wiggling than he did. Still, wiggling is better than marching sometimes and this was not Vienna in 1961.
President Trump committed an embarrassing verbal faux pas when he appeared to place more credence in the word of a former KGB guy than in our intelligence services . Ecstatic denunciation from the usual suspects can be discounted because the form of it, if not the content, was (yawnnn) preordained. The President swiftly and credibly explained himself, to the satisfaction of discerning critics like Newt Gingrich; Rush Limbaugh correctly pointed out that the consequences of the private conversation are very much more important. Sorry Nancy, I'm not coming over.
I believe, because it has come from credible sources, that Russia did meddle in the 2016 election but I don't think it made a bit of difference to the real America, which stood up and sent Hillary packing (or unpacking, I should say). We should take note of it, assure the Russians we are fully aware of it and let them wonder what our next move might be. They've been fiddling around with our culture and our politics ever since Trotsky had his pipedream of world revolution and Uncle Joe seduced some of the nuke scientists. The Dems, who are their apologists and their avatars in many ways, especially since 1972, are just catching on to that? Ask Van Jones about it.
Also, I understood President Putin to say, in his post news conference interview on Fox, that any move toward drawing Ukraine closer to NATO would be met with a "very negative" reaction on the part of Russia. Uh huh. Jack
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Now its Crimea?
Gimme a break. What is this, 1853? Is the Sultan back on the throne? Is the Light Brigade saddling up? Are the Brits and the French sending their new ironclads? Is Major McClellan on his way as an observer to prepare for his undoubted future as the savior of the Union? But why is Crimea so much in the news now?
First, does anyone honestly think Russia would reconsider its 2014 reacquisition of a region which has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great and which contains the port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea? Russia may no longer aspire to be a world class naval power, which they almost accomplished before Lech Walesa, Ronald Reagan and Saint John Paul II bankrupted them. They'd still like access to the Mediterranean though.
In 1954 the Soviet Union transferred Crimea to Ukraine, both regions being then and staying within Soviet borders. That's sort of like giving Maryland to Virginia. Maybe it was a condition of Ukraine retaining its then preposterous seat in the U.N.;ahhh, just kidding.
An expert on Russia told a radio audience that a very high Russian official told him , prior to Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014, that it was just a matter of time. I've gone on at length before on what I consider the importance of fully understanding Russia's cultural, economical, military and geographical relationship to Ukraine. After the breakup of the USSR a Russian officer was quoted: "I will never think of Kiev as a foreign city". If I understand what I know of the views of Dr. Stephen Cohen, former Professor of Russian History at NYU, I believe he maintains that we ignore these terribly and deeply historical ties at our peril. The transfer of Crimea should be viewed in that light, I think; its Russia's, Crimea's and Ukraine's matter, not ours.
Suppose Virginia were to depart the Union, taking Norfolk Navy Base with it? Would we not consider that our own matter, not Russia's? For that matter, what did we do about it in 1861?
Crimea may well be brought up at the conference between President Trump and President Putin but I hope and trust President Trump will be circumspect and diplomatic. Connected as it is to the Russia/Ukraine affinity this matter could have the gravest of implications for the U.S., should we be unwise. Fox News interviewed the CIA's former top man in Moscow today and asked him "what is Putin's worst fear?" He said " a free Ukraine inclined to the West and NATO". Ukraine's political evolution since independence has shown little to distinguish it from most other now free Eastern European countries and they certainly have "inclined to the West and NATO". Russia has, remarkably, tolerated that. But it has taken action with respect to Ukraine and we must pay very close attention to that fact in thinking about Crimea. Jack
First, does anyone honestly think Russia would reconsider its 2014 reacquisition of a region which has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great and which contains the port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea? Russia may no longer aspire to be a world class naval power, which they almost accomplished before Lech Walesa, Ronald Reagan and Saint John Paul II bankrupted them. They'd still like access to the Mediterranean though.
In 1954 the Soviet Union transferred Crimea to Ukraine, both regions being then and staying within Soviet borders. That's sort of like giving Maryland to Virginia. Maybe it was a condition of Ukraine retaining its then preposterous seat in the U.N.;ahhh, just kidding.
An expert on Russia told a radio audience that a very high Russian official told him , prior to Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014, that it was just a matter of time. I've gone on at length before on what I consider the importance of fully understanding Russia's cultural, economical, military and geographical relationship to Ukraine. After the breakup of the USSR a Russian officer was quoted: "I will never think of Kiev as a foreign city". If I understand what I know of the views of Dr. Stephen Cohen, former Professor of Russian History at NYU, I believe he maintains that we ignore these terribly and deeply historical ties at our peril. The transfer of Crimea should be viewed in that light, I think; its Russia's, Crimea's and Ukraine's matter, not ours.
Suppose Virginia were to depart the Union, taking Norfolk Navy Base with it? Would we not consider that our own matter, not Russia's? For that matter, what did we do about it in 1861?
Crimea may well be brought up at the conference between President Trump and President Putin but I hope and trust President Trump will be circumspect and diplomatic. Connected as it is to the Russia/Ukraine affinity this matter could have the gravest of implications for the U.S., should we be unwise. Fox News interviewed the CIA's former top man in Moscow today and asked him "what is Putin's worst fear?" He said " a free Ukraine inclined to the West and NATO". Ukraine's political evolution since independence has shown little to distinguish it from most other now free Eastern European countries and they certainly have "inclined to the West and NATO". Russia has, remarkably, tolerated that. But it has taken action with respect to Ukraine and we must pay very close attention to that fact in thinking about Crimea. Jack
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Listen up Charles!
The redoubtable and regrettable Sen. (would that it were not so) Charles Schumer from my state of NY, I am ashamed to say, laments today that the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court raises the specter of the "reproductive rights of women being in the hands of five (yeeechhh) men on the Supreme Court." Why now, "here's a change i' the commonwealth indeed", (from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, a dramatization of the misapplication of law).
Gee Charles, Roe v. Wade, decided by seven justices (is it the difference of two which raises your hackles?) has sealed the fate of some tens of millions of unborn humans since 1973 with your enthusiastic approval. Not only were they denied the free exercise of life itself in this highly favorable U.S. setting, but the approximately half of them who were female were denied an opportunity for reproduction which most of them would have exercised by now.
Now, stick with me here Charles: Verbal opposition to the summary ending of their lives was impossible for these already brain, arm, leg and torso endowed creatures to express because the use of the tongue to project intelligible audible communication requires access to the atmosphere. Oh they might have had time for a couple of squeaks as they embarked on their involuntary rendevous with eternity but you would agree it would be unreasonable to expect any more of them. They could not have bid those justices "hey, gimme a chance at life" now could they?
But those for whom you now stand do have power of expression, having been born. And should SCOTUS limit their power to deny the open air itself to human beings conceived by actions far beyond the fetuses' ken or control, they would retain their ability to petition the more democratic organs of our government, legislatures and Congress, for succor. Now they may be denied - after all, how many legislators are there vs. how many judges - but as a master legislator yourself I know you understand, Charles.
You're also a lawyer Charles and I know you know that "the law" comprises and that it is reasonable for a competent judge to consider, many sources of legal authority. Statutes, legislative intent, the texts of decisions, learned commentary on the text of decisions, the fate of statutes and cases after enactment, amendment or decision, are some examples. In a future case involving Roe v. Wade it is conceivable that some little credible authority may have expressed doubt as to the legal soundness of the original decision. A principled jurist might consequently conclude this case is as legally weak as to be undeserving of continued deference. Such a principled person, if seated on SCOTUS, might well vote that way; a candidate possessed of such integrity has just been nominated. If he follows "the law" he may well consider himself constrained to vote this way regardless of any prejudice he may or may not harbor as to the moral or social issue involved. He might well be inclined to leave law making to elected law makers.
But I know you are first and foremost a politician, Charles, and that you must be realistic in shepherding your flock. You have of necessity then to reflexively excoriate him by urging the certainty that Judge Kavanaugh is utterly insensitive to the needs of pregnant women and may well take pleasure from harming them. Your excitable avatars are buzzing like hornets in a busted nest already. But the real America has done and is ready to do again what it takes to frustrate you - out vote you and out vote you. Jack
Gee Charles, Roe v. Wade, decided by seven justices (is it the difference of two which raises your hackles?) has sealed the fate of some tens of millions of unborn humans since 1973 with your enthusiastic approval. Not only were they denied the free exercise of life itself in this highly favorable U.S. setting, but the approximately half of them who were female were denied an opportunity for reproduction which most of them would have exercised by now.
Now, stick with me here Charles: Verbal opposition to the summary ending of their lives was impossible for these already brain, arm, leg and torso endowed creatures to express because the use of the tongue to project intelligible audible communication requires access to the atmosphere. Oh they might have had time for a couple of squeaks as they embarked on their involuntary rendevous with eternity but you would agree it would be unreasonable to expect any more of them. They could not have bid those justices "hey, gimme a chance at life" now could they?
But those for whom you now stand do have power of expression, having been born. And should SCOTUS limit their power to deny the open air itself to human beings conceived by actions far beyond the fetuses' ken or control, they would retain their ability to petition the more democratic organs of our government, legislatures and Congress, for succor. Now they may be denied - after all, how many legislators are there vs. how many judges - but as a master legislator yourself I know you understand, Charles.
You're also a lawyer Charles and I know you know that "the law" comprises and that it is reasonable for a competent judge to consider, many sources of legal authority. Statutes, legislative intent, the texts of decisions, learned commentary on the text of decisions, the fate of statutes and cases after enactment, amendment or decision, are some examples. In a future case involving Roe v. Wade it is conceivable that some little credible authority may have expressed doubt as to the legal soundness of the original decision. A principled jurist might consequently conclude this case is as legally weak as to be undeserving of continued deference. Such a principled person, if seated on SCOTUS, might well vote that way; a candidate possessed of such integrity has just been nominated. If he follows "the law" he may well consider himself constrained to vote this way regardless of any prejudice he may or may not harbor as to the moral or social issue involved. He might well be inclined to leave law making to elected law makers.
But I know you are first and foremost a politician, Charles, and that you must be realistic in shepherding your flock. You have of necessity then to reflexively excoriate him by urging the certainty that Judge Kavanaugh is utterly insensitive to the needs of pregnant women and may well take pleasure from harming them. Your excitable avatars are buzzing like hornets in a busted nest already. But the real America has done and is ready to do again what it takes to frustrate you - out vote you and out vote you. Jack
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)