Looks like Joe will show for the debate tomorrow: though, of course, don’t think he won’t back out if his meds aren’t kicking in on time.
I’ve seen some prep work done in Bluecheck social media to allow Biden to go after Trump’s kids: this to deflect from Hunter Biden, with the most recent revelation that he got $3.5 million from the wife of the mayor of Moscow. As someone pointed out: maybe the Russian dossier was about Hunter and they just put Trump’s name into it?
Not only does Mitch have the votes to confirm ACB, it looks like they might move this one right along and allow Trump to swear her in before the election – which could be crucial if it is close. Personally, I don’t think it will be. I think that however it goes, it’ll be big one way or the other. Either people will reaffirm their rejection of the Establishment in big numbers, or they’ll reject Trump by big numbers. I’m hopeful for Trump, of course: and I still see voter registration and early voting numbers which indicate Trump might have this. But, we’ll see!
But, with Pelosi wondering if Democrats can control 26 House delegations, my view is that the Democrats know they are sinking fast and are desperately hoping for something so screwed up that they can fraud their way to the White House. And why 26 House delegations? Because if the House picks the President, then each State gets 1 vote. Right now, it is GOP 26, Dems 22 and 2 split. And this, mind you, is with a Democrat House majority – and even if the House remains Democrat, there is little chance that four delegations will flip.
Trump’s taxes – which, by the way, he paid millions; don’t buy the MSM lie that he only paid $750.00 – are just one in a huge series of “bombshells” which the DNC/MSM will drop on us now until Election Day. This particular one was likely timed so that the debate moderators tomorrow can dwell on it and thus not have time to discuss Hunter’s dealings.
Cindy McCain, fresh from spitting on us by endorsing Biden, has been named to Biden’s transition team. If Joe wins, maybe there’s a cabinet slot for her…the bottom line is this is who we used to have. And I’m glad their gone.
More evidence of water on Mars – which is cool and no matter how you slice it, it makes exploration of Mars a lot easier in the long run. But I still doubt humans can live there long-term: there are too many hazards for us to overcome. Until we can figure out gravity and a sure-fire way to block solar radiation, brief visits will be all we can do.
Blogs For Victory 
”Los Angeles must pay the National Rifle Association $150,000 in damages after a federal court ruled the city violated the organization’s First Amendment rights, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The ruling came in response to a Los Angeles city resolution in April 2019 that declared the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” and an ordinance that punished city contractors who associated with the Second Amendment advocacy group.
When passing the ordinance, the Los Angeles City Council determined that awarding contracts to NRA-supporting groups would undermine its “efforts to legislate and promote gun safety.””
This is what we have to look forward to as the left increases their power. They will work vehemently to strip us of our rights and freedoms. This is about far more than just the upcoming elections. The left has no compunctions about using anything they can to steal everything. They follow no rules except when it might help them in their cause. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.
I know we are all praying for the President … the good news is that he has a 99% chance of surviving and my hope is that as a 74 year old man he comes thru this with mild conditions and little difficulty so the nation will realize that if you are in relatively good shape with no underlying conditions, you will survive covid. Because as it is, the media and government have blown this “pandemic” way out of proportion.
Here’s another thing not mentioned anywhere … WE ARE ALL GOING TO GET COVID19 AT SOME POINT EITHER THIS YEAR OR NEXT. Guaranteed. It’s a cold/flu virus that will linger and mutate and eventually effect everyone. That’s what viruses do and the longer we hide from it and compromise our immune system the worse for us.
MSNBC has yet to connect the dots.
Yamiche Alcindor: Trump ‘could not protect himself, his wife or his workplace’ from Covid-19
That’s right Yamiche. And can you extend that observation a little further? The President is the most insulated man in the world yet he contracted Covid. So do you think hiding in your basement with your little mask on is going to protect you?
Time to live in the adult world.
Ahhh I don’t have much to say yet, I am still in shock
Italian luxury brand Gucci is selling a £1, 700 ‘Tartan cotton long smock shirt’ for men. According to the fashion giant, the ‘delicate colours’ of orange and beige ‘reflects the idea of fluidity explored for the Fall Winter 2020 fashion show, and aims to disrupt the toxic stereotypes that mold masculine gender identity.’ The orange and beige garment is inspired by grunge looks from the ’90s.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8800927/Gucci-selling-1-700-tartan-dress-satin-bow-MEN.html
I saw a photo of this “dress” and found it so unredeemingly ugly no Dust Bowl housewife would have been happy to wear it out picking cotton.. It took the ugliest elements of fashion from the last several decades and mashed them together into such a hodgepodge of clashing details it reminded me of the old I Love Lucy show where the two couples were in Paris and Ricky and Fred had someone make horrendously ugly outfits for Lucy and Ethel, telling them they were the height of new Paris fashion, whereupon the women strutted around in baggy burlap bag-type dresses.
In other words it is a joke.
This young guy has put together an excellent summary of the debate.
As I mentioned the other night, I almost stopped watching after the first 15 or 20 minutes, but managed to grit my teeth and watch the whole thing. My immediate reaction was that there were no winners, and the biggest loser was Chris Wallace. The next day I read the transcript and came away with a whole different reaction. As the young man who put together this video says, Biden refused to answer questions, repudiated things that are on his website, and scored few, if any points based on actual facts, and, in fact, mostly talked in meaningless platitudes. Reading the transcript you get the true sense of just how many things Biden said that were just flat out false. Well, unless you regularly watch CNN or MSDNC, and then most of what he said probably sounded true. I agree with his comment at the end that the next time Trump should just let Biden talk.
Similar take with both the actual debate and follow-up considerations. Good clip too.
In spite of my many comments on this blog over the years that I believe we are edging closer and closer to a civil war in this country, I am not a violent person. I used to hunt small game but haven’t even done that since the mid 80’s. That said, I’m looking forward to the day when we can declare open season on human scum like this.
My teenage crew is back in school now, kind of, and one of them has to be online every Monday for a class and then has assignments to do at home. So he comes up here and does his homework here. The other day it was about conditioning, and we talked about the two kinds, classical or involuntary vs operant conditioning, which is purposeful, a system of rewards and consequences that lead to changes in behavior.
I told him about the Nintendo game theory used by the military to overcome the natural inhibition of shooting at another human being, by designing entertaining video games in which there was an instantaneous emotional reward for shooting another person, the flash of dopamine received by each successful shot, eventually eroding the inherent reluctance to kill. We had a good talk about the ways we are conditioned today, including the operant conditioning going on now in which people are herded like sheep into engaging in awkward and unpleasant behavior (mask wearing) through the combination of state edicts and peer pressure, the reward being the sense of being both safer and morally superior to those who do not wear masks.
I suggested that the hate and venom exhibited by the Left is an example of conditioning similar to that of the video games—-that there is an instantaneous gratification associated with expressing hate, and that as the desire for this gratification increases so does the level of vitriol and hatred.
So while some people get that important sense of personal gratification by doing positive things, like helping a neighbor or rescuing an animal or donating to a charity, etc. there is as large and unfortunately growing demographic which gets its own sense of personal emotional reward by expressing hateful and negative attitudes toward an invented Other. Every hateful tweet releases a shot of dopamine, and like any addiction the need for more and stronger stimulation increases.
The internal psychological mechanism which pushes individuals into one camp or the other is no doubt complicated, but we can see that there is most definitely a clearly identifiable demographic which gets great emotional gratification from expressing the most vile and negative and hateful attitudes toward another demographic it has identified as The Enemy.
By creating an “enemy” they can feel virtuous by attacking it, and the more they do attack it, in more and more elaborate and creative ways, the more instant gratification they get–the more they are emotionally rewarded. I basically see the internet hatefest as something analogous to a video game, with the “enemy” being anyone on the Right and the reward system being based on how many shots are taken at it and how vicious those shots are.
The thing is, this puts them on the same emotional spectrum as those who torture animals or become serial killers—at that point it is just a matter of degree. The defining factor, the one thing that puts them on that side of the emotional spectrum, is the emotional dependence on hurting other people. With the internet and media haters, this is by verbally attacking them and expressing vile and sometimes violent hatred.
And I have said for decades that the Left purposely appeals to this kind of mentality to be their cannon fodder, to provide both financial support and the population-number support of mobs. Some who support the Left do so because they truly believe it represents goodness, fairness, equality and so on, but that number has to be dwindling as the truth of Leftism is exposing its ugliness more and more blatantly. I contend that these people are increasingly unmoored from a political identity because they are reluctant to be part of the rabid radicalism of the Left but have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into fear and even intense dislike of what they have been taught is “The Right”. There is a growing pool of potential conservatives out there, and we fail miserably at making them feel welcome as well as emotionally rewarded by joining us.
There is a growing pool of potential conservatives out there, and we fail miserably at making them feel welcome as well as emotionally rewarded by joining us.
I think we really need to get away from “feelings” in this country and start to look at things logically, critically and and in black and white terms. That may be an impossible dream but it is something I think we should strive for. After all we are Americans … rugged individualists, entrepreneurialists, pioneers, and unafraid. Feelings have little place in a free open society. In fact, you are guaranteed to have your feelings hurt everyday in America and that’s by design. I am really tired of Democrats being worried about my health, as everyone should be. Look what they’ve done to us over a cold virus.
None of us should ever have to apologize for our positions, nor should we ever have to convince anyone of who we are not. They either see it or they don’t. Conservatives should always walk the walk and lead by example and I think we do a good job of that.
I think this a good discussion and to expand on it – I think we conservatives hurt ourselves more when we have people like McCain and Romney leading the movement then when we have a fighter like Trump. And fighting is not always confrontational or physical but it is most certainly standing firm in your beliefs … unwavering and being loud. When we get squishy, that’s when we lose people.
I absolutely agree that we need to shift political discourse from feelings to thoughts. I am not talking about appealing to feelings. I have said here, at least a dozen times if not more, that we need to get away from ISSUES and talk about POLITICS—that is, the best blueprint for governing the nation.
And issues are based on feelings.
But get real—–if someone has believed for years that the Republican Party represents negative things, like racism or greed, even when he doesn’t want to be part of the Democrat Party any more he is not going to feel comfortable joining up with people he believes are bad people. Yes, we win if he doesn’t vote at all, but we win bigger and better if he votes on our side.
I am not talking about offering him a hug and a tissue. I am talking about getting emotions and feelings out of OUR side and giving him a chance, for the first time in his political life, to evaluate his politics in the light of political philosophy. The fact is, we can be real A-holes sometimes, all indignant and self righteous and even vindictive. We need to get over that, at least when talking with people who are looking for a political landing spot.
I keep reminding people that the GOP used to be the Big Tent party, with room in it for people who have very different ideas, as long as they agree that the nation has to be governed according to its Constitution. But we became the flip side of the Democrats, basing acceptance on identity. One of the “conservatives” who used to post here all the time was quite emphatic that he didn’t want “that kind” of person in his party. That is, a homosexual or someone who truly believes that a very young fetus is not a human being. My point was that these are ISSUES that, if they need to be decided, have to be decided at the state or local level, and that no matter how wrong we might think those people are they would still be conservatives if they agreed that their issues were not in the realm of federal authority.
As for dealing with the slurs against the Right, like being “racist”, I think the best response is just to say “That is the stupidest thing anyone can possibly say. Only a moron could think a belief in governing according to our Constitution means judging people by the amount of pigment in their skin.” Because when it is put that way, it is obviously blatantly stupid.
SAVING PRIVATE BIDEN
Funny to Conservatives because it contains a strong element of truth. Not funny to Liberals for the same reason.
Chris Wallace asked questions straight from the Left playbook. And in fact the “white supremacy” question was the very same question Wallace asked Trump in 2016. Wallace is horrible. And the guy doing the next debate is a NeverTrumper. Why do we allow NeverTrumpers to moderate a debate?????
Maybe Trump can play off the bias of the new “moderator” by saying he is so confident of his policies, his record and his ability that he does’t even care when the moderators are Leftists. And that it says a lot about the confidence in Biden when they have to have a former Biden intern run the debate. Maybe even grin and say if it was fair they’d let Ivanka moderate the next one—though SHE has enough integrity to do it right.
Shove it right back in their faces, and get it out there to the viewers that Steve Scully is not only a former Biden intern and Ted Kennedy staffer but once tweeted No, Not Trump, Not Ever
This is when I would love to hear a reference to the Agenda Media, instead of constantly legitimizing the media by claiming they represent “mainstream” Americans. I’d like to see Trump come right out and ask Scully if he plans to run the debate more ethically than Wallace did.
Some people think the white supremacy question will come up again. You want a strong combative president (and so do I) so I would love to have him say “You must be a pretty poor journalist if you haven’t even done your research to learn how many times I have not only disavowed white supremacy I have condemned it—along with any other form of judging people by the color of their skin or where they come from.”
The fact is, we can be real A-holes sometimes, all indignant and self righteous and even vindictive. We need to get over that, at least when talking with people who are looking for a political landing spot.
Oh I agree with that. Much of the right has become entrenched and ready for battle but how can you blame them? Me included. The tide began to turn in 2001 with the hanging chad. Democrats never got over that, or the impeachment of Clinton and since then there discourse towards the right has become increasingly radical to the point that today, they hold nothing back and we are not only now called everything in the book, they are literally injuring if not killing some of us and burning down our businesses.
I agree we need to expand our “base” and I also believe that Trump has increased our base by the being the fighter he is. I think the key will be to show those undecided that we will fight for their right to life, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness and being free from government control and incompetence. That message is starting to resonate
And don’t let the media fool anyone. Trump will win in a landslide
Conservatives have exhibited a level of patience that I wouldn’t have thought possible. We’ve been called all sorts of vile names, spit on, assaulted, harassed in public venues, had our cars keyed simply for having a Trump/Pence bumper sticker, and all the while we’ve remained calm. There’s a line that most of us have drawn in the sand, and I suspect the radical Left will cross it on November 4th when Trump wins (I agree on the landslide part). I doubt that most radical white Millennials, who have become the useful idiots of their generation, have the slightest clue the hell that is going to rain down on them if they decide to try to take the country by force.
What we are discussing … good article
I used to be one of those “Democrats are my opponents, not my enemies” type of people. Not anymore. Committed leftists are our enemies, enemies of the country and just about everything good and just in the world. They have hated us for decades, but did their best to hide it as much as possible. They are no longer hiding it. We should accept their hate and give it back as hard as we can.
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2020/10/04/its-time-to-hate-them-back-n2577416
Committed leftists are our enemies
Yes. But how many of the 70,000,000 registered Democrats qualify as COMMITTED LEFTISTS? As far as I can tell from my observations and informal polling, of 70,000,000 Democrats I’d be surprised to find 2,000,000 with even a clue as to the structure of the Leftist political system. And I am being very very generous in that figure. Very generous.
This figure includes those in the Agenda Media, who use their positions of trust and their Constitutional defense against control to actively contribute to the Leftist cause, and elected Dem officials, of whom a percentage could be classified as committed Leftists.
Beneath that small percentage, going down the pyramid, there are a few million who are just hyper-emotional haters who love the Left because it validates their personality disorders and praises what society used to try to either correct or control, They are the voice of the Left. They are offensive, they are toxic and they are dangerous in their ability to influence the feelings and beliefs of people who find it hard to believe that anyone would LIE about such important stuff so they must be right. Mostly they are just loud. Again, I think the guess of “a few million” is way too many. When you look at the social media posts, I’d guess that the number of rabid haters who post vile vicious posts really number in the low thousands. Remember the tactic of retweeting to make a single comment suddenly appear to represent thousands or tens of thousands.
I’d guess that of the 70,000,000 or so registered Dems, well over 50,000,000 of them are just gullible virtue signalers, like those who voted for Obama to show their lack of racism. We forget that the most appealing lure of the Left is its promise that it is the short cut to the Higher Moral Ground—that by voting for a Dem someone is voting for fairness, for equality, against racism, against hatred, against poverty, and so on. This is a powerful appeal, and hard to walk away from. Back to my other post on conditioning—they get a sense of reward for the feeling that they are supporting “good things”. They depend on the dopamine rush of taking a stand for equality, which is how they view what they are doing. These people are not committed Leftists. These people don’t even know what “Leftist” means. They don’t watch political shows, they get their “news” from local TV and radio stations, they avoid what they call “politics” because they hate the bickering and rancor, and they float along on a stream of s**t provided by the leaders of the Left, mostly by the Agenda Media, just going with the flow but without any deep or serious commitment or understanding.
They are Legacy Dems, Dems because their parents were Dems, who have never analyzed or questioned their party before. Now it has become so contentious and offensive many ARE questioning it. Lumping them together into a single distasteful category is no smarter than the Dem leaders lumping all Republicans together as “deplorable”.
From Derek Hunter’s TownHall piece:
Best description of the current Democrat Party I’ve seen.
It’s not as if I fail to understand the Left, its tactics and its amazing surge in the past few years into overt violence, etc. I’ve been lecturing on the dangers of the Left and pointing out its strategies and incremental creep into acceptance in this country for years, right here on this blog.
One of the things I have tried to get through to people is that the approach of the Left has always been multilayered and multifacted, and had to be addressed the same way. Crickets.
Now that the Left’s violent aspect has taken center stage, people who have basically let this happen by ignoring the elements that let it get to this point are all ready to take to the streets, kill ’em all, etc. But they got to this point by using many different approaches, and if we have any hope of defeating them we have to be smart enough to do the same thing.
So fine—if your approach is to talk about violence meeting violence, that is a necessary aspect of dealing with them. But it is not only far from being the only one, it is one that will end up having a negative effect in the long run because it will portray both sides as equally violent and distasteful.
The Left did not get where it is through violence. The Left got where it is through the skillful use of propaganda and its understanding of human nature. That is how it built its base, the base upon which they now feel emboldened to show its violent face. If we just react to the violence, with more violence, to the belligerence just with more belligerence, and ignore the emotional appeals and rewards built into the establishment of that base and all we are going to do is try to crush it, instead of converting it.
One mistake I see with the belligerents on our side is the inability to recognize the many layers of Leftist involvement and commitment, and to treat them all as if they are represented by the rioters and Chuck and Nancy. If we don’t have the ability to identify the various levels and natures of Leftist support and address them individually then we don’t deserve to prevail
And we won’t.
And no, a different approach depending on which element of the Left we are addressing is not appeasement and it is not weakness.
It seems that few of the people cheerleading what they love about Trump’s combativeness understand that it is a lot more than just being belligerent—he understands that the people at the top have to be slapped down while at the same time those supporting them can sometimes be won over by appealing to them on a different level. I am merely saying that we have to be ready and able to do the same thing—to put up with nothing from the agitators and haters, but to tell the levels below them that we offer a much better alternative than the party that is abandoning them for communism. Trying to make sure that when they flee the Left all they see on our side is a big locked door with a sign on it saying “We have no use for you and you are not welcome” is not very productive.
Some of the strongest fighters for the Constitution and defenders of the Right are converts from the Democrat Party. I speak as one of those. Ronald Reagan was one. I suggest that while the belligerents are fighting and blustering and attacking, some element of our party should be sending the message “Come in and find shelter from the storm. Here is reason, here is logic, here is sanity, and here is acceptance for who you are not what you are.”
I think you understand the Left better than anyone and throughout the years you have exposed their hatred and incompetence. There is a faction on the right though, me included, that are done “understanding” the Left and if that includes collateral damage at this point, so be it.
Well, that “collateral damage” you find so acceptable could be the future of the nation or at the very least the loss of millions of new conservatives newly educated about the actual political decisions they are required to make and fighting for the preservation of the Constitution.
The most famous quotations on the art of war are from Sun Tzu and they have been respected for centuries. I think they still deserve to be considered. (BTW, I see a lot of these theories embedded in the ways Trump deals with adversaries.)
“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
“If his forces are united, separate them.”
“No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his
own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.”
“A kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again
into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.”
“It is the unemotional, reserved, calm, detached warrior who wins, not the hothead seeking vengeance and not the ambitious seeker of fortune.”
“He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish.”
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is noise before defeat.”
“One need not destroy one’s enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage.
I think any of these could spark discussion. For now I suggest “If his forces are united, separate them.” That is, while engaging the violent tip of the spear with even more force than they can exhibit, at the same time work to bring in as many of the unexamined base as possible. by “unexamined” I mean people who are just going along with what they have always done, what their parents and communities have done, without really examining the underlying principles.
Actually I don’t think there are many people who are undecided anymore. There is such a chasm between the two parties that there is very little left in the middle.
I disagree. While a large percentage might not be open to appeal, when you get to numbers I think there are a lot.
Are these among the Democrats we should consider as “enemies” and want to “destroy”?
C-SPAN changed their open phone line labels after an overwhelming number of Democratic viewers called on Wednesday night proclaiming their support for President Donald Trump in the upcoming election.
There is a wide range of reasons for Democrats doing something like this, or going to Trump rallies, and it is not always because they love the concept of politics as a cage match and admire snarling belligerence. I suggest that it is more due to the comparison of the ideas and policies of the two parties, and I doubt that stating that all Democrats are our enemies and we should strive to destroy them is going to encourage crossing that aisle and approaching us.
In 2016 Clinton received 65,844,610 votes, or about 2.8 million more than Trump. That is about .04% of the Democrat Party. Being very very basic here, if we were to subtract that 2.8 million from her 65,844,610 we would get close to 63,045,000 votes for her. If we added that 2.8 million to Trump’s official 62,979,636 votes that would bring him up to 65,779,636. So clearly dismissing the chance to win over fewer than .05% of Democrats merely by being informative and welcoming is a bad strategy. Why would we do that? Because it just feels good to kick them in the teeth and show them how tough we are?
Sorry, but being fed up with the history of Republicans beings spineless wimps never standing up for true conservative principles just doesn’t justify, in my mind, the political equivalent of poking ourselves in the eye just to make a point.
I’m all about balance. That is, kick ass when it needs to be kicked—-and kick it hard and kick it fast and make the ass-kicking so terrifying no one ever wants to risk going through it again. That is done by the ass-kicking element of the conservative movement. But there should be another element, that explains to confused legacy Dems that their party has moved into a bad and dangerous territory and why there is an option. We are appealing to black people that way—why not legacy Dems who aren’t out there shouting hate slogans and advocating for the death of the president or the overthrow of the government?
Not much time to talk till later this evening (I hope) but I think that times may be starting to change. Citizens of Portland are rising up to stop the riots, people are “walking away” from the radical left and as a parting note–an oldie but a goodie from none other than Reagan
Linked to it from the Daily Caller
Hundreds Of Trump Supporters Gather In DC For #WalkAway Rally
“Many of us have walked away from the radical left, we’ve walked away from the lies, the division, the hate, the violence, the vandalism, and we just want a more beautiful, more loving, more unified America,” Straka said.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/03/trump-supporters-gather-dc-walkaway-rally/
Linked to it from the Bongino Report
Reagan Warned Us About Today’s Democrats in 1964
https://rumble.com/valfev-reagan-warned-us-about-todays-democrats-in-1964-chilling.html?mref=22lbp&mc=56yab
There is such a chasm between the two parties that there is very little left in the middle.
It used to be the generally accepted consensus that the middle was around 20%. Rush was saying the other day (I don’t remember if it was just his opinion or if he was citing some research) that the “middle” is down to around 6-8%. That’s not a lot to work with.
But how many support Dems because (1) they have only heard one side, and (2) they don’t really understand what the Left really means?
I know I sound like a broken record, but we have absolutely no chance of advancing our agenda if we can’t explain it or get it out to the people. And we are absolutely awful at doing this.
For all the hoopla about Trump’s appeal, he is really a broad-brush kind of guy, dealing to a great extent in platitudes and generalities. That won’t appeal to a lot of people. The superficiality of so much of his message skips right over the entrenched belief systems of too many, who need something more definitive and specific. I’m thrilled that so many people are satisfied with the rather superficial appeals of Trump, and even more so to find that underneath it is some real meat and potatoes and commitment to the important stuff.
The Left just outsmarts us. When we started to use the word “socialist” at first they ridiculed it, but when we kept it up they just redefined it, so now it is so sanitized to so many Dems it means nothing more than generosity and caring for people. Now we toss out the word “Marxist” but without context or definition it is just another vague word few understand. Thank God for the riots, but we can’t count on the Left continuing to illustrate its true nature indefinitely, and we are going to have to get our act together and start communicating and educating.
I contend that this would be easier now, as so many legacy Dems are getting a little worried about the radicals. The key to solving any problem is to first find the weaknesses and then work on them. For example, the biggest weakness we have as Republicans, when wanting Dems to vote for us, is Trump’s personality. We could address that by planting the idea that making a major decision like who to vote for based on personality trivializes the process and is not how really smart people make decisions—but we ignore this elephant in the room, sneering at those who don’t like Trump or just dismissing them.
I contend that a lot of those who are considered to be firm or committed are really just paralyzed, stuck between two unpleasant choices, and that simply making our side less unpleasant would provide a safety valve for them, a way to slide gradually away from Dem indoctrination into a more rational and conservative way of approaching politics. Given the gift of radical hubris we ought to be able to start whittling away at that entrenched Dem side of the aisle. But no, we just write about how awful they are and how we would like to just get rid of them all and how we are kind of looking forward to a chance to mow them down.
We need to take responsibility for the fact that some people are simply stuck in a no-man’s land because we are too dense or too bullheaded or too distracted to offer them a landing place. Sun Tzu said “When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.”
The radicals are doing our job for us, and instead of taking advantage of it some of us are blustering about how we need to act all strong and tough and belligerent because some people really like that. Fine. Some do. But we have enough people in our party to let the belligerents bellow and stomp their feet and prove how “strong” they are while others could, and should, be creating an off ramp for those who want to get off the Dem superhighway to hell.
but we ignore this elephant in the room, sneering at those who don’t like Trump or just dismissing them.
Here I agree with you 100%. Every time I encounter someone who says they hate Trump, I always ask why. Most people, it turns out, don’t like his personality, his demeanor (yeah, I know, I was shocked too), and they let that get in the way of evaluating his performance. When asked what he’s done that they don’t like it’s usually crickets. I love most of what he’s accomplished and the fact that he’s only the second president in my lifetime (besides Reagan) who actually kept his campaign promises in spite of overwhelming opposition the likes of which we’ve never seen before. I’ve actually gotten several people to look at Trump in a whole new light. Unfortunately they’ve been Republicans, not Democrats, but……………..
This is odd. Haven’t seen this reported on MSNBC:
Some 400 members of an armed black militia brandished semi-automatic weapons in a show of force in Louisiana on Saturday as they protested a recent fatal shooting of a black man by local police. The NFAC, or ‘Not F****** Around Coalition,’ is an Atlanta-based militia made up primarily of former military veterans. The organization has frequently staged processions and marches in several cities that have been flashpoints of racial tension these past few months. According to its leader, John ‘Grandmaster Jay’ Johnson, the NFAC’s three main missions is to protect the black community; self-police the black community; and educate the community about their rights as gun owners. The militia members were marching to protest the August 21 shooting death of Trayford Pellerin. Police claimed officers shot Pellerin after he was seen walking into a convenience store with a knife. The shooting on the night of August 21 was captured on video, and the state ACLU condemned what it described as a ‘horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a black person.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8802817/Hundreds-members-black-militia-raise-guns-Louisiana-rally.html
It’s way past time to stop treating the ACLU as a defender of civil rights and liberty. It has become an arm of the Left and has to be identified as such. For a couple of decades I have called it the American Criminal Liberties Union.
When I got my certificate to apply for a concealed carry permit one of the things we studied was knife attacks, and saw a video of how fast a knife-wielding attacker can cover ground and how quickly he can kill you. It was a very scary video. Police officers know this, have been trained on the dangers of knives and have seen videos like this. We, and they, are taught “If someone comes at you with a knife, shoot him. Period.”
A knife-wielding man can reach someone 20 or 30 feet away in one to two seconds to cut a throat or deliver a fatal wound. There is simply not time to dither, and it can be a fatal mistake to think a knife is less of a threat than a gun.
Standing by and watching a man with a knife enter a convenience store, after following him on foot after he was reported as threatening people with that knife, would have endangered everyone in that store and if anyone was hurt because the man with the knife was not stopped the blame would have been, rightly, on those who let it happen.
Again, to get back on my soapbox, if we had a media presence we could and should show videos of how quickly a person with a knife can cover ground and injure or kill someone, and show some photos of knife wounds. A five minute explanation of why police take knives so seriously, comments from doctors on how serious knife wounds are, and an explanation of how the job of a police officer is to protect the public more than to protect an armed person showing signs of violence should be shown every time someone starts to howl “But he was only carrying a KNIFE!!”
I don’t think I have heard a simple declarative statement from the Kenosha police department that the job of the police was to protect the people onsite who were not armed and who could be harmed by the person with a weapon. Period. We never get a simple declarative statement that the officers are tasked with protecting the public from armed people who indicate that they are violent or pose a danger to others—not that their first obligation is to protect the person with the weapon.
So Trump is being discharged and returning to White House tomorrow. Can we stop wearing masks now?
I am reading Killing Washington about the revolutionary war and back then the country was divided as well. A third of the country wanted independence, a third wanted to remain loyal to King George and a third was indifferent. The folks wanting independence did their best to convince the indifferent colonists but that effort became worthless when the Red Coats ramped up their attacks. I think that’s where we are at now in this country.
I don’t think there is any comparison at all. Back then we were asking people to turn their backs on their entire history, going back many generations, of loyalty to the Crown. Here we are asking people (or would be, if we would stop rattling our sabers and yearning for a good bloodletting) to remain loyal to the system under which they grew up, going back many generations, and to resist its subversion and eventual destruction. If you read the initial letters to the king from the men who went on to lead the revolution, they pledged their love and loyalty to the king, asking only for some control over their own lives and governance. They only went to the extreme of revolution because it was all that was left to them—that or capitulation to unacceptable terms. If we refuse to offer a reasonable alternative to the system that is starting to bother some Democrats, we run the same risk of a violent division.
Are you saying the “indifferent” colonists remained indifferent and uncommitted even after the British increased their controls?
Here we are in an established nation governed by a system almost 250 years old, under attack from an outside political system which has infiltrated our country, an attack promoted by a relative few and allowed by the base of a political party which is not committed to the insurgency or even knowledgeable of it or even aware of it. The roots are still deep, even in most of the Democrat Party—we just need to weed out the competing superficial emotions that are distracting many of its base.
I merely contend that when we condemn an entire demographic for the behaviors and beliefs of a few we are merely acting as the flip side of the same coin as the Left. And that doing so cuts us off from support from people who could become valuable allies, if we were not so belligerent and biased we simply slam the door in their faces and tell them they are despicable and our choice is to simply eliminate them.
The indifferent colonists became emboldened by the conviction of the rebels and yes when King George began imposing more restrictions, they eventually admired the conviction and determination of the rebels and joined them.
I am of the mind that the conservative movement has received more support and admiration from those undecideds through fighting rather then thru advocation. Talk is cheap. Let’s show them who we are rather than telling them. That’s my opinion
Well, then we get to semantics—–you seem to define “fighting” as belligerence and others more as firmness and conviction without backing down.
I am all in favor of belligerence as a tactic, if employed selectively and only in some instances, where it is most appropriate. As a steady diet it soon becomes hard to tell from the overheated rhetoric of the Left. And it is too close a cousin to bickering, which drives many people away.
Let’s show them who we are rather than telling them
A great idea. Too bad we never do it. I have yet to see any conservative ask any Leftist why he or she prefers a government where all the power resides at the top, with a few elites, with little authority left to the states or to the people.
OK—so that might be a little too esoteric for the average dialogue. How about “Trump didn’t (fill in the blanks—–impose national mandates about Covid, or send in National Guard troops without a request from a governor) BECAUSE HE IS FOLLOWING THE CONSTITUTION. That’s not too complicated, and it might even lead to a quick side trip to the 10th Amendment.
We don’t tell them who we are, much less show them who we are. We fight their battles, on their battlegrounds, with their weapons. That is, Identity Politics.
“Showing them who we are” is a platitude, if it doesn’t include explaining why we are doing the “showing”. And if “who we are” is just people who are louder and more emphatic than the other side, without a coherent message tying it all together, we are just the flip side of the same coin.
Trump does stand up for a lot of important principles, and that may influence and attract people who understand those principles, but until we start to explain them so others can see why these things are being said and done we are just another noise machine to many of the people who would join us if we would just explain what the hell we are all about and why.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m about a half step behind Cluster on the ready for violence scale. My line in the sand is before a truckload of BLM/ANTIFA thugs comes up my driveway with guns and torches; and definitely before “just kill ’em all and let God sort it out”, but I’m not sure yet how much before. I suspect I’ll know when it happens. And no, I’m not of the mindset that EVERY registered Democrat is the enemy, but I’m also unsure as to how to reach them before it’s too late. First of all, I don’t associate with very many Democrats, so there’s that.
An awful lot depends on what happens on November 3rd, and they’re are a number of possible scenarios WRT the Presidency, the House, the Senate, and even whether or not Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed either before the election or after the election. I really do think we’re headed for a violent confrontation at some point. The country is divided more than at any time since 1860. If Trump wins, it’ll happen immediately — they’ve promised that. If Biden wins, it probably won’t happen until the Left starts to implement the most radical parts of their agenda.
I’m with Amazona on winning hearts and minds up to a point, and we’re running out of days to where that’s simply no longer relevant or achievable. The “legacy Democrats” as she describes them are going to be faced with a tough choice, and it may very well be that the radicals in their own party will make that choice for them; ie., “you’re either with us or against us.”
I am tired of winning hearts and minds. If these people still can’t see the difference between the Patriots and the rioters/Left then I don’t have much hope for them. It’s like trying to convince your spouse you’re not cheating and they just refuse to believe you and continue the accusations. At some point you just don’t care anymore and decide to move on. That’s where I am at.
I relate a lot of your attitude, Cluster, to religion—that is, to the fact that there are so many Christians in the world is because people went out into the world and carried the message of Christ. Without that effort, they would not know and therefore would not believe—but some would say “If these people can’t see the difference between believing in Christ and worshiping trees then I have no use for them, and I’m moving on”.
Every single thing any of us knows was learned. So when someone learns the wrong way we can either dismiss them as inferior and not worth our time and energy or we can at least consider that some of them, anyway, would be open to learning a different way to think, or do things.
The Right did not reach out to me, or evangelize me. The Right did absolutely nothing to try to reach me, or appeal to me in any way. Bill Clinton did the job the Right should have been doing, and he and the inherent dishonesty of his supporters pushed me away from what I refer to as my “unexamined Liberalism”—that is, I was not a Lib due to a thought process, but simply due to inertia and ignorance. It was just what my peer group did. But fortunately when I was looking for truth, and a political community, it was during the Clinton years and the Right was not yet into beating on their chests and bellowing their commitment to brawling as an expression of political commitment. So there was a space in there for me to reflect and study. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to arrive at a strong Constitutional Conservatism if I had to face a hostile Republican Party identifying me as an enemy and rather gleefully looking forward to fighting me in the streets. I was not a radical, I was not hostile, I was just uninformed and confused.
I was a young adult when Kent State happened and I still remember how scary that was, because to young Liberals it felt like an “Us or Them” moment. I can guarantee that if something like that were to happen now, without us taking the time to lay down a foundation of understanding of the principles for which we are fighting (going a lot deeper than MAGA) the result is likely to be more division and a wider chasm that might never be bridged.
“…it may very well be that the radicals in their own party will make that choice for them; ie., “you’re either with us or against us”” and if that means they just stay home because both choices are so unpleasant to them that is not a win for us but at least it removes some of the opposition. Like a forfeited game, it’s still in the win column, but it’s not the same as a real victory. It’s just such a waste, and so unnecessary. There is no reason we can’t and shouldn’t be a beacon of welcome and reason to people ready to make a change, and snarling that it is too late because they have been on the wrong side for too long just sounds unproductive.
You are right, we are running out of time between now and the election. We should have been working on this since January of 2017. But we can still get the message out, if we can figure out how to be coherent about it. Charlie Kirk is a great example of how to reach out to the opposition and the undecided, and he is really making a difference. It can be done, it should be done.
And if Trump wins and the Left explodes into violence, as they have promised they will do, maybe they will drive some more Dems away from the fold.
As for thinking of me as an appeaser, I would be quite happy to see a whole cluster of rioters simply mowed down and hauled off in a Dumpster. They are the enemy and deserve no quarter. They are trying to destroy my country and I have no use for them. I would be happy to pile Pelosi and Schumer and Nadler and Schiff and Vindman and Comey, et al, on top of them, because they are traitors. Not even open adversaries, but sneaky underhanded infiltrators using their positions of trust and power to undermine their own country, making them worse than those who at least stand out in the open and fight. I am easily as much of a hardass as any you out there counting your ammo and stocking up on Hoppe’s. I just don’t have tunnel vision, and have some different perspectives based on different experiences that I think are worth considering.
The movement requires all types and thankfully there are people like you Amazona if only to lessen the slaughter lol. I don’t disagree with the need to expand thru reason and that is ultimately how we win but I also realize that the Left has decided to take this “disagreement” to the next level this year by impeaching the President, weaponizing a flu virus, creating more lies about black victims, burning down our cities and in fact killing people. I never thought I would see this day and my patience is gone. Let’s win this election and see what happens.
My point is that there is The Left, which is virulent and toxic and anti-American and violent and in general quite dangerous and must be stopped at all costs, and then there is the unaware lower-case little-letters ‘left’ of the majority of those who vote for Dems, who do so not because they want to support virulence and toxicity and anti-Americanism and violence but just because they always have, and who just don’t pay attention.
For those of us who PAY ATTENTION!! this is hard to imagine, but there are millions and millions of people who get what “news” they get from half an hour of network nonsense once a day, whose refrain is “I hate politics” and who remain so unconnected and uninformed it is hard for people like us to believe. That network nonsense doesn’t say a word about the ugly reality of Leftist governance, it never touches on the sordid history of Leftist tyranny, it doesn’t educate about the incremental creep of that tyranny—but it does have a lot to say about how stupid Trump is, how horrible his administration is, how racist he is, etc. And the theme of every report and story is that Dems represent what is good and Republicans represent what is bad.
These people are walking talking examples of GIGO. They love the pretty lady on their nightly “news” show who shows pictures of her new puppy and smiles all the time, and would never believe that she would lie to them to emotionally manipulate them. Sure, they are intellectually lazy–but they are not malignant, aside from the fact that their choice to remain ignorant means they often enable malignity. And it is their desire to be good people combined with that laziness that makes them such easily manipulated puppets of the Left, which teaches them from childhood that merely paying lip service to things that they feel are good, are even noble, makes them good people. I’ve said it thousands of times—Liberalism is the short cut to the Higher Moral Ground.
My belief is that when you find something that is a good intention, even if it is distorted and focused in the wrong direction, it can often be redirected.
I’m frustrated with these sheeple. I don’t even have much respect for them. I want to shake them till their pants fray, and yell “Wake up and pull your head out!” to them as they blindly allow themselves to be herded by their masters. But they are not the hard core, they are not the ideologues, they are not the activists, they are not the voices online howling for blood and violence and overthrow of the government.
I speculate that if through some miracle all the Agenda Media were replaced overnight with legitimate journalists who not only report objectively but provide context of Constitutional law and unedited history most of the sheeple class would change. The hardcore would not. It is entrenched and while the masses would be shifting as they became more educated and aware the ideologues would try to take down the new media and regain control over the minds of the sheeple but would remain committed to their ideology.
So we all know very well by now the demographics that are most susceptible to the virus and we are all watching a 74 year old admittedly a little over weight man have very mild symptoms and return to work and we all know that anyone under 70 has a 99.4% chance of survival. So what does DeBlasio do?
Non-essential businesses, as well as public and private schools, in 9 New York City ZIP codes may shut down this week due to a recent spike in coronavirus cases, Mayor de Blasio says.
We won’t have to win hearts and minds. The undecideds will soon be beating the hearts and minds of the authoritarian Left.