I did some checking and from what I can tell, the low end estimate for the number of people killed in war since the end of World War Two is 13.4 million people. I’m sure they are all happy that at least they weren’t killed in a Great Power conflict.
The other day, in the bruhaha over the firing of Tillerson, I saw a quote on Twitter which said that in a long discussion on foreign and defense policy, Tillerson and some others were taking the position that the post-WWII settlement was excellent and had to be defended at all costs while Trump kept on objecting that it wasn’t all its been cracked up to be. It was after this meeting that Tillerson allegedly called Trump a moron over his views. I had always doubted that Tillerson ever said such a thing, but in that context I believed the statement true – if not in verbatim quote, then at least in spirit. People like Tillerson do believe in the post-WWII order. In fact, most people involved in the higher reaches of government and business believe it. It is their received wisdom. They can’t imagine anything other than what we’ve had since 1945.
This is why there are plenty of people, including high up in the Trump Administration, who are still defending the Iran deal; the UN in general; the so-called free trade agreements. This is what you do. This is how things are done. You don’t question them. To such people, it would be as if a priest had chimed in during a meeting with the Pope with the observations that he didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ. They really believe it in that sort of way – as a matter of religious dogma.
Just last night, I decided to watch The Good Shepherd. It is an odd movie and a bit difficult to follow as it continually flashes back and forward in time. The crux of of the story is the development of a CIA official in charge of counter-intelligence from his earliest days in the WWII OSS through to the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion. One particular scene caught my eye: the CIA official is in conference with a mob boss in order to get the mob boss’ help in return for getting the heat off the mob boss. Par for the course stuff – but the mob boss says at one point, “you guys worry me: you’re the people who make big wars.” To which the CIA official says, “no; we’re the people who keep the wars small.” That is, I think, a pretty accurate reflection of the mindset of the people who run our world: they keep things under control. Out of our hands, you see? Because the regular folks can’t be trusted with actual power – there needs to be a group of people who know best, and who can manipulate things in order to keep things running smoothly and ensure that nothing too bad happens.
The support for this theory is that some how or another, it was the foolish passions of the common people who had made the two World Wars. The elite since World War Two has been determined that there be no repeat! That the wars were actually caused by the fumbling idiocy of the elites in charge doesn’t enter into the equation: the elites will not accept that it was their error, and as someone had to be at fault, they decided it must have been you and me. I will grant that we haven’t had another World War, but it isn’t like we’ve had peace, either. Those 13.4 million corpses are testimony to that. In addition, each time you get ready to be patted down by the TSA, you are demonstrating our lack of peace. You see, if there was peace, then you’d be able to buy a plane ticket for cash at the gate and get on the plane without even showing your ID.
The post-WWII order has been an utter failure. The supposed success of the order – the increasing material prosperity of the world – was an accident; the elites didn’t call it into being, as the advances in science were going to do their thing no matter what. In politics, we’re finding ourselves increasingly balkanized into mutually hating groups. War is continual around the world – often accompanied by atrocities which would have made Attila the Hun blush. Populations are being uprooted; ancient ways of life are being destroyed; scores of millions are aborted; birth rates drop around the world; an increasingly wealthy and out of touch Ruling Class develops ever more astonishing lies to justify it’s continued existence. This must come to an end.
And, in fact, it will come to an end – it is only a question of how and when. This isn’t sustainable (to take a word our elites love to use). We can’t continually move people around from one end of the world to another. We can’t continue to be sterile. We can’t continue to undermine the very concept of family. We can’t keep attacking religion. It will all go smash – in fact, it already is going smash. The underlying foundations of all civilizations in the world (Christian, Muslim, Chinese, Indian) are crumbling…and it isn’t leading to peace and prosperity but to social dislocation and a madness which manifests itself in monstrosities varying from people tattooing their bodies to blowing up shopping malls.
Do not speak to me of saving the post-WWII order. I hate and despise it. It has brought nothing but an infinity of woe upon the world. Let us replace it. I want a Distributist future, and I hope that more people embrace it, at least in some form. But whatever it is, it can’t be as hideous and as anti-human as what we’ve done since the end of World War Two.
Blogs For Victory 
More of a very bizarre world order. Going back to Spook’s post a few days back on the strange realities liberals keep promoting; for example allowing kids to direct gun legislation all the while believing they are too young to own those weapons, or even purchase their own health insurance.
Here’s another head scratcher re: Facebook. We are supposed to believe that people who post selfies every other hour tell everyone where they are, what they are having for lunch and who their bff’s are, – these people are concerned about privacy?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I sure feel a lot safer after yesterdays march.
Some one nailed it when they said it reminded them of Mao’s Red Guards in the 60’s.
There was a line in a recent article that caught my attention. It reflected on the school kids anti-gun march. After all, without freedom, peace is merely a form of slavery. Guess this holds true for most things.
There was an interesting revelation showing how the Superintendent of Broward County manipulated (stopped reporting) crime statistics to generated a false sense of security, give the perception of improvements where there were none, all in hopes of beefing up his election credentials. Essentially, by NOT reports certain crimes committed, many school kids were by default encouraged to escalate their criminal activity. Gee, what could possible go wrong?
So of course, failed leftist changes means all law-abiding citizens have to swallow the pill of lost freedoms and render to more control by those who so wonderfully showed their ability to make things better. Leftist book of wisdom – intentions not outcome is all that matters.
Wasn’t this the same kind of manipulation of reporting that kept Trayvon Martin in school? His misdeeds were not officially reported, if I remember correctly, because of a school policy designed to artificially create the impression that crime in the school was less than it really was. This is a common tactic of the Left, which tends to operate under the belief that reality is only what they say it is.
I have always thought that a new world order would eventually become a reality, and that the flood of refugees into Europe was probably the catalyst that would speed up that reality. Now it appears that a substantial portion of Europe, led by Hungary, is pushing back. The push-back in this country was helped, in no small part, by the election of Trump. There have been several times in my life when owning a functional crystal ball would have come in handy, and right now is one of those times. As I’ve said several times in recent months, I’m not as worried about a societal collapse as I was even a year ago. The Leftists who attempted to insert violence into the equation in late 2016 and early 2017 seem to have faded away, or at least gone underground, but one thing I’ve learned over the course of my life is that they NEVER, EVER QUIT.
All the potential triggers that existed over the course of the last decade or so still exist, financial collapse, a massive terrorist attack or an EMP, so the threat is not nonexistent, and people who have become complacent and not prepared are going to wake up one morning and wish they had.
If my theory is correct – that the GOP by going Populist-Conservative is growing while the Democrats going increasingly Social Democrat are shrinking – then we’ll see some surprising things over the next few years…including, just perhaps, the real start of the rollback of the Ruling Class.
If there is a silver lining to the dark cloud you described (which, by the way, reflects the beliefs of many of us) it is that in a crisis such as a biological attack or an EMP the Left will be hit the hardest. They are the most dependent, the least skillful in problem-solving and the most likely to just sit back and wait for someone to come take care of them.
Most of Western society is crumbling due to postmodern philosophy attaching itself to the minds of millions since the middle of the 20th century. Of course, those under its influence can’t help believing the way they do, because their university professors have trained them strictly in an atheist worldview. Ask a university student what they believe about the Constitution, and they will say, they believe it is “outdated.”
Can we even begin to understand how much damage colleges and universities have done to this great country? How much poison has been injected into the minds of millions and millions of people by the serpents who teach in those institutions?
Postmodern theory seeks to deconstruct, or tear down. Therefore, there is no order, only anarchy and chaos.
In case anyone needed a good laugh, ex-President Mr. Carter said he would be willing to go to North Korea to help if the president needed him. That worked so well with Iran.
Well Stormy Daniels interview must have been a bust (no pun intended), because Morning Joe is talking about firing Bob Mueller again. I feel sorry for these alarmists – none of their fake salacious stories are getting any traction …..
I watched a few minutes of the interview, only because it came on immediately after the Kansas-Duke game (helluva game, btw). Only Donald Trump and Daniels know the truth, and she’s denied having an intimate relationship with him — in writing — three times. After the pass Democrats gave Bill Clinton for receiving oral sex and sodomizing a 21-year-old intern with a cigar IN THE OVAL OFFICE, I don’t give a rat’s rear end what Donald Trump “might have done” as a private citizen 12 years ago. I’m guessing there is an endless list of women who would be willing to say they had sex with Trump in exchange for money. I wouldn’t doubt that anti-Trumpers of both parties have active teams out recruiting them. But as Kurt Schlichter said in a column last week, WE JUST DON’T CARE!
Exactly. Yes, it would not be a surprise to learn that Trump had sex with a woman not his wife. Duh. It would also not be a surprise to learn that a woman who has public, filmed, sex for money is willing to engage in public, filmed, lies for money. Duh.
You can pay a woman to be quiet about something that happened. You can pay a woman to not lie about something that didn’t happen. You can instruct someone to pay a woman for either of those things. Someone who thinks he is acting in your best interest can make his own decision to pay a woman for either of those things.
In other words, there is no way to know the truth. More to the point, the truth isn’t relevant to what the man is doing now, in this time, in this place, as president of the United States.
It’s time for the Left to get its collective head out of so many crotches.
That’s kind of what I was thinking as I watched the first few minutes of the interview: do these people realize what this woman does for a living? Why don’t they show a few video clips from her films? Oh, wait…………….
That’s the main thing: not caring. Our Democrats still don’t get that what got us to want Clinton removed wasn’t that he proved to be a sinner, but that he then went out and deliberately lied to our faces (finger wagging!) and also committed perjury to hide it. A President, you know, shouldn’t break actual laws. Call me silly, but that just seems a bad thing.
Did Trump dally with the lady? Given Trump’s background, I’d say there was a high chance he did – but it is also none of my business…and to drag this muck up is really just to insult Melania and cause pain to Barron.
We have to remember that sex with an intern also broke the law. So he broke one law, broke another by lying about it, and betrayed an assumption of Americans that our president should not lie to us.
I believe that aside from the few true ideologues, the few True Believers of the Left who have a coherent political philosophy (no matter how fatally flawed) most who flock to the movement do so out of intellectual and moral laziness. They want to feel smart, they want to feel superior, they want to feel morally more upright, but instead of doing the heavy lifting to actually deserve those descriptions they just pay lip service by being “FOR” the things they are told will accomplish this.
I got this in an email without a source link:
How do civil wars happen?
Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge.
That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.
The Mueller investigation is about removing President Trump from office and overturning the results of an election. We all know that, but it’s not the first time they’ve done this. The first time a Republican president was elected this century, they said he didn’t really win. The Supreme Court gave him the election. There’s a pattern here.
What do sure odds of the Democrats rejecting the next Republican president really mean? It means they don’t accept the results of any election that they don’t win. It means they don’t believe that transfers of power in this country are determined by elections. That’s a civil war.
There’s no shooting. At least not unless you count the attempt to kill a bunch of Republicans at a charity baseball game practice. But the Democrats have rejected our system of government. This isn’t dissent. It’s not disagreement. You can hate the other party. You can think they’re the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next election. When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don’t win, what you want is a dictatorship. Your very own dictatorship.
The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to Democrats, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it’s inherently illegitimate. The Democrats lost Congress They lost the White House. So what did they do? They began trying to run the country through Federal judges and bureaucrats. Every time that a Federal judge issues an order saying that the President of the United States can’t scratch his own back without his say so, that’s the civil war.
Our system of government is based on the constitution, but that’s not the system that runs this country. The Democrat’s system is that any part of government that it runs gets total and unlimited power over the country. If the Democrats are in the White House, then the president can do anything. And I mean anything. He can have his own amnesty for illegal aliens. He can fine you for not having health insurance. His power is unlimited. He’s a dictator.
But when Republicans get into the White House, suddenly the President can’t do anything. He isn’t even allowed to undo the illegal alien amnesty that his predecessor illegally invented. A Democrat in the White House has “discretion” to completely decide every aspect of immigration policy. A Republican doesn’t even have the “discretion” to reverse him. That’s how the game is played. That’s how our country is run. Sad but true, although the left hasn’t yet won that particular fight.
When a Democrat is in the White House, states aren’t even allowed to enforce immigration law. But when a Republican is in the White House, states can create their own immigration laws. Under Obama, a state wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom without asking permission. But under Trump, Jerry Brown can go around saying that California is an independent republic and sign treaties with other countries. The Constitution has something to say about that. Whether it’s Federal or State, Executive, Legislative or Judiciary, the left moves power around to run the country. If it controls an institution, then that institution is suddenly the supreme power in the land. This is what I call a moving dictatorship.
Donald Trump has caused the Shadow Government to come out of hiding: Professional government is a guild. Like medieval guilds. You can’t serve in if you’re not a member. If you haven’t been indoctrinated into its arcane rituals. If you aren’t in the club. And Trump isn’t in the club. He brought in a bunch of people who aren’t in the club with him. Now we’re seeing what the pros do when amateurs try to walk in on them. They spy on them, they investigate them and they send them to jail. They use the tools of power to bring them down. That’s not a free country.
It’s not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an “insurance policy” against Trump winning the election. It’s not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It’s not a free country when the media responds to the other guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media. It’s not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an election because the guy who wasn’t supposed to win, wins.
Have no doubt, we’re in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and a leftist Democrat professional government.
I agree 100% and why I wrote the thread “We Are At War” a little while back, although I didn’t say nearly as effective as this author. There’s no question about it, they hate us, and DO NOT want us governing the country, PERIOD. They are convinced conservatism is homophobic, sexist, and uncaring and through their sense of being morally superior, they believe that they, and only they can properly govern this country. The left weaponized the IRS and the DOJ while in power, and they are now weaponizing the media and our children while out of it.
Spot on.
The left keeps making major strides because they’ve mastered the art of division & attack. They can divide ANY segment of the population: young – old, white -black, rich – poor, religious – atheist, American – immigrant -foreigner – native, male – female, left – right, smart – mentally challenged, fully abled – handicapped, educated – uneducated, professional – blue collar, employed – unemployed, employee – employer, manager – subordinate, haves – have-nots, private schools – public schools, healthy – ill, smokers – non-smokers, morally responsible – morally corrupt, straight – gay – alphabet labeled, hardworking – bums, sober – drunk – junkie, cops – civilians – soldiers, entertainer stars – everyday people, tall – short, good looking – ugly, ethnic cultural differences, various religious entities, the gullible, mascot names, bullies, etc., etc., etc. Then they amplify the differences between each these groups in a negative light with the intent of creating the perception that all of their problems stem from the other side (victimhood), interject emotional responses wherever they can even if it doesn’t represent anything real, and fully utilize the catastrophe of the day – regardless if it’s man made, created by nature, the media, failed political / judicial policy, war, shortages, weather, perceived unfairness, current events, historic events of long ago, heightened sensitivities to things people never realized were a problem until the left pointed it out, or some other thing or event. This system allows them ample opportunity to steal wealth & power, structure a centralized top down, elitist society with them in charge, step in and save the day with more failed policy & control, all while these groups are at constant odds with each other.
Conservatives do not battle well in these conditions. Calling the truth to something is by leftist standard, disrespecting someone (they have hundreds of adjectives describing some form of disrespect and even change the established normal use of words or phrases), or lacking empathy for the plight & misfortunes of others. In most every policy created there will be “winners” & “losers”. No matter how many people benefit, the left will howl (see tax cuts) at the losses of the few, even if they have to lie about them.
Unfortunately, an emotional response is usually much easier to trigger and appears more powerful than a logical response. Once the those duped by the left figure it out (if they ever do), they are either too tied to the system of handouts of OPM, or have been minimized by the next group taking their place.
The right can battle effectively if they loudly attack the lies in public forums and challenge any who would work to strip them of their freedoms, regardless of intentions. This can be done in many ways such as stop endorsing stores & sports teams with our money. But few will for risk of ridicule or harm. This is one of the reasons Trumps actions have resonated with so many. He’s willing to take the hits (on most things) and keep pushing forward.
I don’t have much faith in man’s ability to right all of the wrongs, but I will not shy from standing up to real injustice, blatant lies, corruption, or moral decrepitude. Seems our most powerful tool is truth, prayer and the belief in a life after earthly death. In some ways a physical civil war is a preferred way to go. Sorry for rambling.
This is why I keep nagging that we as conservatives need to have a regular public forum, such as a version of 60 Minutes, in which the truth is presented. The Left controls the narrative because the Left controls the media. And the Left has perfected its craft, over decades, mostly because it has had a clear and coherent plan and stuck to it. The Right can’t agree on much of anything and I have never seen anything like a coherent plan to address the needs of better communication. Back a few years ago Newt Gingrich had a web site and an idea for how to do this, but he ran into the typical infighting and squabbling and got distracted and it fell apart.
The Left does everything you say it does, and a lot of its success comes down to the divisiveness you describe but also its dependence on Identity Politics, which is part of the emotional reaction created by splitting people into disparate groups and then setting them against each other. At least fifteen years ago when Libs were on the blog I told one of them that I didn’t think we could even begin to have a rational discussion until we explained our political philosophies. That was an epiphany for me—he couldn’t. He said his political philosophy was that things should be more fair. That people should be nicer to each other. That no one should be cold or hungry. I don’t remember the exact terms he used but they all sounded like the sound bites of Miss America contestants in the interview portion. That forced me to evaluate the very concept of a coherent political philosophy, to work on developing and refining my own, and to this day, so many years later, only ONE Lib on this blog has ever been able to give an actual political philosophy. And he was an ardent Marxist who had read Marx and had a political foundation in his thinking. I started asking Libs in person when politics happened to come up, and have had the same experience.
One thing I learned from this was that to people on the Left, the big difference between Left and Right is what we want. Try telling a Lib that we want the same things—–more prosperity for all, a fairer system, no hungry children, help for the helpless—-and he will just look at you with complete skepticism, because he just KNOWS you don’t care about any of those things. Try convincing him that the real difference only lies in how those things are achieved and he might even call you a liar, because his entire “political” identity is based on being the Good Guy, FOR all the good guy stuff, and his opponents don’t want any of the good guy stuff because they are Bad Guys.
I was dining alone one night in a nice hotel dining room and started a conversation with a woman dining alone at the next table. She ended up joining me, and we had a nice wide-ranging conversation. She kind of probed a little about politics and I told her I am political conservative, and as she was from Seattle I didn’t need to ask her, and the conversation went along different paths. We had a lot in common—interest in animal rescues, in the possibility of animal communication, we both recycle, etc. She finally said “I just can’t believe you are a conservative”. I said “Liberals don’t own virtue. Conservatives do good things, too—-we just do them with our own money.” That was that. But possibly, just possibly, she got a tiny peek into a world very different from the one she thought she knew. I’m sure she rejected it, but it was there
A few years ago I ran into an old friend of a brother, a man I hadn’t seen in years and had never really gotten to know. Somehow politics came up and he said as a commercial airline pilot he couldn’t talk about politics because the cockpit is a really bad place to make an enemy. So we got started talking about what it is like to have a political discussion with a Lib. I said to him, “ask me a political question”. So he did. I don’t remember what he asked, but I just yelled (we were standing in a field so it was OK to yell) “GEORGE BUSH IS AN ASSHOLE!” He caught on right away, and we entertained ourselves for several minutes, asking each other serious questions about governance and taking turns being the Lib—-with the same response.
The thing is, it was not only like a Monty Python routine, it was an accurate representation of what it is like to talk about politics with a Lib, because their idea of “politics” is my idea of a kindergarten riot. Lots of hurt feelings and crying and anger and frustration.
I think there is hope for the squishies in the middle who haven’t been able to pick a side, mostly because they have been asked to pick a person not a political philosophy. I think these people can be reached. But we as conservatives have to stop being just the other side of the coin from Libs, equally caught up in emoting and Identity Politics and more focused on the best blueprint for governing the country.
Headline over at Drudge:
CONGRESSMAN: RUMOR PAUL RYAN READY TO RESIGN
‘NEXT 30 TO 60 DAYS’
I hope he does. He has never lived up to his billing
I’ve heard the communist millennials have been attacking him hard because he’s an NRA man.
Hang in there Mr. Speaker! You got this!
Ryan had the opportunity to put together a plan to dismantle Obamacare, return the industry to the free market for the majority, and craft together a plan to stabilize the safety net for those in need. He has a majority in the House and Senate and an agreeable President. He failed. In fact I am not even convinced he tried that hard.
Remember that march on Saturday? I thought it was a gun free zone?
Each celebrity speaker and high school activist who took the stage to give an impassioned speech condemning firearms was themselves protected by a wide arsenal firearms.
I personally witnessed multiple celebrities go to and from their limousines under the heavily armed guard of private security members and the Capitol Police. I watched Katie Couric, Cher, George Clooney and the student celebrities of Parkland all get escorted to safety by police officers who were visibly carrying holstered handguns. None of the speakers waived the protections of an armed officer. Every major movie star, singer or student leaving the rally rushed to the protective bubble of well armed security as they traveled from the gated backstage area to idling limousines and private cars.
You’re not supposed to look behind the curtain.
The Communists ultimate goal…
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/repeal-the-second-amendment-retired-supreme-court-justice-says-2018-03-27
I just want to take a minute and speak to this “gun violence” issue in this country. I think the answer is simple – don’t buy violent guns. I have several friends who own lots of guns and not one of them is violent, so when you go to buy a gun take some time and get to know the gun, ask some questions like .. “are you angry?”, “are you racist?”, only by getting to know the character of your new gun can you assure that it is not violent. I hope this helps
It DOES help. I am one of those friends who has lots of guns, and NONE of them is violent — well, one, but I keep it in a safe and only let it out during a full moon.
You are a good judge of gun character Spook ……
And maybe we could deport the violent guns. Call the program something like “Fast & Furious”
Spook’s got a good definition of gun control
It really isn’t all that complicated — a firm grip and a steady aim.