The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types — the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. – G K Chesterton
I saw earlier today a bit of a Blue Check Never Trump True Conservative discussion, the gist of which was a division between those True Cons who say they want to keep fighting in the realm of practical politics and those who are throwing up their hands and will just observe from the outside, as it were. To be clear, this is different from those True Conservatives who have now become mere Democrats (Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, etc). These people still argue in favor of at least some conservative ideals (though I’ve noticed in all of them a softening on issues such as gun rights and abortion) but they simply hate Donald Trump and they despise his legions of supporters. Some, like Jonah Goldberg, have now given up – they’ve written us off, you see? We’re not just Deplorable, but Irredeemable. Others, like Dan MClaughlin haven’t quite given up on us, but they still hate Trump and figure their job – their duty! – is to ween us away from Trump so that a pure, clean Conservatism can revive and… and…
Do what? I mean, what really?
The quote above tells you what: this clean, pure Conservatism will merely ratify what the Progressives did a few years ago. It is all Conservatism has ever done ever since it first arose in response to the enormities of the French Revolution. What the Goldbergs and McLaughlins are aiming at, if anything, is their idealized version of Conservatism circa 1977. If you recall (and some of us are just old enough to remember) it was going to dismantle the New Deal and restore the old American ideal of rugged self reliance. It was going to restore order in the streets, discipline in the classroom and the rule of law in the country. It was led by some very high intellects and, of course, in Ronald Reagan it had a leader who could articulate the ideology in a way that regular folks responded to. And, of course, for all the things that had happened from, say, 1967 to 1977, we were still living in the America our grandfathers would recognize. The seeds of social disintegration were firmly planted and being vigorously cultivated in popular culture, but it hadn’t fully taken hold. Most people were still living in families and there hadn’t been a divorce. Most wives still stayed at home. Most jobs included a nice pension to retire on. We still were a manufacturing powerhouse.
This old Conservatism swept very famously into power in 1980 and here was the big chance – we had the White House, the Senate and a shell-shocked Democrat House majority which still contained a fairly large number of center-right Democrats. We had our matchless Ronald Reagan to lead the charge. And what did we get? Tax cuts and a defense build up.
That’s it. We didn’t even get rid of the Department of Education which had only been created the year before Reagan came in. We couldn’t even dispense with that boondoggle for the teacher’s unions. There was no push back against the social disintegration and no effort was made, even on the smallest level, to stop the hard left’s march through our institutions. But this is still what the Never Trump True Conservatives want us to go back to – to something that ultimately failed.
I’m sorry, guys, but you had your chance. The True Conservatives of 40 years ago messed up. They lost. They conserved nothing. Now its 2021 and there are no rules or norms or even an agreement on basic things such as what is right and wrong. We’ve got a Democrat party enthralled to whomever is the most woke at the moment on the Left. They are pushing programs which will disenfranchise us and force us underground. They are striving to set up an electoral system where no matter what, we lose. Led by whomever is most lunatic at the moment, the Democrat party is leading us, step by step, into a Bolshevik future. It doesn’t matter if Pelosi or Biden don’t mean to lead us there – it is where we’re shoved because inside the Democrat party are hard-left, anti-American, hate-filled lunatics who ultimately set the agenda. At best, the most insane proposals get pushed to the back of the line for a while – but they never get rejected and a few years down the road, they are brought back up to be implemented as if it were common knowledge that they had to be implemented.
We won’t ever go back to the Old America. It is done. Finished. Kaput. A nice memory of days gone by, never to return. What sort of America we will have is what the argument is about – and we are here deciding if it will be a Bolshevik America, or a non-Bolshevik America. It doesn’t matter that you don’t like Trump. It doesn’t matter that you don’t like his most ardent supporters. It is either Trump and his people, or some purple-haired radical activist getting you fired because you didn’t say the correct words fast enough. I mean, seriously: take your pick. Whatever Trump and his Trumpsters are up to, they aren’t going to force you to say things you know are untrue. The left will. They’ll make it a condition for you to be able to hold a job, carry out financial transactions, own a home. You can try to fool yourself – but I don’t believe you can, really – that they won’t go for the most radical of the current proposals, but you’re stupid if you do. You know they will. What was insane on the left a mere five years ago is dogmatic Party Line today.
Anyone who wants to be free has to get in line here. I don’t like a lot of things. But there is only one side which wants to force me to say things I know aren’t true in order to live. I already can’t say a hundred things I know are true – as in indisputable, scientific facts – because if I say them I risk social destruction. The next step is to force me to say lies. I don’t want to go there. I just want to live my life free of coercion. I’m not asking for much. But I can only get that – I can only possibly get that – by signing on to Donald Trump and his supporters. Only they have the chance of stopping the imposition of totalitarian dictatorship in the United States. It isn’t what I would have preferred. I can think of lots of better possibilities. But the only thing I got his him and them so, I’m in. Because I’m not stupid.
Blogs For Victory 
I just want to live my life free of coercion
There’s a bumper sticker for you.
I think a lot of our decline is due to our dependence on slogans, Identity Politics and ISSUES.. I got so sick and tired of the preening about “Conservative VALUES:—which were distilled into anything that could have the word “VALUES” stuck on the end, such as “family VALUES” and so on.
I remember getting into a squabble with someone here on the blog a few years ago—it may have been the late Neocon—when I said I thought we needed to return to the Big Tent approach to the GOP, the approach that said if you share the same political beliefs about the best blueprint for governing the country you are a conservative even if some of your ISSUES are Left-leaning. My argument was that someone could support gay marriage, be a Wiccan, even support abortion, but if that person also agreed that those issues were not in the realm of federal authority he should be welcomed into the fold of Conservatism. And the response was outrage, it was I DON’T WANT PEOPLE LIKE THAT IN MY PARTY, I ONLY WANT PEOPLE WHO SHARE MY VALUES.
So we as a movement winnowed out those who were not in lockstep with a rigid set of VALUES and told them they needed to go down the street and vote for the Other Guy because we didn’t want people like them in our party. Really, who could think that “We don’t want people like you in our party” is a recipe for growth?
When I started to analyze this I realized that we needed to set aside everything but POLITICAL values, as far as opening our movement up. But too many people think using words like “socialist” or “democracy” means they are talking about politics, that if they use words like “Progressive” or “Conservative” they are talking about politics. But they’re not. They are talking about words that are at some distance from the true nuts and bolts of how to run a country, which is what politics is all about.
Now the New Democrat Party is giving us some really good words to use—words like “coercion” for example. But we need to use them carefully, and provide context. And we need to shift from labels to ideas.
BTW, I don’t agree with your Chesterson quotation. I know that a lot of people equate “conservative” with “conservation” as in conserving tradition and so on. And there might be an element of that, but if that is the focus of the word it is misleading. If we just say we want to conserve the tradition of true Constitutional governance, for example, we can’t just leave that hanging, we have to provide context, such as explaining it as the restriction of federal power to only what is delegated to it with most authority left to the states.
I was visiting with a friend today and of course the mess that is President* Biden came up. I said that with all his faults, Donald Trump had a superpower, and that was X-ray vision—he could see into the guts of government, he could understand, intellectually and intuitively, how government works. How the Left infiltrates the workings of government. He could see, without really trying, how the gears mesh, how the systems interact, and that meant he could see how to sabotage the Left’s takeover of the inner workings of government.
So with one hand, so to speak, he did the PR equivalent of pretending to throw a ball for a dog. He would toss out an imaginary ball—– an inflammatory comment, or a tweet—– and the hounds would go howling off into the woods after his distraction. And with the other hand he would tinker with the gears. He understood that the mechanism of Leftist governance lies in the bureaucracy of the political appointee who burrows into the fabric of an agency unnoticed and then controls the direction of that agency. His shorthand for that was the Deep State, but his understanding went way deeper than the superficial labeling. So he shut off a revenue stream here, he slashed a staff size there. That’s what he was doing when he moved the office of the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colorado.
Donald Trump was playing Jenga with the Left’s hold on government, and that is why he had to go. The Left, the leaders of the Left, don’t just hate Trump—they fear him. They saw him dismantling the elaborate shadow structures they had been building for decades and knew that another four years would mean they were destroyed, Oh, the superficial trappings of the Left would still be in place, the obedient little puppets and howling mouthpieces, but the underlying structures would be weakened or even destroyed.
We can do our part by undermining the state and local level controls the Left has in place, from school boards to mayors to statehouses. I am hoping we can put together a coherent national approach to this, a synergistic interaction among different states so the same messages are conveyed across the country. The Left is giving us what we need to do this—the heavy-handed oppression based on the pandemic panic, the coercion of the Cancel movement, the overreaches of the giddy Leftists who think they have a mandate to do whatever they want.
Inclusiveness and tolerance at it’s best.
Let me see if I have this right: People from the movement known for vandalism, destruction of private property and leaving behind piles of nasty waste and debris are promising a prominent hotel chain they won’t be staying there from now on—-and they think this will upset the hotel chain?
And they think the hotel chain will be distressed by the idea of only catering to people who pay their bills, respect other peoples’ property and clean up after themselves?
It would be funny if it weren’t so sadly insane
If both sides played this game, then you could just shrug it off, but it’s only the Left that does it.
Have the Dems run out of things to whine about? Getting there…
I think the ridicule for their ongoing dependence on Trump even in the face of two months of silence from him has gotten to them, so they are looking for other things to be OUTRAGED about.
Right now it is Mr. Potatohead, a silly kerfluffle turned into a joke by Don Jr. that was also bait for CNN’s own Mr. Potatohead, Brian Stelter. ( “If Hasbro really wanted a gender-neutral Mr. Potato Head so badly, they should just slap a picture of CNN’s Brian Stelter on the cover of their next potato.” ) So the effort to drag a children’s game into the transsexual muck bounced back at them, and it was funny.
To me the funniest reaction was the focus on the potatohead imagery, and overlooking the “gender neutral” part of the comment, which I thought was the best part.
Now it is fussin’ and frettin’ about the term “Democrat” instead of “Democratic”. Oh, so they are finally getting around to that. Though they have dragged out McCarthyism (which is funny because that was all about being careful to not let Communists into our government) my own memory of the reference was when Rush Limbaugh said that a party that is against democracy should not call itself “democratic” and he started calling it the “Democrat Party”. I agree, and have done so ever since.
One of my favorite whines about the use of the phrase “Democrat Party”: “‘Republic’ — without the ‘a-n’ — isn’t derogatory. It’s known as a ‘God word’ in American politics, just as small-d ‘democratic’ is, meaning a revered cultural concept that’s universally understood.
“The truncated ‘Democrat,’ on the other hand, ‘rhymes with rat, bureaucrat, kleptocrat, plutocrat. ‘Crats’ are bad. So you can see why they do it.”
“Crats’ are bad. So you can see why they do it”. Wahhhh wahhhhh wahhhhh
Personally, I say “Democrat Party” because to me “Democratic Party” is another hijacking of a word to try to slap a veneer of decency onto an indecent political structure, much like the hijacking of “liberal” and “progressive”.
Another baseless allegation of election fraud:
Massive 78% Of Mail-In Ballots Proved Fraudulent, Judge Orders Election Do-Over.
I’ve had discussions with people asking if I intend to get “the” vaccine. This article does a ice job of detailing why I have no intention of ever considering it, even if a little repetitive.
1.) It’s not a vaccine. A vaccine by definition provides immunity to a disease. This does not provide immunity to anything. In a best-case scenario, it merely reduces the chance of getting a severe case of a virus if one catches it. Hence, it is a medical treatment, not a vaccine. I do not want to take a medical treatment for an illness I do not have.
2.) The drug companies, politicians, medical establishment, and media have joined forces to universally refer to this as a vaccine when it is not one, with the intention of manipulating people into feeling safer about undergoing a medical treatment. Because they are being deceitful, I do not trust them, and want nothing to do with their medical treatment.
3.) The presumed benefits of this medical treatment are minimal and would not last long in any case. The establishment acknowledges this, and is already talking about additional shots and ever-increasing numbers of new “vaccines” that would be required on a regular basis. I refuse to turn myself into a chronic patient who receives injections of new pharmaceutical products on a regular basis simply to reduce my chances of getting a severe case of a virus that these injections do not even prevent.
4.) I can reduce my chances of getting a severe case of a virus by strengthening my immune system naturally. In the event I catch a virus, there are vitamins and well-established drugs that have had wonderful results in warding off the illness, without the risks and unknowns of this medical treatment.
5.) The establishment insists that this medical treatment is safe. They cannot possibly know this because the long-term effects are entirely unknown, and will not be known for many years. They may speculate that it is safe, but it is disingenuous for them to make such a claim that cannot possibly be known. Because they are being disingenuous, I do not trust them, and I want no part of their treatment.
6.) The drug companies have zero liability if anything goes wrong, and cannot be sued. Same for the politicians who are pushing this treatment. I will not inject myself with a new, experimental medical device when the people behind it accept no liability or responsibility if something goes wrong. I will not risk my health and my life when they refuse to risk anything.
7.) Israel’s Prime Minister has openly admitted that the Israeli people are the world’s laboratory for this experimental treatment. I am not interested in being a guinea pig or donating my body to science.
8.) Israel agreed to share medical data of its citizens with a foreign drug company as a fundamental part of their agreement to receive this treatment. I never consented for my personal medical data to be shared with any such entity, nor was I even asked. I will not contribute to this sleazy enterprise.
9.) The executives and board members at Pfizer are on record that they have not taken their own treatment, despite all the fanfare and assurances. They are claiming that they would consider it unfair to “cut the line”. This is a preposterous excuse, and it takes an unbelievable amount of chutzpah to even say such a thing. Such a “line” is a figment of their own imagination; if they hogged a couple of injections for themselves no one would cry foul. In addition, billionaires with private jets and private islands are not known for waiting in line until hundreds of millions of peasants all over the world go first to receive anything these billionaires want for themselves.
10.) The establishment media has accepted this preposterous excuse without question or concern. Moreover, they laud Pfizer’s executives for their supposed self-sacrifice in not taking their own experimental treatment until we go first. Since they consider us such fools, I do not trust them, and do not want their new treatment. They can have my place in line. I’ll go to the very back of the line.
Three facts that must be put together:
11.) Bill Gates is touting these vaccines as essential to the survival of the human race.
Bill Gates believes the world has too many people and needs to be “depopulated”.
Bill Gates, perhaps the richest man in the world, has also not been injected. No rush.
Uh, no. I’ll pass on any medical treatments he wants me to take.
12.) The establishment has been entirely one-sided in celebrating this treatment. The politicians and media are urging people to take it as both a moral and civic duty. The benefits of the treatment are being greatly exaggerated, the risks are being ignored, and the unknowns are being brushed aside. Because they are being deceitful and manipulative, I will not gamble my personal wellbeing on their integrity.
13.) There is an intense propaganda campaign for people to take this treatment. Politicians and celebrities are taking selfies of themselves getting injected (perhaps in some cases pretending to get injected), the media is hyping this as the coolest, smartest, most happy and fun thing to do. It is the most widespread marketing campaign in history. This is not at all appropriate for any medical treatment, let alone a brand new one, and it makes me recoil.
14.) The masses are following in tow, posting pictures of themselves getting injected with a drug, feeding the mass peer pressure to do the same. There is something very alarming and sick about this, and I want no part of it. I never took drugs just because “everyone’s doing it” and it’s cool. I’m certainly not going to start now.
15.) Those who raise concerns about this medical treatment are being bullied, slandered, mocked, censored, ostracized, threatened, and fired from their jobs. This includes medical professionals who have science-based concerns about the drug and caregivers who have witnessed people under their charge suffering horrible reactions and death shortly after being injected. When the establishment is purging good people who risk everything simply to raise concerns about a new medical treatment – even if they don’t outright oppose it – I will trust these brave people over the establishment every time. I cannot think of a single similar case in history when truth and morality turned out to be on the side of the establishment.
16.) This is the greatest medical experiment in the history of the human race.
17.) It is purposely not being portrayed as the greatest medical experiment in the history of the human race, and the fact that it is a medical experiment at all is being severely downplayed.
18.) Were they up front with the masses, very few would agree to participate in such an experiment. Manipulating the masses to participate in a medical experiment under false pretenses violates the foundations of medical ethics and democratic law. I will not allow unethical people who engage in such conduct to inject me with anything.
19.) The medical establishment is not informing people about any of this. They have become marketing agents for an experimental drug, serving huge companies and politicians who have made deals with them. This is a direct conflict with their mandate to concern themselves exclusively with the wellbeing of the people under their care. Since the medical establishment has become corrupted, and has become nothing more than a corporate and political tool, I do not trust the experimental drug they want so badly to inject me with.
20.) We are being pressured in various ways to get injected, which violates medical ethics and the foundations of democratic society. The best way to get me not to do something is to pressure me to do it.
21.) The government has sealed their protocol related to the virus and treatments for THIRTY YEARS. This is information that the public has a right to know, and the government has a responsibility to share. What are they covering up? Do they really expect me to believe that everything is kosher about all this, and that they are concerned first and foremost with my health? The last time they did this was with the Yemenite Children Affair. If you’re not familiar with it, look it up. Now they’re pulling the same shtick. They didn’t fool me the first time, and they’re definitely not fooling me now.
22.) The government can share our personal medical data with foreign corporations, but they won’t share their own protocol on the matter with us? I’m out.
23.) The establishment has recruited doctors, rabbis, the media, and the masses to harangue people who don’t want to get injected with a new drug. We are being called the worst sort of names. We are being told that we believe in crazy conspiracies, that we are against science, that we are selfish, that we are murderers, that we don’t care about the elderly, that it’s our fault that the government continues to impose draconian restrictions on the public. It’s all because we don’t want to get injected with an experimental treatment, no questions asked. We are even being told that we have a religious obligation to do this, and that we are grave sinners if we do not. They say that if we do not agree to get injected, we should be forced to stay inside our homes forever and be ostracized from public life.
This is horrific, disgusting, a perversion of common sense, and morality. It makes me recoil, and only further cements my distrust of these people and my opposition to taking their experimental drug. How dare they?
24.) I know of many people who got injected, but none of them studied the science in depth, carefully weighed the potential benefits against the risks, compared this option to other alternatives, was truly informed, and decided this medical treatment was the best option for them. On the contrary, they got injected because of the hype, the propaganda, the pressure, the fear, blind trust in what “the majority of experts” supposedly believed (assuming THEY all studied everything in depth and were completely objective, which is highly dubious), blind trust in what certain influential rabbis/priests urged them to do (ditto the above), or hysterical fear that the only option was getting injected or getting seriously ill from the virus. When I see mass hysteria and cult-like behavior surrounding a medical treatment, I will be extremely suspicious and avoid it.
25.) The drug companies have a long and glorious history of causing mass carnage with wonder drugs they thrust on unsuspecting populations, even after serious problems had already become known. Instead of pressing the pause button and halting the marketing of these drugs until these issues could be properly investigated, the drug companies did everything in their power to suppress the information and keep pushing their products. When companies and people have demonstrated such gross lack of concern for human life, I will not trust them when they hype a new wonder drug. This isn’t our first rodeo.
26.) Indeed, the horror stories are already coming in at warp speed, but the politicians are not the least bit concerned, the medical establishment is brushing them aside as unrelated or negligible, the media is ignoring it, the drug companies are steaming ahead at full speed, and those who raise a red flag continue to be bullied, censored, and punished. Clearly my life and my wellbeing are not their primary concern. I will not be their next guinea pig in their laboratory. I will not risk being the next “coincidence”.
27.) Although many people have died shortly after getting injected – including perfectly healthy young people – we are not allowed to imply that the injection had anything to do with it. Somehow this is anti-science and will cause more people to die. I believe that denying any possible link, abusing people who speculate that there might be a link, and demonstrating not the slightest curiosity to even explore if there might be a link is what is anti-science and could very well cause more people to die. These same people believe I am obligated to get injected as well. No freaking thanks.
28.) I am repulsed by the religious, cult-like worship of a pharmaceutical product, and will not participate in this ritual.
29.) My “healthcare” provider keeps badgering me to get injected, yet they have provided me no information on this treatment or any possible alternatives. Everything I know I learned from others outside the establishment. Informed consent has become conformed consent. I decline.
30.) I see all the lies, corruption, propaganda, manipulation, censorship, bullying, violation of medical ethics, lack of integrity in the scientific process, suppression of inconvenient adverse reactions, dismissal of legitimate concerns, hysteria, cult-like behavior, ignorance, closed-mindedness, fear, medical and political tyranny, concealment of protocols, lack of true concern for human life, lack of respect for basic human rights and freedoms, perversion of the Torah/Bible and common sense, demonization of good people, the greatest medical experiment of all time being conducted by greedy, untrustworthy, godless people, the lack of liability for those who demand I risk everything…I see all this and I have decided they can all have my place in line. I will put my trust in God. I will use the mind He blessed me with and trust my natural instincts. Which leads to the final reason which sums up why I will not get “vaccinated.”
31.) The whole thing stinks.
What you said. Brilliant analysis