Alex Jones and Stuff Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

I’ve only ever heard of Alex Jones – and run in to some of his supporters on social media. From what I gather, he’s rather out there, taking at face value any conspiracy theory you care to mention and then weaving even larger conspiracies of his own. I gather – I don’t know: I’ve never listened to word one from the guy. Basically, the guy is unknown to me. But, a lot of people love him and a lot of people hate him…and now he’s being deplatformed by the social media giants because he said The Bad Words that the SJW’s don’t like. None of that is unexpected – and neither is the TruCon, NeverTrump contingent offering a nuanced view which works out to “it’s ok the SJW’s got that guy off the web.” In other words, our Muh Principles Conservative betters are eager to surrender to the left, as usual.

Lots of heated rhetoric has been issued over this, but anyone with a brain knows what is happening: the left has chosen a marginal case to make their first move into overt censorship of non-left views. It is said that Jones has said some outrageous things, and I’ll bet that he has. And for the weak-kneed on the right, this makes it impossible to defend Jones. “I don’t want my Progressive friends thinking I’m like that! Icky poo! Bad, bad Non-Expert!”. But, I’ll defend him – I have to. As an individual, what happens to him is unimportant, but as a symbol – and a harbinger – we simply can’t let this one slide. If we do, then the left will just go to the next and the next and the next non-left opinion which is “too extreme” to be tolerated. Eventually, the only non-left opinions allowed will be the tame TruCon surrender-at-all-costs opinions (and don’t think this isn’t desired by the TruCons…its just what they want: all of us gone, them at the top of the Conservative heap, slowly surrendering to Progressive views).

The solution to this is to start putting the regulatory pressure of the government against the social media giants. This is a difficult step for small government Conservatives, but it is a pill we’ll have to swallow. The social media giants have deliberately turned themselves into an arm of the political left, and they must be treated as such. My preferred option is to break up the giants into several, smaller and competing entities…but, absent that, we need government rules ensuring that everyone has equal access to social media and, so, government prescribed rules for when an account can be deplatformed (you can see why this is my second option: eventually, the left might get the government power to make such rules…much better, in my view, to merely have smaller social media companies). For more opinion on this, here’s Legal Insurrection.

Democrats had been hoping for a special election win in Ohio and got disappointed…outside of the dollop of liberal tears this provided for us, I don’t think it means much. Democrats have done very well in the special elections overall, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into general election results. Thing about this one – it kinda sneaked up on us. I’m pretty observant about politics, but I don’t recall even hearing a whisper about it until special election day…I think the Dems and the MSM (but I repeat myself) were hoping to win this one quietly and then blast it to the rafters as proof that Trump is doomed…but an alert Trump and GOP pounced on it and made sure the GOP pulled out a low-turnout victory.

There’s a Twitter account called Sweet Meteor O’Death…a satirical account which had its very best days during the 2016 election when it was a candidate for President. Anyways, the account Tweeted out this:

Kill all the white people. And all the other people. And everything that’s alive. Except deep-sea, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria.

You get it. I get it. Twitter locked the guy’s account for 12 hours. Meanwhile, the New York Times’ new columnist’s racist rants are still there on Twitter for all to see.

Victor Davis Hanson is smart and everyone should listen to him. The thing is that everything has happened before. And if you don’t realize that, and also realize that everything can turn on a dime, you’ll always end up looking like a fool.

Russia, China and American Foreign Policy

Mark Noonan5 Comments

China is the biggest threat we face as a nation – a couple people aside from me have started to pick up on that. Part of the catalyst seems to be the discovery that Senator Feinstein employed a Chinese spy for 20 years.

I don’t go for conspiracy theories, but the bottom line is that the only nation that benefits from enmity between the United States and Russia is China. China – which hacks our government and private computer systems on a regular basis. Which has used pirated technology to rapidly catch up with us in advanced military hardware. Which is building bases in the South China Sea. Which claims sovereignty over some small, Japanese islands. Which is building a blue water navy, including a first-class, nuclear powered fleet air arm. Which has pressured Google into making a search engine which suppresses subversive (to China) speech. Which spends vast sums, open and disguised, to lobby the American government. If China wrote the script, nothing would work better for them than the intense national angst over supposed “Russian meddling” in our elections.

To be sure, Putin is acting stupidly in not recognizing that his nation’s hold on Siberia is ultimately dependent upon alliance with us. If, by some means, China can ever neutralize us in world affairs, then Russia will find itself forced to disgorge vast tracts of Asia to China (quite a lot of which was at least theoretically under Chinese rule in the 18th and 19th centuries). If you’re thinking, “Russia has nukes”, well, so does China – and much more powerful and accurate nukes, thanks to us via either Chinese theft of American idiocy (especially during Bill Clinton’s Administration). Will Russia be willing to see Moscow and Saint Petersburg nuked in order to prevent a Chinese army from taking Vladivostok? I doubt it.

In my view, confronting China takes first place in American foreign policy issues – above issues like combating Jihadism, and vastly more important than stopping Putin from annexing areas of the former USSR which are mostly populated by ethnic Russians. To be sure, Russia always has to be confronted: from reading history, that is just how it works. Leave the door open, and they’ll push in. I’d advise Russia that any attempt to annex the Baltic States, invade Poland or push beyond the Donbass in Ukraine would be considered an act of war by us. But I also think we should enter negotiations with the Russians to permanently settle the current issues with internationally recognized boundaries and Russian sovereignty over the territories they currently hold. To give force to our declaration that we’re not kidding about forbidding further Russian expansionism in Europe, I’d be willing to place US forces semi-permanently in Poland, the Baltics and Ukraine.

That done, it would be time to make a deal with Russia regarding holding China back. I doubt we’d get an outright military alliance with them, but we could engage in certain agreements to make sure that China felt unsure if Russia would stay out if we ever got into conflict with China while at the same time letting China know that if they did try an invasion of Siberia, Russia would find a friend in us. The ultimate purpose of US foreign policy, you see, should be the encirclement of China with nations bound to come to each others assistance if China moves in any direction. To this end, we strengthen our alliances with Japan and South Korea and build, as rapidly as possible, full-blown alliances with India and Vietnam. NATO could remain in ghostly existence, but I don’t see NATO ever coming to our aid against either Russia or China, and if we’re allied with Poland, etc, then the powers most concerned with Russia (and most likely to fight alongside us in a war with Russia) are already bound to us.

Most importantly, it is time for a bit of reality to enter into our foreign affairs – reality which has been absent for more than 100 years. There is no love between nations – never has been, never will be. It is all a matter of interests…and the interests of the United States are in direct conflict with the interests of China. I happen to believe that eventually they will strike militarily – they can’t get rich fast enough to satisfy the growing desires of their own people and the whole justification for the Chinese government is, “allow us to be in charge, we’ll make things ever better for you”. Eventually, crunch time will hit when the Chinese government will either have to surrender power due to a financial crisis in China, or they’ll strike out militarily in hopes of cutting the Gordian knot. I do believe, though, that a wise, tough American foreign policy can make it so that China never feels safe enough to attack us…and that means that China as to be brought to a position where war with us means war with everyone around them. Even with their vast manpower, an alliance between the USA, India, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea is too much to handle, especially if we have Russia looming over their norther border at the time China chooses to strike.

Another part of this reality is to hang it up on “Putin is a dictator”. Of course he is – but democracy doesn’t exactly flourish in China, either. In fact, truly free nations are becoming somewhat of a rarity these days. Even in the Western world, in most nations, you have to watch what you say lest the wrath of the government be directed against you. Our primary interest isn’t to defend the ragged end of a dying democracy in France or Germany, but to defend our own freedom. And if defending that freedom means taking our friends (temporarily) where we find them, then so be it. I’m not, you see, particularly keen on seeing America’s youth dying to a defend an European “democracy” which will fine or imprison you for speaking out of turn about Islam. I’m especially uninterested because I know that hardly any European nations will put their blood on the line in a major war. Sending a regiment to Afghanistan is fine for them…especially as they mostly keep out of harms way. But anyone who thinks the Germans or Brits will send an army corps to help us defend Taiwan from Chinese attack has rocks in their head.

Cold calculation is what we need, not sentimental attachment to dead and gone agreements. It is what the Chinese are using against us, and it is the only way we can thwart them.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Lot of people seem to think we’re supposed to respect Mueller because he had an excellent record in Vietnam. I don’t buy that – history is littered with fine junior officers who wound up lousy generals, or lousy political leaders. People are what they do – and no past action either permanently lifts up or casts down a person.

Legal Insurrection is saying that Mueller should put up or shut up: his probe, run through our political system, is tearing this nation apart. If he’s got the goods on Trump, let’s hear what they are. If he doesn’t, he should say so. And none of this “ongoing investigation” BS. Tell us, one way or the other.

South Africa is moving down the Zimbabwe route – now with a proposal to expropriate white-owned land without compensation. This will do nothing for South Africa’s poor – who, for the most part, don’t know how to farm. It will inflame racial tensions and give an excuse for the Ruling Class to remain in power. I’ve read lots of things about South Africa of late and none of it is good: but those thinking that the world will lift a finger to help white South Africans are fooling themselves. Now is the time to get out of South Africa, if you can. Flee. Run away. Go somewhere else. Today. It’ll only get worse from here. I do have sympathy, but it was also rather baked in that it would come out this way: there was no way the post-Apartheid government was going to provide the sort of wealth black South Africans thought they’d have if only Apartheid came to an end. Hopes were raised and are now completely dashed…and the ANC does not propose to surrender power simply because they didn’t deliver on their promises.

We all figured that Never Trump, beyond a certain point, would become Democrats – and we were right:

…according to speculation reported by POLITICO, former McCain 2008 chief strategist Steve Schmidt may go one step further: He’s reportedly thinking about signing up with a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, possibly former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

The good news is he’d likely do as well for Schultz as he did for McCain.

Good riddance.

I don’t have too many Progressive followers on Twitter. No more than a handful as a matter of fact. Twitter is very tribal: for the most part, no one wants to listen to the other side on that platform. But there is one I do have and I admire the guy (or gal; can’t tell if the account holder if male or female): I think him wrong, but he is sincere in arguing for what he thinks is right and he’s honest and never gets nasty. I think he follows me for the same reason. Over the years we’ve had some fun discussions…but lately, we’ve both been sliding towards being angry at the same people. Or, at least, the same sort of people. You know: I despise Never Trumpers…this guy despises Neo-Liberals (as he calls them). In this, we’re both despising unprincipled people who merely latch on to a political party to serve their own, selfish ends. And what I’m thinking of late: just how large is a potential coalition of all people who despise the Establishment? And can Trump (and, believe it or not, McConnell) tap into this and create a FDR-size constituency to win the 2020 election in the manner that FDR won the 1936 election? Time will tell.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

President Trump went on a bit of a Twitter storm about Mueller:

There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!

What do you guys think? Is he getting closer to firing Mueller? Some people think so – I have long argued he should, but its been so long I’m wondering if he ever will? Others theorize that Trump, Sessions, et al have their own plan to take care of this plus a great deal of other things right before the mid-terms. I guess anyone’s guess is as good as any other – but one thing I’ve noticed that in the really crucial policy moves of the Trump Administration, there are no leaks. Probably, if there is something cooking, no more than Trump and six or seven of his closest people know what it is.

Justice Ginsburg says she wants to stick around at least five more years…which is nice, but if she wants to make sure Trump doesn’t replace her, she’ll have to hang around until 2025, in my view. And even then she might find President Pence or President Haley offering up her replacement.

Powerline notes that Iran is up against the wall right now – thanks to Trump’s policies. One thing seems to be a constant under Trump: our friends do better, our enemies do worse.

Some Republicans are trying to slip through a bit of Chamber of Commerce-approved semi-amnesty garbage, apparently thinking that Trump will shy away from a budget fight less than 100 days from the midterms. This turns out to have been an incorrect assessment:

I would be willing to “shut down” government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country!

Remember, Republicans have been gun-shy on government shutdown since the shutdowns in the mid-90’s which…did absolutely nothing to harm the GOP. And who can forget the government shutdown in 2013 which led, just the following year,…to the best GOP mid-term since the 1920’s? Seriously, I don’t get why the GOP thinks a shutdown is a bad thing. It never adversely affects the GOP and it often clarifies issues. And with Trump in the White House, you can rely on it that any shutdown will be crafted to discomfit the American people as little as possible. Immigration reform with strong border security is popular overall, and especially popular with the GOP base which needs to turn out in November to save the House. A shutdown over the issue will merely fire up the voters we need…so, do it, unless the Dems cave on border security (if they were smart, they would cave, as that would make a lot of GOP voters relax, and thus be less likely to show up in November).

Austin, Texas, is thinking of re-naming itself because Stephen Austin owned slaves. As part of the plan to ensure we keep re-electing Trump President, forever, this is great…but outside of that, it is idiocy. Austin was a man of his times – a Southerner who grew up with slavery as an established thing who also had his doubts about it as the concept of slavery as an evil was gaining currency in the Western World. That he was wrong to hold slaves – and in seeing to it that slavery remained legal in Texas – is a sin he cannot escape…but the bottom line is that he helped lay the foundations for Texas’ liberty which ultimately benefited all Texans. To expunge his name won’t change the past.

I’m sure you guys have heard of the straw ban. Absolute Progressive idiocy. Heard it is based upon the conclusions of a middle school kid’s science project. Wouldn’t surprise me if that were true. Paper straws will now make a comeback. Here’s the thing, for those of old enough to remember: we switched from paper to plastic in the 1970’s to save the trees. Now, we’re going to slaughter trees again…the circle is complete!

Pop Culture Rant

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Weirdo writes a play using the music of the 80’s band The Go-Go’s. New York Times reviewer doesn’t like it. SJW hate mob descends.

Skimming thru the review and various bits and pieces on Twitter – I wouldn’t give such a concept more attention than that; you can dig deeper if you like to waste your time – I get the idea that this play was supposed to be some ground-breaking event and that the reviewer failed in his duty to praise the effort for being ground-breaking…but how using 35 year old music to kowtow to 2018 Progressive ideology is supposed to break any ground is beyond me. The whole thing seems boring – especially since the Go-Go’s started to bore me about 15 minutes after their first song hit the charts (but they were the first all-girl band to write and play their own music! Yeah? So, what? Their musical style was boring and their lyrics trite…but not even trite in a fun way like most pop lyrics are). The whole thing is rather a SJW rip-off of Mama Mia!, if you ask me. Apparently without the fun…and with substandard pop tunes as a hook.

I get nostalgia – I’m a Conservative, right? But I think, at times, we get nostalgic for things that only seemed cool at the time. It is like the continuing popularity of The Eagles on classic rock stations. It was mega-popular when it came out and I think people associate it with happy days of youth. But, come on, the music sucked! No one moves faster to change a radio station than me when I hear the first three notes of Life in the Fast Lane or Hotel California. Hotel California topped the charts in 1977 and you get to hear it several times a day if you listen to classic rock stations…but you’re lucky if you hear Lido Shuffle once a year on the same stations. And you can go listen to Hotel California if you want to compare, but I’ll actually provide Lido Shuffle for your enjoyment:

After listening to that and realizing that I’m right, also realize that if they ever do a play using 1977 music it’s gonna be with the Eagles music, not Boz Skaggs.

And just because, also from 1977:

But, Eagles, Eagles, Eagles. And don’t think I’m just ripping on them…Heart also sucked; as did Carlos Santana (never heard a more boring guitarist). Basically, most chart-toppers were lousy. You ever listen to those re-broadcasts of American Top 40? It is practically impossible to listen to: 9 out of 10 songs are just hideously bad. Not worth plowing through them to get to the one gem that actually endured the test of time.

Where am I going with all this? Nowhere – this is a rant, dang it! I’m just venting spleen on something that irritates me: and, in this case, it is the use of some of the worst music ever made as some sort of cultural markers for our civilization. I don’t care about that play because the subject matter of it seems pretty dumb…what I’m upset about is they used a lousy band and now I can find people waxing rhapsodic over the nuances of the fargin’ Go-Go’s! There are no nuances in a song that says over and over and over a-freaking-gain “we got the beat”. Meanwhile, this will never be part of a hit Broadway play:

Summer’s going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger

Because that might make you think about something – maybe even something pleasant. Its from this song:

And the guys who made up Rush are probably pinko enough…but their music is too actually good to make it on Broadway. So, we’re stuck with lousy music being made into bad plays about subjects that no one cares about. And then have to hear shrieks from SJW’s who feel we don’t appreciate it enough.

End Rant.

Worst President Re-Release Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

The Worst President in History has been re-released. It has been updated! We’re very proud of this book and are pleased that it has done so well. Just to tip you off, Matt and I just got another idea for a book, so stay tuned. And buy this one, if you haven’t!

So, there’s this anti-ICE camp and, get this, they’ve set up borders for the camp and they strictly control who is allowed inside. I’d accuse them of hypocrisy, but there’s just no point because they are shameless.

California, since 1968, has been granted waivers to go beyond the national clean air standards – and the liberals of California have used these waivers to leverage the rest of the nation to subscribe to California’s clean air standards. Looks like the EPA may end that practice. On one hand, this is good as it prevents California from effectively dictating national auto emission standards…on the other hand, the more unlivable the liberals make California, the closer we get to the day the liberals are crushed in California. I’m distressed that we might be helping the liberals get rid of some of their own stupid mistakes.

Looks like the North Korean are dismantling at least some of their nuclear infrastructure. The MSM has been relentless in not covering this.

There was yet another in the series of “waiter gets racist note” events. Naturally, the MSM ran with the story…and just as naturally, it has now proved false. You might be thinking: why do they keep doing this? Well, the reason is that the retraction never gets much notice, at all, and zero notice on the left. Rely on it, most people of the left firmly believe that each of these events actually happened, just as they still believe “hands up, don’t shoot” is true. These stories aren’t for you and me: they are for the true believers of the Left, to keep them at a fever pitch.

Have any of you seen Interstellar? Every time I hear people talking about it, they are saying it is the very worst Sci-Fi movie ever made. I think it the best. If you’ve seen it, what do you think?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan6 Comments

Max Boot goes full liberal – the MSM still describes him as a Conservative, but that is only so they can say, “see, there are Conservative critics of Trump”. The reality is that if you are a “Conservative” critic of Trump at this point, you’re consciously working for liberal victory. As I’ve said before, one can reasonably take exception to various Trump policies and actions…but where the rubber hits the road, we don’t need “Conservative” critics of Trump right now. Trump has plenty of non-Conservative critics and they’ll make sure every move he makes is loudly criticized. If one can’t say something nice about Trump, then just shut up and say something bad about liberals…you don’t have to be a Trump cheerleader, but at least get on the team and work for victory. The future beckons and, at most, you’ll have to deal with Trump for a little more than 6 years. After that, there are all sorts of great people that everyone right of center should be able to get behind without any qualms…but if you’re ripping on Trump, now, you won’t get to be part of that, later.

Lee University students demand that Vice President Pence not be invited to speak – thus providing yet another liberal in-kind donation to the Trump re-election effort of 2020.

If Manchin votes to confirm Kavanaugh, then he’s got a good shot at getting re-elected in November. This is good in that it pretty much guarantees that Kavanaugh will be confirmed…it is bad in that we’ll still have Manchin in the Senate. Glass half full…

Looks like Trump’s old lawyer Cohen may have taped some conversations between himself and Trump: they may be salacious in they might show Trump working on paying off some Playboy Playmate that he had a to-do with. My take on this was, initially, to Tweet out “I felt a great disturbance in the MAGA: as if 63,000,000 souls suddenly shrugged their shoulders and went about their business”. I don’t think our liberal friends realize how little we care that a billionaire may have had an affair with a Playmate. Yes, it is immoral. Yes: Trump should not have done that. Very much he should show true contrition for this (alleged) act. But, it is also none of my business and, at all events, it has no bearing on his actions as President, which are all I care about at the moment. It is also not illegal for billionaires to have sexual relations with Playmates; nor is it illegal to flash cash at them to keep quiet about it. My later take is: this is a gigantic violation of attorney-client privilege and Mueller and his troops are entirely out of control at this point. What possible connection could there be between Trump having sex in 2006 and Russian election meddling 10 years later?

This is for our Amazona:

I refer, here, to ending birthright citizenship.

The notion that simply being born within the geographical limits of the United States automatically confers U.S. citizenship is an absurdity — historically, constitutionally, philosophically and practically.

Constitutional scholar Edward Erler has shown that the entire case for birthright citizenship is based on a deliberate misreading of the 14th Amendment. The purpose of that amendment was to resolve the question of citizenship for newly freed slaves. Following the Civil War, some in the South insisted that states had the right to deny citizenship to freedmen. In support, they cited 1857’s disgraceful Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which held that no black American could ever be a citizen of the United States.

A constitutional amendment was thus necessary to overturn Dred Scott and to define the precise meaning of American citizenship.

Liberals, naturally, went ballistic over this – and plenty of Never Trumpers tut-tutted about it. But however one wants to read the 14th Amendment, it is an absurdity to think that just because a kid is born on American soil he or she now has all the rights and privileges of an American citizen.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

The DNC/MSM/Never Trump combine went ballistic over the Trump/Putin presser. I didn’t watch it, but I did see it explode in real time over social media. We seriously had people calling for the overthrow of the United States government to “save” us from Putin’s stooge, Trump. Plenty of people on the right – almost all Never Trump, but a few weak kneed others, as well – joined in. Given that this happened in conjunction with the discovery and an alleged Russia-NRA (yes, you read that right) connection to undermine America starting in 2015, it was all clearly scripted to be part of battle space prep for November. Do lay that to heart: everything that will show up in the news relating to politics from now until November will be battle space prep.

The more mundane reality is that Trump has Putin over a barrel and Putin knows it – so, it is time to make nice with the USA until we return an idiot like Obama to power. We’ve checkmated Putin in Syria and in the rest of the Middle East; our increasing oil production is putting a huge strain on the Russian economy; beefing up military forces in Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe means there are no more easy pickings for Putin; our calls for NATO to re-arm may create a long period of time when Russia has to behave. Trump, also no fool, knows that while Russia can’t wreck us, they can cause plenty of trouble, and if that trouble can be avoided by making a bit of nice with Putin, no worries.

In 2017, the nation which reduced its carbon emission the most was the United States…which shows that the Paris treaty and all other climate treaties are hot garbage.

Lisa Page testified again on Monday (another reason for the Dems, etc, to have a meltdown over Russia) and was apparently cooperative. I don’t know, of course, but I think she’s flipped on the Deep State.

Meathead made a movie about the Iraq war called Shock and Awe. It opened this past weekend. You didn’t go see it. Hardly anyone did. It grossed $41,000.00 (yes, forty one thousand dollars). Get woke, go broke is becoming a common thing…but more certain is it that if you tangle with Trump, you will lose…mostly because you first have to go insane before you tangle with Trump.

Real Conservatism

Mark Noonan9 Comments

So, Jonah Goldberg advised the other day that one can be pro-abortion and be Conservative…in fact, he later went on to say, in effect, that just about anyone can be Conservative. I, naturally, took exception to this attitude and in some Twitter responses, gave my ideas:

Not really. Conservatism, if it is anything, is a defense of faith, family and property. Being atheist and/or in favor of abortion means you cannot defend two of the three main elements Conservatives seek to conserve. I don’t know of this is part of Goldberg’s possible “evolution” on certain issues to make himself acceptable to the left, but it is complete nonsense as a Conservative opinion.

To be sure, an atheist or pro-abortion person could *selectively* support certain elements of a Conservative philosophy, but doing such doesn’t make one Conservative. It just makes one not a complete fool. There is truth and there is falsehood. There is right and there is wrong. It is false, for instance, to think there is any moral justification of abortion. And no Conservative would ever place himself in the position of defending falsehood.

I think Goldberg illustrates what happens when someone is wise enough to reject the most obvious bad aspects of liberal ideology but fails to see that the entire liberal idea is inherently wrong. Such “Conservatism” is a mere matter of style. No one with above room temp IQ, after all, wants to entirely embrace an ideology which is laughably wrong about so much. But there’s a gulf between that and being actually Conservative

Later, I went on to note that Goldberg’s version of Conservative giggled while the social fabric of our society was ripped to shreds. That version of Conservatism is, officially at least, strong on such things as defending free speech and the Second Amendment, but it never even tried to defend average folks against the assault launched by the left not just on the concept of morality, but on the very concept of Truth. To people like Goldberg, it was ok that people were out there saying there’s no such thing as Truth – they defended people saying that. The proper response is that while people are allowed to say it, they should be hated for saying it and, as far as practical, not given a public platform to shout such a vile absurdity. Like this: there was an attitude of anger that Conservatism was driven from college campuses, but no anger that Conservatism didn’t drive away those arguing that Truth is a social construct.

Think about it: would you or anyone be in favor of allowing in a medical school professorship someone who asserted that all disease is a mere matter of mind? There are people who believe that – that we get sick only because our minds are sick and if we’ll just get our minds right, our illnesses would vanish. Of course we wouldn’t want such idiots teaching in a medical school…but its no different when we allow someone to teach in a philosophy class that Truth doesn’t exist. The very assertion negates itself: if Truth doesn’t exist, then it is untrue to say that Truth doesn’t exist. Yet we allow such people to poison the minds of college kids all the time and no one in the so-called Conservative movement ever so much as hinted that such people should be driven out. And the reason we never had a Conservatism that would do that is because our Conservatism hasn’t been about conserving the things which need conserving: Faith, Family, Property. If those things aren’t your concern, then you’re going to be functionally ok with Progressives doing their thing. You’ll end up only caring that taxes be kept low so you can make money and live well, insulted from the effects of social disintegration.

You see, I don’t think the Conservative movement was really interested in defending things like the Second Amendment – that rose up from below: the people did that. Conservative leaders only got on board when, de-facto, that issue gave them a Congressional majority in 1994. Prior to then, there was no Conservative-led effort to protect or expand Second Amendment rights…and I feel confident that if it ever became a political liability to support the Second Amendment, the movement Conservatives would drop it like a bad habit. Same with abortion – the pro-life movement is entirely grass-roots, and it gets no real help from the Conservative leadership. Just a bit of lip service…and now that plenty of Conservative leaders are locked into Never Trump, they are starting to “evolve” on the abortion issue.

When your desire is to defend Faith, Family and Property, you start getting a different view of what is important. This is why, I think, Conservatives like me are ok with Trump’s background, which is clearly hedonistic (he might not be, now, but he certainly was once upon a time). It isn’t important – what is important is Trump doing things which people like me perceive as a defense of Faith, Family and Property. Trump’s adherence to the Rule of Law (his endlessly repeated demands that Congress take action, eg) is crucial to the defense of all three Conservative ideals. He’s done more for the pro-life movement than any other Conservative President, ever. You guys all know I was a vigorous supporter of the younger Bush…but let’s face the fact, for all his clear moral qualities, he never moved the ball in the pro-life direction. Am I supposed to be more happy with W on this, or Trump? Sorry, but I have to be more happy with Trump. He’s doing the things I think need doing.

You also start prioritizing things based on your ideals. For instance: while understanding that free markets are always better than regulated markets and that trade between nations is a good thing, you start to look around and realize that, still, the market and trade have to be at the service of Conservative ideals, not the other way around. What good is it to have a completely free market and completely free trade if my fellow Americans are thrown out of work and their small and mid-sized communities destroyed because the textile mill was moved to China? Understanding that sometimes a business has to die, you still start looking around…and once you do, you start to realize some things. First and foremost, that the United States rose from agricultural backwater to global economic dominance under Protection. That while we were under Protection, we still did massive trade with the world. That a free trade agreement many hundreds of pages long and regulated by faceless bureaucrats is likely not really a free trade agreement but is, instead, a mechanism whereby those juiced in get special rake-offs. Finally, and most important, that whatever else we do, we still need to make, mine and grow most of our own stuff because that is both economically healthy and necessary for national security.

The leaders of the so-called Conservative movement never got ’round to thinking about any of that. Give the TruCons their way, and we’ll have low taxes and all our things will be made overseas and, in the by and by, every last bit of Progressive drivel about social relationships will be enshrined not in law, but in a series of Supreme Court dictates. I’d rather not, thanks very much. I happen to think that not only I, but my most vigorous opponents would do better under a genuinely Conservative governance. They might officially hate some aspects of it, but they’ll very much like the stability, rule of law and peace and prosperity that it affords. To me, to allow anything liberal or Progressive to happen is a degrading failure: that we might, in a pluralist society, have such things happen is a given…but any real Conservatism is going to fight to prevent any of it from happening. A lost political battle is a lost political battle: but what our Conservative leaders have done is merely surrender, again and again, each time the Progressives really pressed an issue (except on taxes, of course: but, here, you must note, our Conservative leaders had Progressive allies…even among the left, there are those wise enough to know that if you overtax everything, you destroy everything).

I guess, by now, I’m Deplorable. Perhaps so. But, if so, I’m in some fine company. I defy any TruCon out there to say that Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, was anything but the most rigid Conservative. And here’s what he had to say:

No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.

It is ok, then, to be Deplorable. Such provides the insipid common sense. I’m not an expert. Neither is Trump. Neither are all those people with MAGA hats and American flags on their social media pages. Most of them not only can’t quote Locke, they have no idea the man ever existed. They don’t know the exchange rate between Chinese and American currency. Heck, some of them would probably have trouble pointing to China on a map. But they are the people who make this country work – they grow up, get married, have kids and go to work. They work their whole lives and build up a small savings and then propose to have a quiet retirement until they die and are replaced by people who are almost indistinguishable from them. They want peace and quiet in their neighborhoods and around the world. They might gossip a bit about what the neighbors are doing, but they far more often just mind their own business. They don’t care what religion another person has, nor about what political creed they adhere to. In the day to day, they only care that a person is honest and pulls his or her weight. They have no objection to providing even generous assistance to anyone down on their luck, but they can’t stand to see someone laying about on purpose. They love their country and, if called upon, will fight and die for it. They are the True Conservatives…they are Conservative, even if they can’t articulate it. I’m with them: the Real Conservatives…and all I do will be to defend them doing what they do.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan46 Comments

Today is Supreme Court Justice-mageddon! President Trump has said he’ll announce his nominee at 9pm, Eastern. As for me, I’m hoping for Amy Barrett for the exact reason many Conservatives want Trump to shy away: I want the Culture War battle that would ensue. I want, that is, Democrats to out themselves as anti-Catholic bigots. Even if we lose the nominee, it would still work to our long-term electoral advantage.

Mitch McConnell was harassed outside a restaurant by some leftwing nitwits. I wonder if these guys realize that one day, they’re going to do this to someone who will kick their ass? You wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. But I know people who just don’t take this from anyone. It’ll be interesting to see how that will play out.

Appears the betting line on Trump getting a Nobel Peace Prize is 4 to 1. Only people with better odds are the leaders of the two Koreas.

The MSM is trying to gin up a story about how Trump is kicking foreigners out of the military – all it really amounted to was a small number of foreign recruits failed to meet the necessary requirements. This sort of thing is starting to be an in-kind donation to Trump’s 2020 re-election effort. Guys, if you want to stop being called Fake News, maybe stop pushing Fake News? Just spitballin’ here…

I’ve seen the #WalkAway hashtag on Twitter now for about 10 days – the posts are all the story of how a Democrat walked away from that party. Very often, it is Afican-American or other core constituencies of the Democrat party making these statements. Democrats are downplaying it – but the fear has got to be there. Obama got 93% of the black vote in 2012; Hillary got 88% of it: and it was 88% of a significantly smaller number of voters as many African-Americans just stayed home. At 88% of the vote, Hillary still lost, but still could have won…imagine what would happen if it was 85%? Or even 80%? Keep in mind, that is still a crushing victory among that demographic…but at 85%, Democrats likely have no path to 270 electoral votes. And if that vote holds down-ballot, then Democrats would be crushed in the House, as well. We’ll see how it comes out – our first clue will be the votes this November. If there is a significant uptick in GOP support among African-Americans, then the game is up for the Democrats: they’ll be out of power for a generation.