I watched the Netflix documentary on Waco last night and, first off, definitely worth watching. It doesn’t judge at all: it presents the sequence of events interspersed with interviews with participants on both sides. It lets you make up you own mind about what happened. It all pretty much confirmed the views I formed at the time.
Koresh was a religious lunatic leading a group of suckers. Dime a dozen as far as that goes. It did bring to mind why, once upon a time, the Catholic Church burned heretics…when one female Davidian was talking about how she had been chosen by Koresh to have sex with him it clearly showed that her burning desire for personal union with God – which is supposed to be provided to us in the Eucharist – was warped by Koresh into him getting sexual favors. People do yearn for God: mountebanks are clever at providing something which seems like it. The show did get into the accusations of sexual abuse by Koresh towards minors but, at the end of the day, there never emerged much evidence of it – there’s a chance that it happened, but we’ll never know for certain. The accusation of physical abuse (beatings and the like) was pretty much disproved.
It was the accusation of sexual abuse of minors which brought Koresh to the attention of the authorities. They investigated but couldn’t find enough to bring charges. But now Koresh and his Davidian’s were on the radar. The next thing looked into was the fact that they had lots of guns. Even by Texas standards lots of guns. Apparently, the local Sheriff notified ATF of reports of illegal guns in the Davidian’s compound. Whether or not this was a good idea by the Sheriff is a prudential judgement – you’ll just have to think on it and make up your own mind. But once the ATF got involved, that’s where everything went bad.
They inserted an informant into the compound and it was this informant who provided the affidavit which underpinned the warrant. From what I can tell, it had a lot of suppositions…they could have been doing this or that illegal thing with weapons. As per usual these days, getting a judge to sign off on a warrant is easy…and the cops know which judges are most willing to approve a warrant even on flimsy evidence. Be that as it may, they had their warrant: it was what they did with it that caused the problem. The ATF claims they opted for the massive raid because they had been told that Koresh rarely left the compound – which is a ridiculous assertion as their own informant must have seen that Koresh regularly left the compound. He could have been picked up at the next grocery run. Here’s the key which, to me, tells the tale: the media was tipped off on the impending raid. This shows that what the ATF wanted was a flashy raid…you know, the kind where they’d then line up all the seized guns for a photo op. The bad news was that the MSMers tipped off to be there got lost and asked a postman where the Davidian compound was: the postman was a Davidian. Now they were alerted before ATF arrived.
So, who fired first? Cops say Davidians. Davidians say cops. We’ll never know. Especially as the prime evidence of the first shot – one of the two front doors of the compound – came up missing. Huge shock on that. I mean, the compound was completely surrounded by cops and they were fully in control of the site after it was all over and the debris was being cleared away but the one piece of physical evidence which might have shown who pulled the first trigger comes up missing. The other door, which was part of the double door entrance, was intact (being made of metal), but door which was a key piece of evidence that every cop in the world knows needs to be preserved gets mislaid. Weird. Go figure, huh? I actually go with the story that the ATF started shooting the Davidian’s dogs and that got a Davidian to shoot in a panic, as untrained people are wont to do in a stress situation.
Be that as it may, it became a massive firefight with an untold number of shots fired, only coming to an end when the ATF ran out of bullets and had to withdraw. This kinda lets me know that the ATF, at least on that day, was a bunch of untrained clowns cosplaying as SWAT. They only hit six people with thousands of rounds fired. From video you’re mostly wondering what they’re shooting at. This does lead to the possibility that it was ATF being the untrained people panicking in a stress situation. But, no matter really: it happened. And now the ATF had a catastrophe on their hands instead of a sexy raid. What to do?
Gear up the propaganda machine!
You might recall how we were all told what a hideous person Koresh was. Every last story and rumor, even third hand, was spread about. In this, the MSM was just being the MSM: mindlessly repeating what they were told. But the key here is that the FBI cut the Davidian’s phone line – the only people the Davidian’s could talk to was the FBI. When you’re running a propaganda op it is very important to be in full control of the type and flow of information. And it is clear, especially in hindsight, that the primary goal of the FBI in their statements was to cover up the fact that the raid likely never should have taken place – we were to concentrate on the “brave men and women of law enforcement” and the (allegedly) suffering children…no questions about the warrant, the manner and timing of the raid and no second-guessing on who shot first. By and large, this worked: public opinion at the time was largely on the side of the cops.
And here we get to why I think it ended as it did. As the documentary makes clear, Koresh was still talking to the FBI and people were still dribbling out of the compound. There was every indication that Koresh would eventually come out. But the FBI clearly hated the fact that they had to wait on him to make up his mind. This is why they started doing things like crushing the Davidian’s cars with tanks, cutting off water and power, and doing psy-ops with sounds blared into the compound. This, as was reasonably pointed out by a Davidian in the documentary, was senseless. Allegedly, Koresh was a completely insane man and the FBI’s plan was…to drive him more insane via sleep deprivation? This was supposed to produce a good outcome?
What went wrong, and wrong from the start, is that law enforcement viewed Koresh and his people as perpetrators. Suspects. Bad guys. They never once went into the situation with the concept that Koresh and his people were, well, people. Citizens. Endowed with certain, unalienable rights. If you ever watched the Breaking Bad series there’s this part of it towards the climax where White’s brother-in-law, a DEA agent, is trying to take out White and his monumental contempt for White’s confederate, now willing to help, shines through. This, in the show, leads to a fatal error and the brother-in-law gets killed. Pure dramatic presentation, of course, but I do believe that the attitude of contempt rings true. That is, I think our law enforcement people, especially federal law enforcement, hold their targets in contempt. And who is the target? Anyone who comes up on the radar: if they notice you, then you must be lower than dirt. And so can and should be treated like dirt. That’s why Waco ended as it did – the FBI didn’t think of the Davidian’s as human beings and citizens the FBI was sworn to serve and protect (yes, the cops are supposed to serve and protect even the worst criminals as far as practical) but as sh** stains to be disposed of at the convenience of the FBI.
Keep in mind that the guy in charge of the FBI’s HRT at Waco was also involved in Ruby Ridge a short while before. Of all the people interviewed in the documentary, he’s the only one I came off entirely disliking and figuring to be a liar. He’d probably deny it to my face, but I’ll say he likes killing people. He gets a kick out of being the bad ass. And to him being a man means being ruthless. This does have its place in the world – but it is supposed to be confined to the battlefield…not a compound in Texas. Americans are not supposed to be treated as you would treat, say, a band of Taliban fighters.
What Waco showed us, had we been paying real attention, is that our law enforcement is out of whack. No longer consistent with a Republic. There is, as I’ve said, a certain point to the BLM assertion that the police are an occupying force. Leaving aside the lies and corruption of the BLM leadership, the fact of the matter is that the police all too often view the public as the problem. There is a disconnect between law enforcement and the citizens. There are lots of reasons for this, and some of them do involve the people being jerks – in some urban areas of the USA, the people are only barely civilized and are only partially capable of assessing risk/reward in actions. This does lead the police to dealing with people who are simply doing enormously stupid things which are lethal to the police if not swiftly controlled. And the police can’t tell if they’ve got a lunatic who will try to kill them even after, say, being shot or tased or someone who will understand that the game is up and its time to accept the cuffs and the ride to the station.
But even with that said, the internal attitude of too many police – and, as I’ve said, especially federal police – is contempt towards their targets. This must be brought to an end and it is a matter of training. This is something we can fix. We can train our law enforcement to be defenders rather than occupiers. People who’s first care is the rights of the citizens rather than the collaring of the “dirtbag”. This is not to say that criminals should get off easy: I’ve made it clear over the years that people who commit crimes – especially against lives – need to really feel it in their hearts and on their bodies. But even if we sentence a man to 20 years of hard labor and make him work 12 hours a day, six days a week…he’s still a citizen. He’s still a human being. God created him and we dare not ignore God. He’s still to be treated as well as we can consistent with total security…and never to be thought of in degrading terms. You start thinking of people like animals or lower, you’ll soon start treating them as animals or lower. Much better, in my view, that in terms of human dignity, that we treat people better than they deserve. After all, treat each man as he deserves, and who would ‘scape whipping?
Blogs For Victory 
The Waco Siege was tragic. It could have been handled so much better. That said, police did learn from the mistakes that happened there. We haven’t had anything quite like it since.
“the internal attitude of too many police – and, as I’ve said, especially federal police – is contempt towards their targets. ”
This is true, but I don’t think those working for the Federal government are near as bad as many of the local police forces, simply because of the amount of training involved.
It could have been handled so much better.
Do ya think? Another submission from Captain Obvious.
We haven’t had anything quite like it since. Well, we did have the Bureau of Land Management shoot an unarmed man to death in front of his family over a grazing dispute. And of course there was Ruby Ridge. But you’re right—NOT QUITE like this.
And some of us do wonder why agencies like the Social Security Agency and the IRS and the BLM need to buy hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Ruby Ridge happened before Waco and federal agencies have been buying guns and ammo for decades.
Well, the Feds went from doing absurd things like a no-knock raid on a lunatic to…making up crimes to entrap fools (Whitmer kidnapping) and to investigate Republicans (Trump-Russia). I guess this is an improvement over killing lots of people but I don’t see how its all that much better, overall, for the Republic.
They just arrested a grandmother who entered the Capitol for 15 minutes on January 6th…think about that: with all that is going on, with criminals flooding across our southern border, they expended effort to track down and arrest a grandmother for walking around the Capitol for 15 minutes. I’m glad nobody died in this massively important arrest…but I don’t think that the federal government’s purpose is to arrest citizens for trivial offenses years after the event.
But, they felt they had to: once the video was released and their prime target Buffalo Hat had to be released because the case against him was proven false, they needed a Narrative Buttress…something else to keep up the ridiculous pretense that 1/6 was some grave threat to the Republic.
And by doing this they are proving my point about law enforcement – especially federal law enforcement – considering the people to be dirt. They are supposed to protect and serve THE PEOPLE, not the government. Not running around the country looking for people to arrest, but to protect the rights of the people. What right of the people was taken away by anyone involved in January 6th? Not one single right was violated but the demonstrators. At worst you got them on trespassing…but how do the people trespass on property owned by the people?
how do the people trespass on property owned by the people? Especially after the magnetically locked doors, which can only be opened from within a secure booth by someone with a special key, have been opened and uniformed police officers have invited them in and uniformed Capitol police have given them directions?
But I guess this is just another case of felony loitering, on her way to overturn the government and assume its powers.
You really don’t need to post things like this. If you persist in trying to sit at this table, you can just write “I don’t get your point”. Or just don’t write anything and we’ll know
Since the election of billy jeff, we have had a government of the government, by the government, for the government. To protect the government. If you look at this nation’s preparations for any kind of nuclear event, the overriding factor is the “continuity of government”. Not the survival of this nation’s people.
Personally, I can do without this government of the ultra progressive left.
Irish Democracy, I suppose.
That’s about it – they consider themselves an entitled class. Tom Nichols – The Expert – was whining again the other day on Twitter about how we MAGATs don’t respect The Experts. He really does believe that his having a degree makes him special. Someone we’re to defer to and never question. They’ll graciously allow us to vote – provided we’re voting between two Expert-Approved candidates – but they not only don’t want our input, they are insulted by the very fact that we offer our input.
The indignance with which the Experts react when not given the homage they feel is their due is really kind of funny.
Thomas Sowell pointed out that an “intellectual” is just someone who has some ideas. They don’t ever have to be right, and he or she never has to do anything else, to be an “intellectual”.
And boy oh boy do the Lefties love their “intellectuals”. Of course they do—they are elites, and the Left is all about elitism. Once they have anointed someone as Special, that person can reign forever.
Yep; and we must remember that these credentials don’t even mean what they used to. Churchill was a terrible student – just wouldn’t learn where his interest wasn’t engaged. He was placed in the lowest level of his class every year at Harrow. He barely scraped by and then barely passed the entrance exam to the British military academy at Sandhurst.
But even with that, he had a working knowledge of Latin and Greek and could speak French (albeit with a grandly atrocious accent). This was considered a dummy in 1895! Now, we all know The Rest of the Story – brilliant Statesman, speaker and author of just an incredible number of books and articles and, of course, he wrote all of his own speeches including some which will be read a thousand years from now. Can you think of any PhD alive today who even comes close to this level of intellect? We’ve entirely dumbed down education to the point where just about anyone who will sit still for 4 years will be awarded a degree and only minimal effort gets you a post-graduate degree. We’ve got elites who wouldn’t pass the sixth grade 100 years ago.
Well let’s not forget Elian Gonzalez … the young little Cubam boy who was ripped from his mothers arms by Clintons ATF and sent back to his Cuban father.
And let the Lawfare begin …
You can expect grand jury indictments of leftist politicians like Biden, [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer as surely as night follows day,” said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative legal group Judicial Watch.
When Democrats and Harry Reid ended the filibuster for federal judges (in a childish fit), it came back to bite them on the ass. And this will too. I encourage all Red State AG’s to begin the investigations and the indictments. Lord knows the Democrats are dirty AF, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find some malfeasance to indict on.
https://nypost.com/2023/03/31/gop-calls-for-biden-charges-after-trump-indictment/
One that comes to mind would be the biden child by the woman in Arkansas IIRC. There has to be something shady going on there with the grand child that potato* brain has never seen.
be a shame if hunter got indicted because of that.
*No offense to potatoes meant.
Good call. Hard to believe the First Family is suing a prostitute to keep the illegitimate child from using the family name. That’s nothing but class there, and hopefully there’s a crime to go after too.
Certainly every bit as much of a crime as what they’re trying to get Trump on.
Democrats just don’t seem to comprehend how this “be-careful-what-you-wish-for” thing works. Same goes for the law of unintended consequences. And they’re supposed to be the smart ones?
Mark wrote an excellent response to Casper the other day which crystallized the problem, and I paraphrased that response this morning to a liberal on Twitter. I simply wrote “Democrats have spent the last two decades dividing this country by class, race, and political affiliation all the while confusing our children on gender fluidity, and now you want to blame the gun??”
Democrats will end up being their own worst enemy. Because they have no soul.
and now you want to blame the gun??”
Ironically, the only way they can achieve their agenda is with a gun — after they take everyone else’s away. of course.
California is a slow moving train wreck. Democrats have all but destroyed this once great State …
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/watch-shark-tank-star-shreds-new-mansion-tax-reveals-thinks-rich-will-move/
It’s been slow but it seems to be picking up speed. Gas stoves ?!
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
Comedian Jimmy Dore initially got caught up in the propaganda and believed the COVID jab would be a good strategy. He took the shot and suffered severe side effects from it. Dore quickly put two and two together and realized he’d been duped. The shot was nowhere near as safe (or effective) as they claimed
After that realization, Dore started seeing through other propaganda narratives as well
Dore realized the medical establishment lied not only about ivermectin, but also about hydroxychloroquine and early treatments. They lied about herd immunity and natural immunity. They lied about masks. They lied when they said the COVID jab prevents transmission and could end the pandemic. They lied about the safety of the shots, and about the seriousness of the virus itself too
During the Omicron wave, Dore got COVID three times, and it was “the mildest cold” he’d ever had in his life. Unfortunately, he made a second mistake. He took Paxlovid, and got COVID again. That Paxlovid makes you prone to reinfection is now also an established fact
Dore warns that the entire government is corrupt. Corruption has been integrated into every part of the government, and every system used to run it
This is a powerful article today.
I’ve mentioned before that the corrupt tentacles run a lot deeper than we think they do. The United States is suffering from a stage 4 ruling class cancer … it’s pervasive and insidious.
Democrats are already worried that Trump will make money off his mug shot hahahahaha. Hell yes he will, and we will make it his campaign photo too. Trump the OG. Thug life. Trump life. LOL. Love it.
“They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you. I’m just standing in their way.”
That needs to be repeated over and over and over until it becomes a crescendo that drowns out every word coming out of every Leftist’s mouth.
This is much the same message I think should be the heart and soul of the Trump campaign. Perhaps a little lighter on the “I am what stands between you and tyranny” and a little more emphasis on “this is what a police state looks like” but in general the same theme.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fstg3pKWcAEzbz_?format=jpg&name=small
One of the best memes I’ve seen in a while:
Another good one:
After reading that Senator Kennedy asked a Biden judicial nominee about purposivism (she had no idea) I naturally had to look up the word, and found myself immersed in a lengthy and dense article that sounds like a thesis on the judicial concepts of purposivism, textualism, intentionalism, structural textualism, or even hypertextualism.
(What Is Law? A Search for Legal Meaning and Good Judging Under a Textualist Lens)
A purposivist judge
finds law by measuring a statute’s language against the statute’s purpose. For the
task of discerning purpose, legislative history is a common choice. An
intentionalist finds law by reconstructing congressional intent, also frequently
relying on legislative history. Intentionalism differs from purposivism because
a statute can be interpreted to have a broader purpose beyond the one intended.
A textualist finds law by defining the words of a statute in accord with their
ordinary or plain meaning. Dictionaries and canons of construction are often
helpful tools in this pursuit. A structural textualist finds law by examining the
words not only in their ordinary sense, but also by looking at the structure of the statute as a whole, for example, by asking whether one definition is more
consistent with the surrounding terms or provisions than another definition, or
is consistent with the statute’s stated purpose. Both of these forms of textualism
are dependent on the “internal context” or rules of the statute, including the
statute’s grammar; this in contrast to the purposivist approach which regularly
relies on “external context”-for example, the intent of the legislature. Finally,
a hypertextualist finds law by utilizing the tools of the other forms of textualism,
as well as by resorting to analysis of other statutes, as if statutes in general were
a reference guide or a kind of dictionary for the meaning of legal words. For
instance, an unclear usage of a word in one statute may become clear by
comparing how the word is used in another statute. For the hypertextualist,
statutes as such provide a background for interpretation.
Despite the terms “structural textualism” and “hypertextualism,” there are
really only two major strands of thought on interpretive questions: that between
the textualist (which will be deemed to include both structural textualism and
hypertextualism) and the purposivist. The dividing line between them is that of
internal and external context.
I know this is probably of no interest to most people, but I think it is the kind of thing that helps us understand the different approaches, and respect given to the written word, by those who take it upon themselves to tell us what they “really mean” and in so doing affect our lives. I’m the kind of word nerd who would enjoy a discussion of these various approaches.
The author is no fan of Scalia, who is a textualist, and in reading the article I realized that I am, too. But it gives a very impassioned and detailed explanation for the justification of some to apply personal or social criteria to the interpretation of statutory language. (And, no doubt, to the Constitution.)
I had not realized that my defense of the Constitution, as it is written, is actually defined as “textualism” but I’m fine with that.
Textualism’s answer is to diminish, if not erase, the role of the
author/legislator as a private person. Subjective non-textual intentions are not
important. Whatever the author meant to say or wanted to say is not relevant
when aligned with what the author did in fact say. For textualism, the text is not
merely evidence of intent-it is the manifestation of intent. As constitutional
support for this limited view of intent, textualists remind us that only the text of
the statute has been passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the
President; not the committee reports, not the floor debates, and certainly not
post-enactment legislative “history. Thus, only the text is law.
Notice, however, textualists do not claim that intent is unimportant, just that the text is
the only legitimate source for intent. The premise that judges effect the intent of
the legislature is still intact.
Regarding the Constitution, one would have to say that only its text has been “passed” by the authors and ratified and therefore only the text, which is based on contemporaneous understanding of common usage, can be used to determine intent.
I didn’t wade through all the many many pages of this thesis, or whatever it is, just enough to understand the complexity and determination of those who do not feel constrained by the text of statutes (and, I suppose, the Constitution) but feel that the judiciary has an obligation to consider intent and purpose no matter what the text may say. I got the impression the author believes that this extends to applying current understanding of words or even culture to existing statutes, but the piece is too long and dense to devote the rest of my day to. I just thought it interesting to see the effort put into justifying manipulation of the actual text of a statute to make it comply with something it does not say.
It is very interesting and it gets to the real conflict inside government: the need for both the hard-and-fast and the flexible. It is why I am, by temperament a Monarchist. Not like Nero monarchy, nor a parvenu like Napoleon…like Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary. He could be both rigid and flexible and as he matured he became a masterful practitioner of the art; and it worked. Had not WWI happened, there would probably be an Austria-Hungary today as some sort of federal Empire ruled over by a figurehead Hapsburg. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is almost universally derided in history books but the damned thing was working – a collection of peoples, really the flotsam and jetsam of 1,500 years of human migrations (and heirs in many cases to ancient hatreds of each other), was being effectively held together and increasingly advanced on the path to liberty and prosperity by the Monarchy. It was a shame the war happened, and that Austria lost to people who hate dynasties…Hitler and Stalin (and today’s war in Ukraine!) would never have happened if the Empire still existed providing a major power in the center of Europe with a vested interest in peace and the status quo.
That aside and to get away from my Romantic digression – last night I watched for the second time the movie “Highwaymen”; about the men who hunted down and killed Bonnie and Clyde. The movie got panned in a lot of ways and I think mostly because we’re supposed to always back the underdog and American pop culture (especially after Beatty’s 1967 “Bonnie and Clyde”) had turned the two psychopaths into Robin Hood figures. The leader of the posse, Frank Ramer (portrayed by Kevin Costner), was an interesting man. In the movie a story is told how as a young man he had lead a Texas Rangers troop in the massacre of a gang of bandits who had been marauding in Texas – I haven’t been able to discover if the event in the film happened exactly like that, but from what I’ve learned Ramer would go outside the law at times to get his man.
Now, we of course know that the law should never go outside the law. But when we think about it, sometimes it has to. Like in the case of Bonnie and Clyde. To this day people condemn Ramer and the police for de-facto ambushing the couple. I’ve seen the death car (its kept in Primm, NV); no doubt about it: it was a massacre. But Bonnie and Clyde had already proved on multiple occasions that their response to anyone trying to stop them – civilian or police – was to open fire. Had Ramer done the “freeze, police!” thing, all he would have provided was an opportunity for the pair to shoot…because it was undoubted they would. And that would put the lives of Ramer and his officers at risk. So, he did the only thing a rational man could do: pick his spot and just kill the pair once positive identification was obtained. If that happened today, you know the Parker and Barrow families would be suing!
But then you read further into Ramer’s life and you see that he was a fierce opponent of the Klan – apparently saving many black people from being lynched. He also uncovered political corruption without fear or favor. This was a white man born in the 1880’s in Texas and he risked his life to save black people…and in a State with de-facto one-party Democrat rule (and all the corruption that entailed) he stood up to it.
That, you see, is being a Law Man. He killed Bonnie and Clyde – and stopped lynchings: both were things done to uphold the law even though the former and was technically outside the law and the latter was entirely inside the law but against popular sentiment. It is good when we have people like Ramer. But then it gets less good if other people, at other times, step outside the law but not to ensure that law gets done, but to advance some particular cause.
That’s the problem with the Left. They are merely used law as a cover to advance themselves. It is why most Conservatives fall into the strict constructionist camp: we simply don’t trust the law unless it is exact. But, also, being entirely exact also hamstrings us a bit…because by strictly keeping within the law, the Left can do all sorts of things to us (like, say, frame a guy for trying to kidnap the governor of Michigan) and we have no response…because we’ve locked ourselves into a rigid adherence to the law as written. What we need are some Law Men (and Law Women)…someone who would, say, arrest the FBI informant for entrapment and get a local jury to convict the informant of entrapment. Maybe not strictly within written law…but I think everyone can see how this would actually uphold the law against those breaking the law by staying within it.
Actually, I don’t think that things like entrapment ARE strictly within the letter of the law. And I don’t see the Left paying attention to the letter of the law, not for example when they mount a huge and expensive abuse-of-power theatrical production like the J6 “hearings” basing it all on simply ignoring or rejecting the letter of the law regarding the definition of the important word “insurrection”.
“It is why I am, by temperament a Monarchist.”
So you would have fought on the side of the British in the American Revolutionary War?
No; I’m a Conservative and so I would have fought for the established order: the Executive (in this case, the Monarch) was not permitted to impose taxes without the consent of the governed. That was the whole point of the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the Glorious Revolution (1688).
But plenty of Monarchists fought for the Patriot cause and there was much debate about whether or not the USA should have a monarchy with Washington as the king. I really figure they didn’t do that because Washington had no sons and so there would have immediately been a disputed succession. In the end, the Founders went with a President who, in practical terms (as pointed out by, among other, Winston Churchill) had more power than the Monarchs of the world.
I am of the Monarchist mind because when you have a Ruling House of ancient lineage you tend to moderate the factions of the people. The UK had this beautifully for a long while but the complete atrophy of the Monarch’s power under Victoria along with the termination of the power of the Lords in 1911 ended that – they’ve still got the Monarchy providing some stability and continuity, but Parliament is now supreme and whatever the transient majority wants happens…this is why the UK is getting messier by the day, and ever more tyrannical (they are arresting people for silently praying new abortion clinics and for misgendering people eg).
I’ve never thought in terms of being a Monarchist and my first reaction was negative, but I am starting to see your general point.
I think the Founders shared some of your perspectives about the swings of the pendulum in governments where authority is not consistent, which is what they tried to mitigate with their insistence on processes to slow the pace of legislation and of change. And when we have followed their rules, it’s worked out pretty well. We’ve still had a couple of spikes of emotion-driven amending, and a lot of the processes have been undermined, but in general it’s still a pretty good system.
I think the Founders were pretty good at understanding the basic weaknesses and flaws of humanity, but there was no way they could predict the rapid disintegration of culture, education and spirituality that have combined to threaten our nation and form of governance. The thing is, these would also affect a monarch. Charles is an example of the universality of our decline, as he is quite vulnerable to a lot of cockamamie ideas and as a powerful monarch could probably make quite a mess of things.
Yep – and that is the problem with hereditary monarchy: what if the heir is an idiot? The Romans lucked out in the 2nd century in that they had a series of good Emperors with no sons and so these Emperors adopted as their heir the person they rated best…good choosing good. It all came to a crashing end when Marcus Aurelius, a good one, had a son and so everything went to him…and while he wasn’t as bad (I think) as some historians make him out, he clearly failed to address the increasing stresses the Roman world was feeling.
OTOH, you can sometimes work it out with hereditary monarchy if there are people of wisdom around it. This was best seen by the Austrians easing out their good but entirely ineffective Ferdinand and elevating his nephew, Franz Josef. If Britain’s monarch had some power, then the best thing the Brits could do would be to ease Charles out in favor of his son, who seems a bright enough man of goodwill. As he’s entirely powerless, it doesn’t really matter.
The Founders were geniuses – as I’ve said before, if it wasn’t the very hand of God guiding them, then it was close: the system they set up in its ability to set a policy and carry it out and yet change with the needs of the people is amazing. If we would but obey the law, half the problems in our country would vanish almost immediately. If the Progs could ever stop being megalomaniacs, they’d see that under our Constitution, they can do whatever they want in San Francisco and nobody outside it can do a thing to stop them…but it only works if the people of San Francisco also understand that the people of Salt Lake City also get to choose for themselves. We’re getting to the point where one side will have to impose on the other – the good news for the Progs is that if we win, we just impose on them the fact that they have to stop pestering everyone.
I’ve seen reactions of stunned outrage when I have said that our Constitution is a remarkably libertarian form of government.
Wow. Trying to fit Identity Politics into the 18th century! I guess if that’s the way you see the world, that’s the way you see the world.
Hint: Monarchist = system, general political philosophy
Monarchy = specific man and time
“No; I’m a Conservative and so I would have fought for the established order: the Executive (in this case, the Monarch) was not permitted to impose taxes without the consent of the governed. That was the whole point of the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the Glorious Revolution (1688). ”
It sounds to me like the form of government you really want is one in which the government does what you want, as simple as that. You just said you would fight a war with the ruling monarch if he or she did something you disagree with.
As for the Founders, if they had wanted a monarchy they would have imposed one. They didn’t, thankfully.
That’s because you’ve just never thought about it or investigated it.
The only evil sort of government – inherently evil – is anything stemming from Marx. That would be Communist and Nazi and, to a less destructive extent, Socialism. The problem with the Marxist style is that it presumes that there is a state of perfection people can obtain if they just get their political system right. Monarchy, Democracy and Republicanism are all based upon the understanding that humanity is flawed (we Christians call it Fallen) and so perfection cannot be obtained – we’re always just trying to do the best we can.
The best in Monarchy are Marcus Aurelius, Louis IX and (imo) Franz Josef. Not that these guys never made mistakes (they did; some quite fabulous) but that they showed the benefit of having a Monarch who with a good heart, reasonable intelligence and a desire for the benefit of his people can do. The best of Republicanism are Washington, Lincoln and Cincinnatus. The best of Democracy are Pericles and Carnot. Just as with the Monarchs, all these made some big mistakes…but they also showed how great hearted people can harness the popular will in service of the true needs of the people. As for the worst in all these categories: too numerous to mention and too many different degrees of hideous to make a short list. But you’re going to have a government – and it will be Monarchy or Republic/Democracy. That is, you’ll have Rulers or you’ll have Rules. The method you chose depends upon your point of view…and the Founders opted to blend elements of all three. This worked very well until we started to destroy what the Founders left us…and the architects of destruction can all trace their lineage back to either Marx, or his precursor, Rousseau.
As for the Founders, if they had wanted a monarchy they would have imposed one. They didn’t, thankfully.
Looks like we’ve got a competition going for the Captain Obvious title. Is it too early to start a pool?
The pathetic need of these trolls to be on this blog even when they don’t have anything to say is, well, pathetic,
“Monarchy, Democracy and Republicanism are all based upon the understanding that humanity is flawed (we Christians call it Fallen) and so perfection cannot be obtained – we’re always just trying to do the best we can.”
You are right, I haven’t spent a lot of time investigating monarchies, but I don’t need to spend any more time than I have to know that your definition is flawed. A monarchy is a system of government in which an individual is head of state for life. You may be able to cite specific monarchies that you like because, in your thinking, they understand that “humanity is flawed,” but one can also cite specific monarchies that are or were immoral and are or were effectively a dictatorship. In fact, you have cited some yourself in this thread! So I go back to my thought that you like monarchies so long as they conform to your way of thinking.
Yet attacking the Right and its members and defenders and policies and principles is a de facto support of a political system easily as tyrannical as any monarchy ever has been.
The trolls and meat puppets eagerly attack designated targets based on Identity Politics, remaining steadfastly ignorant of the actual system they are enabling and supporting by doing so.
I can’t think of a monarch who forced every subject to undergo medical experimentation or lose his livelihood and liberty, yet this is what has happened in our nation, allegedly not a dictatorship but certainly sharing some alarming characteristics, and a significant percentage of the country wants this kind of government to continue.
And I mentioned that, as well – both to you and Amazona.
Perhaps it is now time for you to reflect on the impossibility of getting it exactly right? That no system will provide for complete liberty and justice for all? We’re groping in the dark here…but the Progressives all believe they have the magic talisman which will make all perfect. Doesn’t that strike you as insane?
As I mentioned, the problem of hereditary monarchy is that the heir may be a fool. But consider this on the problem of Democracy/Republicanism: if anyone can become the leader, wouldn’t this be an incentive to those who are least suited to be leader? Would not the liar and con artist be most irresistibly drawn to power and the money and fame that always surrounds it?
Schooled as you – and all of us – are in the modern, Western mode of thinking, you condemn outright the idea of the divine right of Kings. But have you ever shifted your view for a moment and thought about it: a man or woman who inherits a throne as a gift from God isn’t being arrogant, but pious. At least that person has a sense that God exists and that all actions must ultimately be rendered to God’s judgement. This doesn’t prevent that person from being a fool or even from being malevolent…but it is something. Meanwhile, the person placing themselves forward for President is claiming, absent the slightest bit of evidence or tradition, that they are absolutely the best person to rule. Isn’t that actually the height of arrogance? I mean, think about it – and leave aside all those who recently have been President or have a track towards the White House – out of 330 million people what do you think are the odds that even the 100 millionth best person would seek the office? And if that person sought it, by what evidence would you say they even have a shot at it? Would not a humble, wise and knowledgeable person be merely ripped to shreds by the political system? It has been said that if we want a proper Democracy or Republic then our search should be for the person who least wants the power…that is who to install in office…not the person who seeks it. Indeed, an argument can be made that anyone who seeks power should probably be shot out of hand.
This, by the way, is why the Founders wrote the Constitution as they did – it is designed to not work fast or easy. Everything is supposed to be onerous and only happen in a large sense once entire national consensus has been reached. The President, as I’ve noted, has immense powers attached to the office…but he can’t spend a nickle unless Congress appropriates it. And Congress will find that every action is subject to review by Courts which don’t give a damn what Congress wants to do to get itself re-elected. At least, that is how it is supposed to work. Naturally, you Progressives especially hate this – because you think you’ve got it all sewn. As soon as a Progressive expresses the idea, it is supposed to immediately happen. This is why you hate the filibuster and the Senate and the Electoral College and the Sovereign States and a Supreme Court that isn’t controlled by you.
But you are worse than fools for it – because that screw you want to turn to get your way will be turned on you. You can’t see that your safety lies only in the existence of a Right which doesn’t agree with you and works night and day to stop you. Without us, you’re in the Gulag. Sure, we’d go first – but you would join us there. You’d have to: Progressives always need enemies.
The power and level of corruption of the Administrative State in this country didn’t happen overnight, nor was it an accident. It’s been part of a century-long Progressive plan, and we are now near the culmination of that plan. I don’t know if we’re past the point of no return, and that may not be known before I ride off into the sunset. I have little faith in my children’s generation to stop it or even slow it down, but the generation after them may realize how precious freedom is before the lose it completely.
“I can’t think of a monarch who forced every subject to undergo medical experimentation or lose his livelihood and liberty, yet this is what has happened in our nation, allegedly not a dictatorship but certainly sharing some alarming characteristics, and a significant percentage of the country wants this kind of government to continue.”
Hmmm. I have never been forced to undergo a medical experiment. No one I know has been, either. Have you?
Anyway, at the risk of stating the obvious (because apparently this point eludes you), in a democratic republic the citizens can choose their representatives at the ballot box.
“I’ve never thought in terms of being a Monarchist and my first reaction was negative, but I am starting to see your general point.”
So you’re a monarchist now that Mark has brought it up? Your so-called political philosophy seems rather flexible.
Oooh, Captain Obvious is taking a back seat to Corporal Quibble. OK, not every single person in the United States was forced to undergo medical experimentation. Just those whose livelihoods were in some way under the control of the government, whether directly or indirectly, or whose employers bowed to the iron will of the State. I had the freedom to choose not to travel abroad, for example, so that liberty which would have been denied to me became immaterial. I was forced to engage in a pseudo-medical experiment to be able to fly on commercial airliners or go into public places, by being forced to wear a useless scrap of cloth or paper on my face, but that was probably more of a social experiment than a medical one, no matter how it was phrased.
Now I see you have donned your Officer Oblivious hat, evidently being proud enough of your inability to see the difference between understanding a different point of view and adopting it.
You have effectively and repeatedly proved that you have nothing to offer here, so I really don’t understand why you insist on coming back and proving it again
” I was forced to engage in a pseudo-medical experiment to be able to fly on commercial airliners or go into public places, by being forced to wear a useless scrap of cloth or paper on my face.”
Oh the horror! It’s a wonder you survived.
Well aren’t you just the pissiest little thing! But thanks for the reminder that you really have nothing to say
” I was forced to engage in a pseudo-medical experiment to be able to fly on commercial airliners or go into public places, by being forced to wear a useless scrap of cloth or paper on my face.”
Oh the horror! It’s a wonder you survived.
I was looking for an old post and ran across this, and was once again struck by the response. It was a knee-jerk spasm of snark, a decision to take my comment as a launching platform for a snotty comment about me, and totally oblivious to the real message. That is, the acceptance of the tyranny of what I described. There was no sense of wrongness in being forced to do something irrational and unproductive.
This is something about half of the nation is starting to recognize—that the other half is just fine with being controlled. They were fine with being forced to do something irrational and silly and ineffective, eagerly accepting their orders and even attacking those who questioned them. Their unquestioning unfailing obedience to their chosen masters was a given. The freedom of questioning authority, examining data and having independent conclusions, was not just offensive to them, it threatened them and enraged them. It challenged the primacy of the Expert Class, and this unquestioning acceptance of superior wisdom and ability is the core of the Leftist vision of the perfectibility of humanity and the need to find and obey those who have achieved it.
To even question the mandate was considered a crime. To point out that medical personnel don’t wear masks to protect themselves from pathogens but to keep from spreading their own pathogens to the ill and vulnerable was heresy. When the elites informed us that medicines used safely by hundreds of millions of people for decades were lethal once Donald Trump mentioned them, the obedient Left scurried to ban them, and print headlines blaring THIS WILL KILL YOU! and people were denied these treatments and died.
We tend to look at what is happening from a political perspective, but I think we need to examine the psychological aspect as well—-the fact that there are people who yearn for a controlling authority that tells them what to do because it also promises to take care of them. They want to be swaddled, wrapped tightly in a cocoon that they feel limits threats so they don’t mind the limitations of liberty. This ties in with their adulation of authority figures, their worship of “experts”, their demands that we bend the knee to the superior qualities of the elites.
The real problem comes when they are determined to impose that authority on everyone else, and use power to force people to accept their tyranny. They fear freedom, so much so that they declare “words are violence” and try to smother freedom of speech. Even the freedom to have a dissenting opinion is a threat and must be disallowed and punished. (Look at the fury at the fact that people have differing opinions about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Not just their own perspective, but rage. Not just rage, but the determination to silence and punish. There is no tolerance for straying from the orthodoxy.)
Society has room for a wide range of beliefs and perspectives. But when this particular segment of the population reaches critical mass, when its numbers are large enough that it has the ability to impose its need for control on everyone else, we get to the point we are either approaching or have arrived at in this country. We’ve been focusing on the outward manifestation of this pathology—YOU WILL DO AND THINK AS I SAY OR I WILL CRUSH YOU—-but I think we need to understand that its source is the internal need to be controlled and the sense of threat and danger experienced by people who simply fear liberty.
Laugh for the day
“If someone says they are a man, they are a man”
That’s exactly what this dipshit just said, and that my friends is the entire problem with our country. BONE deep, chillingly, narcissistic stupid people who think that anything they want to do is ok. They are the trophy generation losers and they are fucking up this country
First of all, “they” is a plural pronoun, referring to more than one person. It’s a bastardization of the language used by people squeamish about using correct language. It’s a cop-out but a common one mostly in play since the strident feminism of the 60s made such a fuss over the common use of the masculine in general terms when there was no specific reason to use the feminine. As in “A parent has the obligation to educate his child.” “NOOOOOOO!!!!” howled the feminists, and rather than make the simple adjustment of making the word “parent” a plural so the sentence would correctly read “Parents have the obligation to educate their children” to avoid using the dreaded masculine pronoun, or the slightly more cumbersome “A parent has the obligation to educate his or her child” society did what it usually does and took the easy, though wrong, way out. It’s just one of the gradual erosions of language and by extension culture we have been experiencing.
Second, this pretense that gender is not biological is now a popular delusion, the latest fad since the vampire-vial-of-blood-necklace thing got boring. These sad pathetic people desperately searching for relevance that does not require actually earning it are constantly inventing new victimhood themes, new words to describe their angst and trauma, new ways to try to elevate their lack of quality into something important.
And our society enables this. Instead of asking the real questions called for—“Do you really believe you are a man or do you just wish you could be a man?” is the most obvious and necessary—society allows itself to be bullied into complicity. After all, after the social media campaigns about the unforgivable sins of being “intolerant” or “judgmental” who wants to risk being targeted by the intolerant and judgmental as being intolerant or judgmental?
And in doing so contributes to the permanent crippling of many people, who could and should be helped to understand their self-loathing and desperation to escape their perceptions of who they are and are instead encouraged to remain in misery and confusion. But it’s that condition of misery and confusion and accompanying rage that makes them so necessary as part of the destabilization of our culture and society, needed by the Left to gain traction.
Just pause for a moment and ponder the ignorance of this statement:
Hmmm. I have never been forced to undergo a medical experiment. No one I know has been, either. Have you?
Anyone who has lived through the last 3 years knows exactly what Mark is speaking of, except for the resident propagandist communist. And this is the problem we confront … IMHO the only way to turn this around is to kill people like this. Debate is pointless, and even sharing a country now is unacceptable. It’s time for war.
Well, it was Amazona who claimed that everyone in America was forced to “undergo medical experimentation.” I have not. No one I know has. Have you?
“IMHO the only way to turn this around is to kill people like this.”
See JDGE1? Your pals want to kill every American they disagree with. If they don’t get their way, resort to lethal violence. That is their political philosophy, plainly stated.
Your side has already started the purge of political opponents. We just hope to finish it. You don’t deserve life.
“Your pals want to kill every American they disagree with. If they don’t get their way, resort to lethal violence. That is their political philosophy, plainly stated.”
See my comment on Officer Oblivious, as well as my closing comment in that post.
“You don’t deserve life.”
Says the “pro-life” man from Arizona.
Meow. Isn’t it time for a nice saucer of milk?
Oh if only I could replace you with an aborted baby.
Even Biden said the vaccine mandate would affect 100 million Americans.
By every single measure, the United States is a rapidly deteriorating country. Our borders are porous, our military is weak, our elections are untrustworthy, our government is corrupt, our children are stupid, our countries mental health is at the lowest it’s ever been, our people are morally confused, our racial divisions are the worst they have ever been.
Why not have a war?? What are we conserving??
Our borders are porous, our military is weak, our elections are untrustworthy, our government is corrupt, our children are stupid, our countries mental health is at the lowest it’s ever been, our people are morally confused, our racial divisions are the worst they have ever been.
And yet the Left still has to fight to try to achieve full power. I think that says we are more resilient, stronger and smarter than they expected us to be. And their hubris is starting to take its toll, as the insanity of so much of their efforts is starting to sink in even with people who weren’t particularly alarmed by it for a long time.
The “trans” effort may be what pushes people to the tipping point. Not just the insanity of denying biology, but the cumulative effect of realizing the lies told by so many in the medical profession regarding Covid and the “vaccines” added to the awareness of the mutilation of children might be an important nudge. The Left has always played on the need for some to feel/appear morally and intellectually superior, as they swoon over the latest wardrobe of the latest emperor. The “intellectuals” were those who adopted fascism in the 30s, socialism in the 60s, and the gender-bending of today. And it might be starting to sink in that these movements haven’t really been all that smart after all. The smugly self-identified “cool” moms who take their children to drag/strip shows are finally getting some pushback and being told they are grooming their children to become sexually active, and that’s a shock to them. The “tolerance” of open borders is finally sinking in as enabling human trafficking, sex slavery of women and children, and empowering of drug cartels. Slowly, but still…..
The whole “racism” schtick is wearing thin, everywhere but with black people, and the victimhood/reparations/BLM scams are more transparent now. San Francisco promising five million dollars to every “citizen” who “identifies as African American”? And blacks claiming that isn’t enough? Yeah, that’s going to go over well.
And I think/hope that this latest blatant move toward a police state is going to attract some alarmed attention. It will if it is handled well. The latest effort to silence the victim with a gag order is not going to sit well.
The squealing meat puppets of the Left are increasingly being reduced to bleating and whining and name calling. Look at this blog. Poor forty can’t even put up a decent effort.
Well God bless ya, you’re more optimistic than I am. What really amazes me anymore is the maniacal, if not diabolical obsession of one man this country is suffering from. It’s abnormal, it’s deranged, it’s unhinged, and it really goes to show you what propaganda, fear, and intimidation can do to people. I never thought America would be reduced to this and as I have said before, these corrupt tentacles run deep … deeper than we think. I thought American men and women were morally stronger than this but I have been proven wrong. It’s amazing to me what people can be led to believe …. Climate change, Covid, Jan. 6, Saving democracy in Ukraine are all blatant, transparent, “in your face” LIES and any amateur objective view of these issues is all you need to understand that … yet the narrative remains stronger than reality and here today I listen to someone “if a person says they are a man, than they are a man”. And mind you, this is coming from someone who “follows the science”. Even Orwell wouldn’t have believed all this shit.
It’s a chicken/egg paradigm. Does being on the Left make one hostile and hateful, or does one have to be oriented toward negativity to be susceptible to the Left? I think the answer is “yes”.
It’s obvious that the Left recruits its meat puppets from the personality disordered, validating personality disorders like hostility, anger, paranoia and so on that society has either shunned to tried to treat. The message of the left, underneath its oily smarm of pretense to owning the Higher Moral Ground, is inherently so negative that it just doesn’t resonate with happy healthy people. It really always comes down to a litany of who to hate and why to hate them.
When you have allowed yourself to be primed to hate, coming from a natural position of suspicion and distrust, it’s easy to be manipulated into the kind of wildly irrational overweening loathing that these people feel for a man who has done absolutely nothing to them. But understanding it doesn’t make it less creepy.
It’s like they are zombies, shambling along drooling their hatred without the slightest clue of what is really going on.
But the pushback is starting to build. As Kurt Schlichter says, Normals are recoiling instead of shrugging.
It really always comes down to a litany of who to hate and why to hate them.
That’s it in a nutshell. Look at how often MAGA is derogatorily mentioned by the media and the administration. It’s repetitive by design to keep the focus on those they hate, and everyone just follows along. Sam Bankman-Fried is responsible for the largest financial scandal in US history, and was the largest donor to the Democrat Party in the 2022 cycle, and yet he is a free man rarely mentioned in the media. Trump is indicted for a book keeping error and an NDA (which Bill Clinton had many of), and it’s 24/7 coverage in the media, including Fox. Why do people fall for this? Because there is comfort in conformity. Regardless of how strong the lies are.
No longer trying to pretend to discussion, just insulting and name calling. This is why you get cut off,
//moderator
A Yale professor recently proposed euthanasia as a solution to aging populations. Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics, stated: “I feel like the only solution is pretty clear … In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?” He also stated on euthanasia that there’s a “possibility of making it mandatory in the future.” His comments are stirring debate over the direction that medically assisted death is taking, and whether the end result could be democide.
Logan’s Run as prophecy…but, once you let the foot in the door about killing being acceptable, as we did with abortion, where’s the argument against killing any particular person who becomes in any way inconvenient?
15 years ago we were discussing gay marriage. Now we’re discussing men becoming women. It’s a quick descent.