Who is Innocent?

Mark Noonan11 Comments

As we just passed the anniversaries of the atomic bombings we got yet another round of statements about it…and I do note they are getting ever more stridently anti-American and more vigorous in asserting it was a crime…that we did something akin to what the Nazis did. This ultimately stems from two sources, neither of which are good:

  1. Soviet Cold War propaganda.
  2. Post-WWII Nazi apologists.

It is a bit of a shame that this worked so well – even the Church has tended to fall into it. Now, to be sure, I don’t dispute that intentionally destroying a city is wrong. If that is your intent. Never, ever intend to destroy a city. Heck, never intend to destroy a mail box. Destroying things is wrong. Killing people is wrong. Don’t do it! But this doesn’t really apply, in my opinion, to the atomic bombings.

What was our intent in August of 1945?

To kill? No.

To destroy property? No.

To take land for ourselves? No.

To steal the wealth of nations? No.

Our intent in August of 1945 was to end the war – with a bias towards the fewest additional American deaths. That’s it. All we were trying to accomplish. And as August 1st, 1945 came in, American policy makers were faced with these options:

  1. Invade.
  2. Continued blockade.
  3. Continued conventional aerial attack.
  4. Just call it quits and tell the Japanese we wouldn’t invade.
  5. Atomic bomb.

The first three options involved massive additional deaths. Just the naval blockade of Japan had already pushed the nation to the brink of starvation and a couple more months of it and millions would die (MacArthur’s first demand upon taking control of the occupation of Japan was for food; telling DC that it was either send him food or send him bullets; the Japanese were on their last meal by the time we got in). Invading would not only cost millions of Japanese lives but probably a hundred thousand Americans as well. Continued conventional bombing deaths would have probably run upwards to a million.

Now, we could have just called it quits: assessed all our options and decided we wouldn’t compel a Japanese surrender…too costly in lives. There is a case to be made for this. Japan was a ruin and at the time absolutely no threat to anyone. But, on the other hand, they still had millions of soldiers under arms and controlled vast amounts of territory in Asia and the Pacific. The only way to get Japan to give up all of this was to compel their surrender, so it was back to one of the other options. But suppose we decided to leave Japan in control of what she had…just too costly to finish. Ok. That would merely have confirmed the Japanese strategy post Midway: fight so hard that the Americans give up trying to conquer Japan.

And then rebuild and try again with a better plan. In other words, it meant another war. Millions more dead, just a decade or two down the road.

What you have here, guys, is a quandary: a very uncertain situation which has no easy way out. But we had to get out. The war had to end, one way or the other. The dying had to stop. Truman opted for the bomb. Can we second guess this? Of course we can. Would you want to be forced to make that decision? I sure in heck wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to be the man who has to decide how to end a hideous, bloody war. Truman, turns out, was the man – and by his lights, he did what he thought was best. Maybe it wasn’t best. Maybe one of the other options would have worked better. We’ll never really know – we can only go with what happened: seven days after the second bomb, the Japanese surrendered. The people who had not quit for a second…the people who jumped off cliffs on Saipan rather than fall into our hands…quit. It was over. The dying was finished. Judged by results, we have to say that Truman might have been on the right track.

But Mark (you ask), what of all those innocent people killed in the bombings? Men, women and children regardless of condition all killed in an instant with a city totally destroyed. How horrible! Sure, it was. Absolutely hideous. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Would prefer it had never happened. But it happened because the Japanese made it happen.

To be sure, Japanese minors were innocent..and perhaps there were some Japanese who fought against the course of Japanese policy. But the overwhelming mass of Japanese adults participated. Eagerly. They went into the Japanese military and fought to the death. They worked in Japanese factories. They cheered their victories and grimly fought on after defeat. They saw allied POWs used as slave labor inside Japan. They knew that their soldiers were behaving like beasts in human skin in Japanese occupied territory. Here’s the reality: they weren’t innocent. It wasn’t Martians who flew down and forced the Japanese to do what they did – they did it all on their own. They were happy to do it. Gloried in it! They just thought it wouldn’t happen to them.

And, in the end, it didn’t happen to them…American soldiers didn’t rape every Japanese girl they could get their hands on. Didn’t use Japanese men for bayonet practice. Didn’t dash out the brains of Japanese children. Their conquerors were gentler than the Japanese had ever been…showing mercy and forbearance and bringing food and medical aid to a stricken nation. What happened to the Japanese was quite horrific…and it was done to them because they asked for it to be done. And then when it was all over, their victims rebuilt the Japanese nation and, letting bygones be bygones, swiftly returned them to the family of nations.

The criminals in the Pacific War were the Japanese. Not we Americans. Even if we can make an absolute determination that the atomic bombings were morally wrong – and should have been seen to be morally wrong in 1945 – they still don’t constitute a crime. Nanking is not balanced by Hiroshima. Nothing can balance Nanking. Because Nanking was a crime as such; a deliberate attempt to use rape, looting and murder to advance national policy…at worst, the atomic bombings were a moral error committed by people under extreme stress.

Who is innocent? Those who are. Minor children, of course. Those who lack the mental capacity to make a choice. But everyone who can make a choice? Well, then you’re going to choose innocence, or not. A person who chooses not to participate in crimes is not merely by that choice innocent – you must also oppose crime, actively. So, for the regular Joe or Jane it isn’t enough that they don’t rob banks…they also have to turn in the man they witness robbing banks. Demand that the police arrest bank robbers. Demand that government do all in its power to deter bank robbery. After all, what would any of us think of the person who witnessed a crime yet did nothing? Not very much. To be fair, some times people can be intimidated by criminals…but this doesn’t make you innocent; it just mitigates your guilt. The only way to be innocent is to do the right thing. And that means come what may.

You know: like Sophie Scholl. She was innocent – of all that Germany did in WWII, she played no part in it and emerged from it with a clear conscience.

It just required her head: she was beheaded by the Nazis in 1943.

It doesn’t always require your life, but being innocent does come with a price. We pray God it never comes with a high price but we equally pray that if things go bad, we’ll remain innocent no matter what cost to ourselves and those we love. Other people in both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan saw what was happening and elected to play no role in it – some were killed, some were jailed, all of them suffered to a greater or lesser degree. But all of them remained innocent. If any of them were killed in Allied bombings then that was when our bombs truly killed an innocent person. But the railroad worker who calmly eats his lunch as a train of Jews goes by? Not all that innocent.

So, are you and I morally responsible for everything? Yes and no. Obviously I’m not directly morally responsible for an agent of my government committing a crime. But it slides on scale…from me being totally ignorant of it to my active participation. You can easily be totally ignorant of one action. Even a dozen actions. Once we start getting into hundreds of actions it becomes harder and harder to pretend you don’t know about it. As human beings we do have a general responsibility to foster a just society. Our personal and political actions must go towards these ends as best we can determine. Once again, not enough for us to just want it to be, we must actively make it happen. To be sure, one of us is just one of us – small and so small effect, but the effect of all of us trying to do right is remarkable…so, too, the effect of all of us either doing wrong, or turning a blind eye to it.

We must get out of this mindset that people lack agency. Today it is the people of Gaza we’re pretending are little children who bear no responsibility. Outside of actual minor children (and that means, morally, under the age of twelve; the age of reason, as it were), everyone in Gaza bears responsibility. Even if you’re a Gazan in terror of Hamas and so you go along…you’re still going along. You aren’t innocent. You’re guilt is mitigated…but not eliminated. I fully get it and I’m sympathetic to anyone under the boot of an oppressor. I hope that if it happens to me I’ll shine as bright as Sophie Scholl…but maybe I’ll be a coward and try to go along to get along? Who knows? I’ve never been placed in that situation. But if I did play the coward and went along…then I’m guilty. What the heck is my life worth? I’m going to die one day no matter what…is a few extra years worth going along with people acting like inhuman savages? I hope not – that is, I hope if I’m ever faced with that I welcome my death with courage and spit in the eye of my executioner.

We are all of us responsible. We all have choices to make and these determine what sort of people we’ll be – and if all of us refused to go along with evil and demanded it stop, it would stop. Even something as evil as a Nazi regime, a Communist regime or an Islamist regime. Not saying it would be easy. Not saying it would be without cost (the first few in are almost certain to die)…but it would work. Evil can only happen if people allow it to happen…and the larger the evil the more it requires cooperation from the population at large. Solzhenitsyn noted this in his writings…what of the little ladies in the office who, day in and day out, typed up the sentences handed out by the NKVD? If they had all just stopped typing…how would the system continue? Sure, for quite a few early on it would mean a bullet in the back of the head…but if everyone who could type in the USSR simply refused to type out the bureaucratic orders for tyranny…it would have all stopped.

I do not demand that everyone agree with me on the atomic bombings of Japan, but I do insist that we have only one rule of behavior and that every human being with reason follow it. If you want to have a rule where only some people are responsible, then say it…and please explain to me why some people are excused? And why it is the people you favor and not me? You see what I’m saying? It is all one thing or all the other – either all of us are free human beings able to choose, or none of us are. If none of us are, then there is no crime…if we all are, then the criminal is not just the person who pulls the trigger, turns on the gas valve or sets the bomb…it is everyone who didn’t stop it from happening. The truly innocent are those who not only didn’t do it, but tried to stop it, even if in the tiniest manner.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Trump has ordered a new census…keeping in mind that the Constitution requires a decennial census but it doesn’t prohibit a census at other times. Only hurdle here, legally, is to get the funding for it…which might be within Presidential budget authority on already-appropriated money (the census bureau isn’t only funded every ten years – it works all the time). Trump’s demand is an accurate account (everyone agrees that the 2020 census was deliberately miscounted in order to keep House seats and Electoral Votes in Blue States) and that it not include illegals…which is going to get the lawsuit as the Constitution does say all persons.

But is a person illegally in country a person per the Constitution? That is, can you illegally enter our country and then have an effect on the governance of our nation? Providing representation based upon illegal immigrants does dilute the power of citizens and legal residents, after all…there are seats which should be representing the peoples of Texas and Florida which are now representing California due to the counting of illegals in the 2020 census. If there are 3 million illegals in California (this is probably a low ball guess) then that’s 4 House seats which belong elsewhere. And, of course, the census also helps determine the flow of federal aid funds…welfare, medicare/medicaid, education…the number of persons determines how much money a State gets…and illegals aren’t supposed to be getting these funds.

Anyways, this will be lots of fun! And continue to make Trump’s point while also locking the Democrats into the 20 in another 80/20 issue…because if you point blank ask the question, “should illegal immigrants have representation in Congress?”, its going to be an overwhelming “no”.

Anita Dunn is saying Biden remained sharp as a tack – so, she’s lying. Now, that was just in a press release…under oath might be different. Biden’s people are lashed to the mast on this – if one of them goes down, they all go down in a conspiracy indictment. Key to getting to the bottom of this is to catch one of them in a lie (not hard) and then leverage that to get them to turn State’s evidence.

Jennifer Newsom runs a “non-profit” which seems to have funneled money to her “for-profit”. From what I’ve read, the Newsom family may have profited to the tune of millions. It might all be perfectly legal – this is the way NGO’s work and why the Establishment was so massively opposed to cutting off USAID. It is very much a club – and you very much ain’t in it. But if you are connected – and do as you’re told – untold millions will be handed to you by various means. And what does Newsom do to “earn” this money? Runs a “gender equity” organization…aside from agitating for overall Leftwing causes, there is no metric to judge the organization by. In other words, we can’t say they aren’t doing their job – there is no product, other than a new car for the Newsom’s and increased Leftwing agitation. I’ve been saying it for years: defund the Left = the end of the Left. They aren’t popular. They never have been. They’ve just been heavily subsidized since the New Deal. Time to end that subsidy.

Looks like Bibi might have ordered the IDF into Gaza to finish off Hamas. I believe that Israel’s campaign had been strategically unsound from the start – they should have laid a regular siege and starved them into submission. But I’m not in charge of the IDF and the Israelis want to fight the war this way. Hope it works.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

DOJ has opened a Grand Jury for the Russiagate affair. We’ll see how far we can take this – but at the very least the process is the punishment.

But in my view, everyone involved – including Hillary and Obama – are in deep legal jeopardy. And if we start to get indictments rolling in then if I were Trump I’d call both of them and say they can get pardons in return for full, public confessions of what they did.

It looked like Rep. Ramirez (D-IL) said in Mexico City that she’s a proud Guatemalan before American. I guarantee you that if a foreigner moved to Guatemala and somehow managed to get elected to office – almost impossible as most nations simply won’t elect foreign-born people to office – then if that person said they were prouder to be foreign than Guatemalan, they’d be forced out of office in minutes…and probably arrested into the bargain.

The United States is not a mere Free Trade Zone. We are a nation. We are a people. We are welcoming, but if you come here, become American or get out. It is ok to be proud of where you’re from – or where your family is from. But if you want to live in America, then America must come first. It is not a big ask: it is mere basic decency.

Side note: I want us to enact into law a new definition of Native: in my view, if three of your four grandparents were born in the USA, then you are a Native American. No more of this “settler” stuff – I am not a settler. The most recent part of my bloodline got here in the late 19th century, the oldest part in the early 17th. I have no loyalty to any foreign nation – I don’t care about them. My only nation is the United States. I know no other as home. I am Native.

Texas Democrats fled the State to avoid a quorum that would vote on redistricting. This is the merest political stunt and it won’t work – the new districts will become law…and very likely other Red States are now more willing to redistrict, and do it very hard. The Democrats tell the MSM that the Resistance is working and so Democrats keep doing Resistance stuff because the MSM says its working. But it ain’t. People don’t like political stunts.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner…and the Democrats/NeverTrump people are sure this is the very end of Our Democracy.

In the specific, they are claiming that Trump is merely mad that the latest job numbers had massive downward revisions. And, hey, maybe Trump is mad about that…but the bottom line is that if you’re getting it that wrong, then why the heck are you even putting out numbers? This is the same BLS which month after month after month massively overstated the job gains under Biden. Is the data worth anything? Major financial decisions are taken based on what BLS is saying…and they can’t even nail down accurately the number of jobs gained or lost?

Some say that there is a declining response rate from those surveyed. Ok. Is anyone looking into an alternate method? Seems to me that they’re really just kinda guessing and then revising based on more solid data…so, why not make the monthly report out of the most recent, solid data we’ve got? Sure, it means the July jobs report might be about April or May, but if its accurate then its at least useful and we’d still have long term trend data. If BLS is just throwing numbers at the wall, though, then it is useless…and the Commissioner is either stupid (and so should be fired) or corruptly massaging the data to favor Democrats and harm Republicans (and so should be fired). And do keep in mind: all this statistics stuff was first put together during the New Deal when a bunch of Leftwing pinheads thought they could decide economic policy based on statistics. This is why, today, we buy our consumer goods from China, guys: the stats say it is the way to go.

You know: it doesn’t matter in the long term if in any particular month jobs are gained or lost overall…what matters is how much we, as a people, are making, mining and growing. Bottom line on that is that the more we make, mine and grow here at home the more job openings there will be…and the more national wealth which, stored, can provide aid for those who lose their jobs because of fluctuating economic conditions. Production is the measure…not the household jobs survey.

Some reforms being pushed by Team Trump do look like a back door method to eventually privatize Social Security. They are going slow and careful here because this is a dangerous issue…but everyone with sense knows that eventually the Social Security system is going to need deep reforms to survive. For us older people, it won’t matter: nobody is going to change it for us and we will get what we were promised (nobody is going to vote to cut benefits and then have everyone on or about to be on benefits vote against them next election). Probably for people fifty and older no significant changes are forthcoming. But for the youngsters, I think there will be – and likely with their eventual enthusiastic support. There is much wrong with youth but they do have knowledge about markets…a lot of these kids have been playing around with various investment items since they were little. It will be easier to sell to them the notion that their Social Security is theirs – a government guaranteed investment account that they own, that follows them around wherever they work and which they can start to access by some fixed date in their lives and which will have some guaranteed minimum payout no matter what happens…but which they could also grow to be quite significant, perhaps combining it with their personal savings and their employer 401k’s.

Ultimately, America is Made Great Again by the total dissolution of the New Deal.

Finding the Real Enemy

Mark Noonan2 Comments

Earlier today on X someone brought up Neville Chamberlain in relation to those currently running the world and I noted that (a) the Holocaust hadn’t started by the end of his tenure and (b) he was quite right that a Second World War would end Britain’s dominant position in the world; that he wasn’t necessarily wrong in the narrow sense. And this all got me thinking. I know, dangerous! But in light of the rise of neo-Nazi anti-Semitism on both the Left and the Right, I think it is good for us to sort of think the whole matter over again.

First and foremost, the world is a tricky place. It doesn’t lend itself to the hard and fast a lot of the time. In the light of history, we know Churchill was right – that every effort should have been made from Hitler’s rise to oppose and eventually destroy his regime. But that is hindsight. All credit to Churchill for correctly perceiving the sort of man Hitler was but, also, good to keep in mind that Churchill always sought dragons to slay. It was heroic and cast him in the starring role where he could display his unique dragon-slaying talents. Bottom line is that in 1933 and, indeed, up until March 1939 with Hitler’s occupation of Prague (or November, 1938 if you want to use Kristallnacht at the clarifying moment), the true nature of Hitler could only be guessed at, not known. And as far as things went to that point, he was no worse than Stalin. In other words, the grounds for a holy crusade were insufficient until later. It was only when he did something without the slightest justification and without even attempting to get some sort of international agreement on it (so, taking Prague or killing Jews simply for being Jews) that it could be clearly understood that Hitler wasn’t just a bad man, but an existential threat. And even at that point, the Holocaust wasn’t happening – and could not be imagined by any sane person.

Chamberlain was highly condemned after he left office – by the Labour party and by Churchill. It is mostly via the books Guilty Men (anonymously co-authored by Labour, Liberal and Conservative politicians) and Churchill’s The Gathering Storm that we perceive Chamberlain. These books are not fair to Chamberlain – nor were they intended to be. They were written to make a case – in Guilty Men a case against Tories and in The Gathering Storm a case against Chamberlain specifically. And they made their cases very effectively – and not dishonestly, especially in the case of Churchill’s book. But they still were cases – legal briefs, as it were. They weren’t the whole story and they weren’t cross examined by the defense. At least, not until decades later when confidential government documents and Chamberlain’s personal papers became available.

Chamberlain, though, wasn’t a coward nor was he an idiot. He had the word from the military Chiefs of Staff: there was no way Britain could stop a German conquest of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain had started British rearmament in 1935 so he knew that force had to be confronted by force. But he also knew that, by and large, the British people didn’t want to fight. That, indeed, the whole WWI thing was perceived as a mistake (and it was for Britain; they never should have sent a mass army to Flanders to chew German barbed wire). If there was some price to be paid which would get Hitler to sit down and shut up, Chamberlain figured it was still cheaper than a war which would destroy Europe and Britain’s Empire even if successful. Remember: as far as being homicidal and oppressive, by Munich Hitler was still no worse than Stalin, and nobody was calling for a crusade to end Stalin’s regime. The einsatzgruppen and death camps were still in the future. And so he did what he did. And went to war when it was clear that only military force would stop Hitler. And he’s been condemned at the bar of history ever since.

And we are supposed to learn from that history, but we don’t. Part of the problem is that ever since WWII, in order to get us to go along with massive defense appropriations, a national security State and endless wars we never get to win, they keep telling us that each new threat is a new Hitler. That if we don’t get on the ball and stop this guy, then its WWIII!!! And we’re all GONNA DIE!!!! This might make for clever propaganda but in the long run it has led to American’s getting fatigued with the effort. The expenditures of blood and treasure haven’t made us safer, freer or more prosperous. The latest iteration of this is, of course, Putin – if we don’t stop him in Ukraine then all of Europe will fall! For goodness sake, the man can’t even move his armies forward twenty miles in a straight line over the course of an entire summer’s campaign. He’s not about to roll into Warsaw, Berlin and Paris. Plus there is no indication he wants to take more than Ukraine, and maybe not even all of it. I mean, sure, if his armies do finally gain a strategic breakthrough he’s going to wring every ounce of advantage out of that…but, for now, that just isn’t happening. And it doesn’t look like it will happen any time soon.

But we get the Putin/Hitler thing endlessly and we’re called traitors if we don’t support an open-ended commitment to Ukraine even at the risk of a shooting war with Russia. And while we’ve been making a boogie man out of Putin, a real Hitlerian threat has arisen that we’re not fighting. Indeed, very large numbers of Americans are actively applauding this threat…and are joining it on its journey to anti-Semitic hatred and violence that would make Himmler proud. That threat is Islamism.

As I said earlier, in 1933 you simply couldn’t know. You could – and should – hate Hitler right away for the sort of things he was openly doing from the start, but you still couldn’t know where it was going. That there was a madman in charge of a major European power who’s ultimate goal was the death of every single Jew in the world…and the enslavement of those he considered to be inferiors. But now it is 2025 and we have the example of 1933-1945 in hand…and we’ve got people in the Muslim world who are using the exact same terminology as Hitler’s Nazis…who are denying the basic humanity of Jews. Who’s goal is the murder of every single Jew in the world…and the enslavement of everyone who isn’t Muslim. Is this all Muslims? It doesn’t matter. No more than it mattered if the Nazis represented all Germans. In the end, people who deny the humanity of others and propose mass murder and slavery as a solution to global problems should be stopped at the earliest opportunity. This is the lesson we were supposed to learn from WWII…not that every tin pot dictator is an existential threat, but that existential threats are existential threats and the quicker you end them, the better. That is, we know now that on January 30th, 1933 the Anglo-French alliance should have invaded Germany and killed Hitler and his Nazis. They couldn’t know they should…but if any of us could go back in time, that’s what we’d tell them they have to do. That any costs associated with doing this will be vastly less than the costs to come if action isn’t taken.

Now is the time to imagine you’re a time traveler from 2100…and your job is to tell us that the Islamists and associated neo-Nazi anti-Semites have to be destroyed, regardless of cost, because any such cost will be less than letting them go on. But that isn’t happening – mostly because we so distorted the history of WWII and its run-up and have so relentlessly ignored the rise of neo-Nazism in the Muslim world and the West that we simply don’t know what to do as a people.

To be sure, some people do – Trump is very clear on it: Putin isn’t Hitler and the stupid war in Ukraine should end. All Muslims aren’t Islamists so its ok to cut deals with the reasonable side of it…but the Islamists have to go. The anti-Semites – foreign and domestic – we see infecting our cities and colleges have to go. And Trump’s reward for seeing the world as it is: he’s a stooge of Putin and Israel. No, it doesn’t have to make sense. Stupid lies never have to. They just have to get the point across in an easily swallowed manner…and people are looking for an easy scapegoat for things not working perfectly.

And that brings us to the origin of the problem: the lack of apparent sense in it all. You have to think about how Marxism and anti-Semitism gained purchase. The world emerged from a Royalist system of life and thought in the 19th century and started along the path to voting to decide. Voting was the cure all, you see? That is how it was sold, and continued to be sold: if we can just vote, its all gravy! Surely a government we vote on will reflect our values and implement policies in accordance with our desires, right? How else could it be?

Well, it didn’t work out like that at all. The elected leaders would argue endlessly in parliament and in the streets but nothing went right and like clockwork it was revealed that those in government and business were giving and taking bribes. You couldn’t appeal to the King for justice – he had either been overthrown or made into a political eunuch. Various shadowy factions seemed to be in control and perverting the will of the people, at least as people perceived it (and most people perceive their own views as the general will – that is, they assume most people want what they want and can’t imagine anyone trying to get something else except in service of corruption or other evil). The Marxist and anti-Semitic agitators provided the answer – and it was a similar answer: a cabal of rich people were running the world in secret and had to be overthrown. And these rich people promoted perversion, addiction and crime to further their schemes of control. Sound familiar?

America was mostly protected against this because our strictly limited government for the longest time did ultimately reflect our values. Because it couldn’t do otherwise – our values were written into the government document. We could say what we want. Bear arms. Live where we want. Go where we want. Hard work lead to success. The kooks were here by the middle of the 19th century but nobody was paying much attention to them…until things started to not be as we wanted. The massive wave of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries wasn’t voted on…it just happened. Big business subsidized it to get cheap labor. Nobody was fighting to create a Federal Reserve…it was enacted at the behest of the rich but it wasn’t a popular movement. Year by year more and more things started to happen that nobody voted for and we were told we just had to go along with it and, for the most part, we did because America was so strong that it seemed acceptable to have a few odd things here and there. It was only when things started to go bad that the Marxist and anti-Semite conspiracy theorists started to gain traction…call it the end of the Vietnam War for the start point…the beginning of lunacy becoming mainstream…where Americans seriously started to think there was a shadowy cabal running the world.

And you have to keep in mind that there is some reality in this – it isn’t Jews or the Capitalists doing it…but there are rich people who do pervert society for their own ends. And some of them are Jews (some Catholic, some Protestant, some agnostic…but the Jews are always the easy target because they are small in numbers and can thus be cast as alien demons much easier). There really are people who get things nobody wants them to have via bribery. Nobody ever wanted some guy to be paid $100,000 to study Marxist lesbian poetry in El Salvador…but the guy got paid. How? Why? One of a million such things. How did this happen? How in heck does Mega Corporation X get to fire 10,000 Americans and hire 8,000 H1B foreigners to replace them? Who said? When was this debated?

It is corrupt. It is suicidal. So amazingly stupid that no sane person would agree to it…and so the insanity must be part of a Larger Conspiracy. Because of this the Marxist and the anti-Semite never lacked for supposed evidence of the Conspiracy. You just had to ignore the fact that most rich people are just people living their lives as are most Jews. It is so much easier to find a scapegoat – that much everyone knows, almost instinctively. Anyone with sense knows that the problem isn’t caused by The Rich or The Jews…but by individual people. Such people might need to be hanged, but you don’t hang their second cousin with them just because they share a bank account or a religion. That’s just stupid – only an idiot would believe that. But even knowing this doesn’t protect a person from falling for it…because it really is so easy. It requires no thought. And if you join the Marxist or anti-Semitic camps (which are rapidly melting into one camp), you’re welcomed heartily and each assertion of Marxist or anti-Semitic thought is lauded and rewarded and you’re now part of the Club…with the new fear of being ostracized for dissent.

And this concentration on The Rich or The Jews or any other group deflects from our real problem: getting after those who actually have done things to destroy our nation and world…and those who propose to destroy us all. Some anti-Semite idiot ranting and raving about the Rothschilds is taking time away from looking into who is giving to the Tides Foundation, a major money launderer for the overall Left. The moron Commie on a tear about how much money Musk has is taking away time better spent asking how much Chinese government money is now invested in the USA, and which Americans – of all political stripes – are benefitting from it. If you want a conspiracy theory, then the conspiracy is people who donate to Tides and who take Chinese money trying to make sure we don’t notice it. That we talk about anything but it. That we hate each other with a passion rather than uniting to ask them uncomfortable questions.

And that is just it – all of it. The solution to our problems: going after those individuals who are causing them. Even though that is hard. Even though it will mean taking down some of our own. Especially even though it is so much easier to allow the problem people to distract us with nonsense conspiracy theories (and, yes, malevolent money goes into funding these things…these days, I’m quite confident a lot of Chinese, Russian and Iranian money is spent on line promoting the hatred and fear). Find the real enemy and then destroy him. Don’t get distracted. Do it. Trump is doing it. Bondi is doing it. Bongino is doing it. So, too, is DeSantis doing it. Plenty on our side are…hampered at every turn by supposed allies of ours who are actually, IMO, paid shills who want us arguing with each other about nothing. We do have enemies we must beat…but they aren’t The Jews or The Rich or a shadowy cabal…they are right out there, funding attacks on us and trying to sow division in our ranks. Don’t let them. Don’t get distracted. Don’t fall for nonsense.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan15 Comments

Texas, Ohio and Florida Republicans – and perhaps some other Red States – are planning on mid-decade redistricting. This has caused our Democrats to shriek about how we’re destroying Democracy. Yeah, whatever. This is actually just retaliation: the Democrats have mercilessly gerrymandered their deep Blue States so that the GOP is only getting a fraction of the seats their total House vote merits…now that is being turned about, and that is fair play. The real reason the Democrats are shrieking is because if this goes forward it will make it nearly impossible for the Democrats to win the House in 2026.

In 2024, the GOP won the House vote 50 to 47 percent but ended up losing 2 seats. That is how powerful the Democrat gerrymander has been. Back in 2016 we got 48 percent to the Democrats 47 and won 241 seats…a 23 seat majority. Had the Democrats not done their gerrymanders we probably would be sitting on 250+ seats right now. If all goes well, the net gain for the GOP in 2026 will be in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 seats, thus putting us in line with our actual vote share. And that means that the last two years of Trump will be even more productive than the first two years (it is almost certain the GOP will retain the Senate in 2026 – absent a political meltdown, it stays GOP. Bottom line, the only Senate seat that is a possible flip to the Dems is North Carolina while the GOP has prospects in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan and Georgia).

Democrats have decided that their next target in the Culture War is Sidney Sweeny. Honestly, I don’t know much about her – can’t say that I’ve ever even seen a show she’s been in. But she’s young, blonde and very pretty and she’s doing blue jeans ads…you know, a pretty girl rather than some overweight, blue haired weirdo. It has driven the Democrats nuts – they are saying it is a Nazi dog whistle to be a pretty blonde. I don’t know where they hope to go with this but if their goal is to win back young men (latest polling shows them swinging by more than 40 points to the GOP in the past couple years), then I don’t think attacking the hot blonde is the way to do it.

Some of the documents we’re seeing in the Trump-Russia case indicate the conspiracy continued right on through the Biden years…which means the statute of limitations is ongoing. That’s the thing about a conspiracy – the statute of limitations only kicks in when it ends. If the players were still doing it until 2024 (and it looks like they were) then everyone involved in the conspiracy from Day One (even if that day is more than seven years ago) is still on the hook…and the raid on Mar a Lago means it can be tried in Florida (Trump +13).

Sam Brown ran for Senate out here in Nevada last year and ended up losing by merely 24,000 votes out of 1.3+ million cast…which was a disappointment especially given how tardy the GOP was in giving him financial support (the Democrat incumbent had months to nuke Brown from orbit via TV ads…and she still barely pulled it off). But, he’s now been Senate confirmed to a VA position and among those congratulating him is the Cherokee Nation…which Brown is a member of. Didn’t know that. He didn’t play it up in his campaign ads like a Democrat would…but that’s because Brown wasn’t trying to get elected to check a box but to serve Nevada. Now he gets to serve America – again, as he was quite horrifically wounded in combat serving us before.

UPDATE: I know, poor taste – but LOL!

The Multi-Generational Lie

Mark Noonan41 Comments

It occurred to me yesterday that we’re on our third or fourth generation of liars. That is, those in charge are not only liars, but are the heirs of storied liars of the past. Like this:

In 1973 the Supreme Court issued the Roe decision – this was based upon a couple of lies: that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution and that the unborn child isn’t a human being and thus endowed with rights. This was the original generation of liars: people who knew full well they were lying but they felt the result – legalized abortion – was so important that they willingly lied to get it. But it didn’t just stop there.

After that lie, it went into the books as a “Constitutional right to an abortion” and the next generation was taught this as fact, especially in law schools. Arguments against were disparaged or completely ignored. It was seriously said that it was obvious the Founders intended it to be in the Constitution. Later rulings in the 80’s and 90’s struck down some pretty common sense attempts to at least restrict the practice with the Court essentially holding that obtaining an abortion is akin to free speech or going to Church…just about sacred. And this feedback loop continued into education and overall society until we got to the point where women were out there shouting their abortions and Democrats shifted from “safe, legal and rare” to Abortion Barbie in Texas and a full throated commitment to federally funded abortion on demand. All based on the original lie – right to privacy – but built up over decades with lie after lie until millions of Americans seriously believe that if we don’t pay for someone’s abortion we’re fascists. The people out there wearing the Handmaid costumes are sincere, guys: they really believe that if they can’t get an abortion then they’re nothing but oppressed breeding stock. They are third and fourth generation liars – that is, liars who think they are telling the truth.

And that is just one of ten thousand things, right? The lie that we had to engage in limited war in Vietnam was based upon the lie that limited war was a success in Korea. Later, both of those lies would create the lie that every war had to have an exit strategy and that US military action must be carefully regulated by lawyers checking us for possible war crimes. And so we’re eventually jailing our guys for killing the enemy in the Iraqi shooting gallery which was created because war had to be limited. Hegseth over at Defense is doing the most crucial work in decades right now – starting to re-implant a desire for victory in our military. Can he undo 70 years of liars? The Department of Defense is run by 5th or 6th generation liars; gonna be tough to fix.

And, overall, can we cure this in our society? The lie that freedom means we have to let a bum urinate on the street. The lie that we must let pop culture be a moral sewer or it won’t be interesting. The lie that we must maintain our alliances even if our so-called allies hate us. The lie that free trade is superior to protection. On and on and on through lie after lie after lie. Trump is getting the ball rolling…but its going to take decades…and the people we fight against will never understand why we’re doing it. They will be convinced to their dying day that we’re the actual liars…destroying all that is good. So deep have the lies implanted themselves.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Polls is polls, of course; always grain of salt them. But this does reflect the reality of voter registration trends, which have almost all favored the GOP for years now. A few hiccups here and there but for the most part State after State – especially Battlegrounds and the light Blue States – are showing GOP voter registration increases. And even deep Blue like California are showing a GOP trend, though Democrat strength there is so dominant it’ll be years before it matters.

The Official Narrative remains that the GOP will certainly lose the House in 2026. Likely hold the Senate; though we’re already getting the “is Red State X about to turn Blue?” that we get all the time with some new Democrat hope being polished up for the MSM…and about to rake in untold millions for what will prove another futile campaign (though I wonder: with the cutoff of money to NGOs, maybe there won’t be $70 million for a useless Democrat Senate race in Texas next year? We’ll see; these things are done to get the GOP to spend money in Red States and thus have less resources for prospects…and you’ll note that the GOP still hasn’t figured out that its time to find some Great GOP Hope for deep Blue states, finance them out the wazoo and force Democrats to spend money). But the House is considered a goner for the GOP. And, normally, this would be so – the GOP majority is razor thin and just the normal mid-term snap back would propel Democrats to a majority. But voter registration trends and things like this recent poll are putting a fly in that ointment.

The Democrats are staking out the 20 in the 80/20 issues. They are doing this because they are convinced that they are on the popular side. They honestly believe – because they tell themselves endlessly – that the American people don’t want mass deportations, want boys in girls sports and are furious that we’re no longer providing funding for NGO’s. They believe that the federal judges issuing ridiculous rulings against Trump are in line with the people’s will. That rioting against ICE is the spontaneous expression of the people.

Could it be like this? I guess anything is possible. But my sense of the matter is that the Democrats are being simply insane and the American people perceive this. Given this, even if things aren’t perfect in 2026 and even if there are some serious complaints about Trump or GOP policies, they’re going to stick with Trump and the GOP. That the 2026 midterms will be akin to the 1934 midterms…in that election, the first for FDR, there should have been a snap back in favor of the GOP. There wasn’t because the GOP spent two years reminding everyone why they hated them.

The View announced they are going on hiatus. Can’t emphasize enough how important this is. It is part of the Democrat information ecosystem…even though they don’t have massive viewership, they reinforce the Democrat Narrative. Much like Colbert does with his show. Without this continual reinforcement of Democrat bigotry it will become increasingly difficult to sustain it. Can’t forget how propaganda works: it isn’t just the lie, it is the endlessly and universally repeated lie. A lie so pervasive that even skeptical people start to think there’s something to it…after all, it was on the daytime talk show, the evening news and the late night show! How can it not be true? They wouldn’t all lie…would they? Make no mistake about it, the people who run the MSM are still almost all Democrats…but they also are getting pounded in ratings as more and more people switch off while lying is becoming costly…Trump’s Presidential library will be gold plated if things keep going as they are! At the end of the day, the purpose is to make money – and shows like Colbert’s and The View aren’t money makers – or if they do squeeze out a profit, it isn’t worth the risk that a host of the show will go off on some anti-Trump rant, lie and cost the company 20 million dollars.

Lindsey Graham is asking that a Special Counsel be appointed to look into the Trump-Russia scandal – and that’s gonna be a hard No from all sensible people. This is a last, desperate attempt to cover up what Obama, et al did. To bury it under an investigation that will take at least two years…plenty for time to sandbag the whole thing and come out at the end with some lying report saying that while there were improprieties, no laws were broken. Laws were obviously broken: the only question here is can we sufficiently prove who broke them to get indictments and convictions? Indicting Obama is pretty much pie in the sky – one in a million shot – but the last thing we want is someone who starts out not wanting to indict. We want Bondi – someone who wants to indict because that’s what the records indicate should happen. The high hurdle here is the protections Presidents have in carrying out the duties of their office…this doesn’t protect actual criminal behavior, but it makes for murky legal ground that defense attorneys and judges will be happy to latch on to in order to protect Obama and their class. What I’m saying here is that we need to find out if there is such indisputable evidence that we really can indict…a special counsel will not get us there. Ever. And even if we can’t get Obama, there are probably a couple hundred people we can get…and we need an investigation which will make people want to turn State’s evidence, not work out a statement that obscures things in exchange for immunity.

The latest social media sensation is the Door Kick Challenge: it involves youngsters going up to random doors and kicking them very hard. Police are urging parents to talk to their kids and let them know this is foolish and dangerous. Most people are treating it as described – just a youthful (if rather dumb) lark. It ain’t that, guys.

It is gang recruitment.

It’s a test: will you do as you’re told? Will you, quite especially, do as you’re told when it is wrong and dangerous? The gangs are finding out who in the neighborhood will do something violently stupid. This is the perfect ground to develop young gang members you can use for hits and intimidation.

And right now the gangs need new blood – they are losing quite a lot of their foot soldiers via deportations. Enforcement via people brought in illegally is going to become increasingly difficult – but the gangs still need their enforcers to make sure the money keeps coming in. What better than to have a 16 year old true blue American citizen do it? Can’t be deported. If arrested, tried as a juvenile in most jurisdictions. At all events, totally expendable. You get that young man a nice car and some cool clothes for doing it, he’ll do any thing you ask him to. I do believe the gangs are going to hit back, hard. There are billions of dollars at stake here. They need an army to intimidate us into giving up the fight. This is the recruitment of that army. They essentially did this in all the Latin American countries they dominate…for relative peanuts, get a mass of ignorant but strong youth to do your bidding no matter how horrific it is…but you never start with having them chop someone to pieces. It is always the smaller, easier step that comes first…as part of the winnowing process to find the hard core.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

It is clear that the Democrats do not want Trump’s people to gain full control of DoJ operations in New York and environs – their ridiculous efforts to get Democrat federal judges to replace Trump’s person shows this. Of course, they don’t have a leg to stand on and Trump simply re-appointed the same person the federal judges tried to replace. But it shows that is the place they fear the most – possibly because it covers both the Clinton and Biden families. Anything they can do to gum up the works will be done.

Trump has now said that Obama was at the back of the Trump-Russia scam – which, of course, we’ve known all along. But the documents Gabbard has been releasing are confirming it. Will Obama be prosecuted? We all have our doubts. But at the very least, let the process be the punishment. And I understand that Trump isn’t going to hold back – that is, he learned his lesson: he went easy on Hillary figuring it was the decent thing to do and their payback to him on that was a mugshot. Ok, then. Off we go – let the investigation go forward and the chips fall where they may.

It is complicated by the fact that some of the crucial events happened outside the statute of limitations. But a conspiracy is a conspiracy…you don’t get to check in and then check out. Once you’re part of it, you’re part of it forever. And 18 US Code 372 is pretty clear:

If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof…or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.

Or from discharging the duties thereof or impede the discharge of his official duties. Most people tend to think of this as trying to intimidate a judge or some such and, true enough, that is what is mostly in mind here…but it is all encompassing. Any person you try to stop from discharging official duties. Including the President. From what we already know, Obama, Hillary, Clapper, Brennan, Mueller, Schiff and a couple score other people are guilty of violating this provision. All of them, after all, were trying to impede Trump in carrying out his duties. And in addition to that, the manner in which the conspirators acted are a host of other violations…you’re really not supposed to suborn perjury or use our national intelligence services to frame up a political rival. That is considered a no no.

Biden pardoned a lot of these people but not all of them – and the pardoned people cannot plead the 5th. That Amendment only protects you from self-incrimination…if you’ve been blanket pardoned, you can’t incriminate yourself. You have to talk or be held in contempt. Just how loyal are these people to the Establishment Club? I guess we’re going to find out.

I guess most of the MSM has been all Epstein all the time of late – and are trying to work out that Trump’s charges against Obama are an attempt to distract from Epstein. This just lets us know that the sudden surge in Epstein reporting is the distraction…and it makes some sense. Rely on it that the Epstein record has been sanitized over the previous four years. It isn’t that dangerous to those in the Establishment at this point…and if they can work it up like they worked up Trump/Russia it could be a huge drag on Trump II…and that is why, I think, Trump went hard on dismissing the whole thing. Any attempt to separate out the Democrat BS on Epstein from the real Epstein issue was going to be a losing fight…too confusing for the casual observe to sort out. So, better to just say it doesn’t matter at all…knowing that by going after the Trump/Russia people you were going to end up getting most of those who covered for Epstein anyway.

Mamdani is still on track to win the NYC election – keeps sitting there with 40-45 percent while the rest is divvied up between Adams, Cuomo and Sliwa. I guess New Yorkers are gonna get what they want good and hard. Here’s what I would do if I were Trump: let it play out. Watch the whole cartoon closely – just in Mamdani’s plan for public grocery stores there will be massive corruption (just imagine the kickbacks and such!)…watch them steal, and then arrest them for stealing. Normally, a GOP Administration would look the other way…say it is a local affair. But NYC receives huge federal funding…and that gives Trump’s DoJ their way in. Basically expose the whole thing – show the world that Mamdani’s fundamental problem isn’t his ideology, but the fact that he actually has no idea what he’s doing. He heard a few catch-phrases in college and has run with them. Show him up. Make him look the fool. It’ll be a useful service to our nation.

How Do We Get Evil People to Stop?

Mark Noonan15 Comments

This initially started as a very long post on X but I ended up deleting it shortly after posting because I wanted to think about it some more. You’ll understand why as you read: it is a difficult thing to write about and no human being – if they have any wisdom at all – wants to presume too much. I worked into Book X of the Mirrors series (coming out later this year but it might slip to early next year) a bit where Fred is asking for a direct answer to what is going on from someone he’s certain knows: she gives an equivocal answer but rather than getting angry, Fred quotes Job 38:4, Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. And Fred, like Job, is comforted by this answer to all true Mysteries, continuing on with part of 2 Corinthians 12:10, for when I am weak, then I am strong. It is important, always, to be humble. To not be too sure and to ultimately rely on God, who’s judgements are true and righteous altogether. That said, I think this is important to say.

I was reading a post from a Catholic priest – a good priest, let it be noted – who was upset over the story that IDF soldiers were deliberately targeting Gazans coming for food aid. I noted that the story is almost certainly a lie – that its primary source is the Gazan health ministry, a known purveyor of fabrications. In jumped a Hamas-nik to deflect away from that indisputable fact to chime in with claims that the IDF routinely commits war crimes. Went back and forth a little bit there until it was certain the man was entirely wooden headed and would never think for a moment. But the whole interaction got me thinking about the concepts of justice and mercy. What, in fact, does love require we do here?

War is, of course, a nasty business. All we can learn of Our Lord tells against going to war. How can we love our neighbor as ourselves if we war upon him? On the other hand, the greatest – St John the Baptist – when asked by soldiers what they must do to enter the Kingdom merely replied – in essence – that they should be good soldiers. He didn’t say desert the army. This is pretty crucial if you ask me. That being in the military and carrying out your duties is pleasing to God. This indicates to me that Fallen Man is not going to stop being Fallen – and, of course, he isn’t. He still needs, every day, a Savior. Once we enter the Kingdom that is different – but until we do, we are prey to all the troubles of the world and war is one of those troubles.

That being said, it all comes down to why and how a person fights if war occurs. Naturally, no Christian may deliberately start a war. We are always to seek a peaceful resolution of differences and only engage in fighting if attacked or if an attack is so obviously pending that prudence dictates we strike the first blow. The only defensible war is a war of defense. Once a war starts, we are to act like Christians. We are not to be needlessly cruel to the enemy. We are to apply the necessary force to bring the conflict to its swiftest resolution, but no more than that. Nothing gratuitous. And these requirements are not just required of Christians – nobody wants as a result of war their own people to be massacred and despoiled. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu what have you, nobody wants that to happen to their side. And as they know they don’t want it to happen to them, so they know they must not do it to others. All human beings are morally obligated to be as decent as possible at all times, even the most difficult. So, in essence, there should be no war as nobody should attack unjustly and there should be no war crimes because everyone who engages in warfare should be as merciful as possible.

But what do we do in the face of the unjust attack? And, furthermore, what do we do in the face of an unjust attack accompanied by monstrous cruelty?

Naturally when attacked unjustly we are permitted to fight back in self defense. And the response must be proportional to the needs. In other words, if peace may be obtained by ten bombs then you shouldn’t drop ten thousand. But now we need to think a little bit. To consider just what we’re dealing with – and what response is proportional to it.

World War One morphed from a fracas in the Balkans into a World War for one reason and one reason, alone: the Germans unjustly attacked Luxembourg, Belgium and France. There was no reason for this German attack. Not the slightest justification can be made for it. The Germans did it because they thought they would win quickly and gain total mastery of Europe in six weeks. And the Germans, when they did it, knew they were doing wrong – because they wouldn’t want another power to invade Germany out of the blue in a bid for European mastery. They would have considered such an attack upon themselves as an outrage against all decency. And yet they went ahead and attacked France. They were in the wrong, totally.

By immense exertions and loss of lives, this German attack was defeated. The German army was forced to withdraw and enter into an Armistice before the German army was totally destroyed in the field. Germany then had a peace treaty imposed upon her designed to prevent a recurrence of the just-defeated attack. Germany’s army was limited in size and her economy was burdened with reparations payments designed to not only repay the offended parties, but to cripple Germany’s economic ability to wage war. This was an entirely just peace treaty given what had happened.

But it turned out that it didn’t punish the Germans enough. It left them intact enough to very swiftly rebuild their military might and try again – which they did a mere twenty five years after the first try. And this time their attack was accompanied by the most monstrous cruelty ever done by the hand of Man. People murdered by the millions. Rapes all over German occupied Europe. Massive looting not just of food and tools, but the very artwork of the conquered peoples. Meanwhile, over on the other side of the world, Japan had launched a totally unjustified war in 1937 – attacking China quite ruthlessly with the Rape of Nanking being a horror that would have made Attila the Hun sick to his stomach…an orgy of rape, murder and looting. And then, later, Japan just continued this in all the lands they occupied as World War Two became global.

War and cruelty go together. After all, even under the most honorable of circumstances, you are still seeking to end the lives of the other side. Who can say what lies and threats got that enemy soldier into uniform? Yet the soldier must kill – swiftly and without remorse. And in the heat of combat – with fear and hatred rising – at times even the most honorable of soldiers can commit acts which, in the cold light of reason, can only be described as barbaric. Of course, when such acts occur decent military organizations do seek redress. If for no other reason than to ensure good order and discipline in the ranks. But, often, because it is just the right thing to do. We understand why our boys might go too far at times and we want to be merciful to the man who may have been pushed too far…but right is right and sometimes we have to punish our own. But what the Germans and Japanese did in World War Two went far beyond this.

It is one thing for a soldier, or a few soldiers, or even a whole company of soldiers to go off their heads. At the Siege of Badajoz in 1812, Wellington’s army had to carry out an exceptionally difficult assault against an alert and entrenched enemy and the fighting was quite ferocious with no quarter asked or given. Those men were brave and disciplined British soldiers…but the cost of the assault seems to have set those men off their heads…once they had won they disregarded their officers from Wellington on down and went on a rampage of looting, rape and murder in the town. It was totally unjustified. A horrific blot on the honor of the British army. It took days for Wellington and his officers to regain control and turn their mob back into an army. It was horrible but not ordered by the command, nor sanctioned by the government, nor justified in any way by any British patriot. What the Germans and Japanese did was different from this.

What was done at Nanking and Babi Yar was the considered policy of the respective governments. The soldiers were ordered to carry it out. And they carried it out. As time went on and the monstrous cruelties increased in scope whole support systems were put into place so that Germans and Japanese could kill ever more people…and with ever more attendant cruelty, including torture and looting. Japanese soldiers didn’t go berserk at Nanking. No more than German soldiers went berserk at Oradour-sur-Glane. They carried out orders. And orders they knew were wrong as they carried them out because not one German or Japanese soldier wanted those events to happen in their home towns to their own people. Basic human decency required them to refuse to obey…but they obeyed. It doesn’t, in the end, matter why. Cowardice or cruelty or any combination of human failings – they were still responsible adults who knew better. And the sheer scale of the atrocities of Germany and Japan required that the whole populations of each country become intimately involved in them. After all, the guy who drove the train full of Jews to Auschwitz couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what he carried…nor that he never carried people away from the place. He knew. And so did his wife and children. Did they approve? It doesn’t matter: they went along with it when they knew they shouldn’t have.

You can excuse it and try to explain it away but the bottom line is that death is preferable to participation in such crimes…even the death of you and all you love. It just isn’t worth it if life requires you to participate, even second hand, in massacres. You think about the endless number of German families who just quietly went along – and then the Ulma family of Poland which harbored eight Jews and, when caught, was massacred down to Mrs. Ulma’s unborn child. The Ulma’s knew the risks – and think of Mr. Ulma, dedicated to the safety and happiness of his family. He could easily have said, “I hate the Nazis and I want to help the Jews, but I have my wife and children to think of” and done nothing. But he truly thought of his wife and children – and did what had to be done. It is when things are worst that we are supposed to do our best. The Germans and Japanese, in the whole, did not do this (and all honor to the few in each country who did do the right thing).

Now on to the really difficult thing to consider and I pray to God I don’t get this wrong – I do not wish to lead myself or anyone else astray!

As the children of Poland, China, Philippines, France, Norway, Burma, Russia, Greece and so many other nations were martyred by German and Japanese cruelty, did not their cries for justice rise up to heaven? They spoke in a multitude of languages and they had often very different ideas about God, but all of them were human beings and all of them were caught in a welter of cruel slaughter they in no way deserved. Surely out of their mouths and hearts went up the cry: my God, save me!

Of course it did. And I can’t imagine God not listening. Not seeing their tears. And while God gives us the free will to do as we wish God is also just and merciful and His will is always accomplished. The fact that the Germans and Japanese were utterly defeated is an obvious example of God’s justice operating in the world. That people so depraved were not able to win is just and merciful. And how were they not able to win? By being subjected to such ferocious punishment that total destruction resulted.

Much is said these days about the strategic bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan. From right after the end of the war, it has been derided as a failure. The advocates of strategic bombing swore up and down that it, alone, would destroy the enemy and compel peace. Clearly, it did not and so it must have failed. This, I think, was based upon a faulty understanding of just what happened in the strategic bombing campaigns.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the Germans and Japanese were forced to expend enormous resources fighting against the bombings. Every plane, every soldier, every bullet and shell shot up into the sky at Allied bombers was that much less they had on the battlefield against Allied armies. Each bomb that dropped in some manner hampered both nations in the conduct of the war…even the fact that craters had to be filled in to get the roads open took time and manpower and so there was less power to apply on the battlefields. In short, without the bombings the fighting on the ground would have been far more intense, lengthy and bloody. Maybe so much so that the Germans and Japanese could have prevented the total defeat of their nations.

In addition to that, Allied bombing power was still growing in 1945. It was only in 1944 that the Allied air forces could really be certain that a bombing raid would seriously degrade the selected target. It was all a matter of getting sufficient planes, sufficiently skilled crews and learning the difficult task of hitting a relatively small target from a great height. By 1944 the Allied air forces were nailing this down – and the destruction went from bad to absolutely horrific. We’ve all seen the pictures of the ruined cities taken post-War but they don’t really capture what it was like – meaning for the Germans and Japanese on the ground. To be absolutely helpless as a thousand enemy planes leisurely pass overhead dropping tons of bombs was likely one of the worst sensation any human being has endured. Small wonder that very often downed Allied pilots in both Germany and Japan were lynched on the spot by outraged people. Had the Germans and Japanese been able to keep us away – prevent Allied invasions of their own territory – then the bombings would just have gotten worse. Even absent the atomic bomb! Just worse and worse and worse. By 1945 Allied planes were ranging at will over Germany and Japan and Allied factories were turning out planes, bombs and aircrews at an increasing pace…suppose, for instance, that the Battle of the Bulge pushed us back to Paris and that the Germans had defeated the Russians January, 1945 offensive in Poland…so much the worse for Germany as the number of bombs dropping would have simply increased – perhaps to the point where it was simply impossible for the Germans to live (seriously: by 1945 even ox carts were being strafed).

And here’s the interesting thing I want to say: is it at all possible that Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay were instruments of God’s justice? That with all the cries to heaven for justice, it was those two men – and their intrepid air crews – who delivered the redress? I don’t know. But I can suspect. And I can definitely say that given what the Germans and Japanese were doing – as peoples – the bombings weren’t unjust even if not an expression of God’s justice.

What can we say? For the Germans this was round two. They had started a totally unjust war in 1914 and were totally defeated…but didn’t accept their defeat and so tried again in 1939 and this time were unbelievably cruel. So, too, the Japanese all over Asia and the Pacific…just simply mean and cruel…killing, raping, looting…both people lording it over the conquered even in the smallest ways. Simple military defeat in the manner of 1918 didn’t work…and so there was absolute crushing defeat on every level in 1945. And that did work. Nobody fears that the Germans or Japanese will ever try it again. So, just maybe the result of 1945 was totally just? Could be. This doesn’t excuse anything the Allies did which was actually wrong (like the behavior of Russian soldiers regarding German women), but the basic operation was just – it burned out of the Japanese and German populations any desire to carry on with their imperial and racist ambitions. And then we have God’s mercy working even for the Germans and Japanese: because of this massive application of power against them, the war ended before they were all killed and everything was totally destroyed. They, too, cried out to God for an end to it…and their prayer was granted.

And now lets go forward to today – the aftermath of 10/7. First and foremost, nothing can justify 10/7. Suppose Israel is guilty of every crime charged to her, there is no way to justify what was done on 10/7. First off, it was an unjust attack – there was no attack happening or pending on the people of Gaza. That they didn’t like the political and economic situation they were in doesn’t constitute a justification for war. To justify war you must be attacked or an attack is so imminent that you must attack to thwart it. Nothing like that was going on in Gaza on 10/7.

And then what the Gazans did: they didn’t enter Israel for a stand-up fight with the IDF: they came to rape and murder. Their primary method of warfare was to attack the helpless and treat them with inhuman cruelty. Even if someone did that to your people, you are not justified in doing it to theirs. Once again, as you do not want it to happen to you so you must not do it to others. And, of course, Israel has never sent in IDF units to rape and murder the helpless. What the Gazans did was a monstrous crime – something which hadn’t happened since the Germans and Japanese were doing it in WWII. And when the rapist/murderers returned to Gaza – often dragging their victims (living and dead) in their wake – the overwhelming mass of the people of Gaza cheered.

Cheered.

They cheered rapists and murderers bringing home the victims of their crimes.

They knew precisely what those men had done and they were happy about it.

Now, did every last person in Gaza approve? Almost certainly not. But the number disapproving is very small. It took years to develop the rape/murder squads. To get people to think that it is good to do these things is not something you just whistle up in a weekend. You have to mentally condition people to do it and approve of it. The Germans were all “oh, Hitler went mad in 1943!”…as if it wasn’t insane to deny Jewish humanity with the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Sure, a basic Gazan on the street might not have known ten years ago that it was specifically leading to 10/7, but that Gazan knew – knows and always has known – that propaganda denying the basic humanity of Jews is wrong. They know it because they would be aghast at propaganda which held that Muslims aren’t human. Bottom line, given what Hamas was doing in Gaza from the get-go, nobody could have the slightest illusion that very bad things were going to happen. The Gazans just hoped they’d only happen to Jews.

So, what is the best thing to do here? A ceasefire? You mean a pause until the next round? How is that good? What does that accomplish? Indeed, wouldn’t a ceasefire seem in the minds of the Gazans a victory? That they stood up to the IDF and forced them to quit? And what of the mindset of the Gazans – the mindset that approves the rape and murder of helpless people? Which, by the way, doesn’t just happen in Israel…you can see it happening all over Syria right now, as well as in Sudan and other places in the Muslim world where violence is becoming endemic. There is a mindset at work here – a belief system – which sustains such cruelty. Ceasefire with it? To what purpose? Negotiate a peace? What’s the half way point between rape and no rape? What’s the compromise position? A little murder?

Or is it time to emulate Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay? That is, apply such ferocious force on these people that they fully understand what they’ve done is wrong and they’ll never do it again.

Honestly, I am not certain. But I can’t see the use of going on like we have. As if, perhaps, we are the bad guys – that there is some justification for what the enemy is doing, or maybe we should feel guilty about Dresden and so we’d better hold back going forward. All I know is that the only bad thing here is a continuation – letting this go on and on and on. It is time to end this – and unless we want to end this via our surrender, we’re going to have to get very stern in action. And true justice might require us to act sternly. After all, what would we say of the cop who let a murderer go, only to have that man kill again? We’d be pretty furious – and justly so. If we go soft on Hamas and Hezbollah and the other fanatic groups of killers, then all we’re ultimately doing is ensuring that some poor innocent at a later date gets killed. And innocents on both sides, it should be noted; some poor kid in Gaza who is killed by a bomb or a stray bullet didn’t deserve to die…and I’d prevent that if I can.

To get back to the genesis of this post, suppose the story of IDF soldiers taking pot shots at Gazans lining up for food is true. Well, I have some bad news for you: the only way to ensure it doesn’t happen is the total defeat of the Gazan people. If you take the position that the way to stop it is to punish the IDF soldiers and impose a ceasefire, then all you’re doing is making sure other innocent people are killed later. And I mean its as definite as Euclidean geometry: you are definitely, consciously deciding that some poor sap will die next week, next month or next year…and you’re doing it because you just want people to think you’re the good guy, today. The problem isn’t the IDF soldier taking the shot – the problem is that the IDF soldier is there in response to the 10/7 massacre. Had 10/7 not happened then no need for Gazans to line up for aid and thus no possibility of an IDF soldier going off his head and taking a shot at the Gazans. Get to the crux of the matter, people. The problem is an anti-human ideology which holds that Jews aren’t people and may be raped and murdered at will.

If we want an end to this then what must end is the ideology which generates the actions. An ideology of peace and brotherhood is very unlikely to start a war. An ideology domination is highly likely to start a war. Hamas’ ideology – like similar ideologies – is one of domination. Rule. Masters and slaves. It has to go. If you can think of a way to talk them out of it, I’m all ears. But I believe that its going to be necessary to burn it out of them. To let them know they’re just plain and simple wrong. That God has not decreed they be Masters.