Transportation Difficulties

So the other day the Ford's engine suddenly lost power, and the speedometer stopped working. I nursed it back home and researched the problem. It could be several things. but is probably that the onboard computer went out. I can put in a new one (or maybe even one out of a junkyard) and reprogram it, I learned, with a laptop-linked FORScan system. So I went to town in my Jeep to get one.

On the way to town, the Jeep's clutch suddenly blew out. Probably just a hydraulic line, but it couldn't shift gears and was quickly unable to continue. So I had it towed to a shop for repairs, arranged a ride home, and now have two vehicles down.

Of course I have motorcycles, so I'm not stranded. Still, after the holiday's quiet I suddenly find myself thrust back into the world of difficulties. It is what it is. 

No service

I'm slowly learning to use an iPad instead of a laptop, but it ain't easy. I foolishly left my laptop behind in my hotel last Thursday at the end of a trip to South Padre for required annual Commissioner training hours. I spent the first day and a half trying to get movement out of somnolent hotel employees who don't seem quite to grasp the potential for tips--it's safer to live on salary and go by the book. When I finally got my laptop into the hands of FedEx Friday afternoon, the fun really started. It was supposed to go by overnight, guaranteed delivery by 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, but for some reason they put it on a plane to Memphis, where it sat for many hours. Then it went to Ft. Worth, then to San Antonio early Sunday morning. The holiday weekend shut it all down, so there it remains. In theory it will go to Corpus Christi tomorrow morning (Tuesday) and be trucked out to my house sometime later. All this for a four-hour drive from South Texas to Rockport.

I'm old enough to remember when FedEx gave pretty good service. I think I might actually have done better with the U.S. mail on this one.

You’re a Chancellor, not a GIF!

We have to train ourselves not to roll our eyes.

Chilling Out After the Fireworks

Independence Day Images

The Veterans' Exempt flag is hard to hang because the canton needs to go the same way as it would on an American flag, but that puts it out of order with all the other flags. The American flag is hung at its own right, with its canton on its own right. 

David Mann, 1990 Centerfold 

Reprise in Full

Originally from 2015, but worth reposting this year.

THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION

Happy Independence Day.  Today we celebrate treason, treason that prospered, treason that flourished, treason that created what was for a while -- what might someday be again -- the living symbol of virtuous human liberty.

This nation came out of a long tradition of beneficial treason, good treason, treason in the name of the best of the human condition.  It was born of the tradition that fought King John at Runnymede and compelled from him the Great Charter of Liberties, Magna Carta Libertatum.  It is out of the tradition that produced the Declaration of Arbroath in Scotland, in defiance of yet another tyrannical English king, which stated that "It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."  The Scottish national motto was Nemo Me Impune Lacessit, which means, "No One Touches Me With Impunity," or if you like, "No One Messes With Me Without Getting Hurt."  That sentiment was also given in Scotland, as later in Alabama, in the words of John 20:17:  Noli Me Tangere, usually translated "Touch Me Not," but also:

The values of this new nation are rooted in the principle of rebellion against authority.  They are the values of a people who do what they think is right, and will hand you your heads if you try to force them to kneel to your judgment instead of their own.  The Founders considered the philosophy of the Greeks.  They considered the history of the Romans.  They took stock of their reflections on the righteous judgment of God.  Then they pledged their fortunes and their lives, and their sacred honor, and did what they had decided was right without fear.

Today we celebrate men who fought underneath the American flag, but we celebrate them with the certain knowledge that the defiance -- the spirit of rebellion against any authority that transgresses its due  and proper limits -- that the defiance of tyranny is the real thing to be celebrated.  It is not the accidents but the essence of the American revolution that deserves our devotion.  

That goes for this and for all administrations, all branches of government, all foreign tyrants and all wicked powers.  

It may seem as if Americans are not still made of that stuff.  The flag I started with is the flag of the old Veterans Exempt, a militia that fought in the War of 1812 even though it was made up of veterans of the American Revolution who were too old to be drafted.  The last two images are from contemporary veterans' groups.  I've seen each of them posted online in the last few days.  

The right people should rejoice.  The wrong should beware.  You know who you are.  You know where you stand. 

Happy Independence Day.

Most Wonderful Time of the Year

 

Beware Old Glory

People might think you're a Republican or something. 

Only fools yield symbols as powerful as that to their enemies. That point is obvious enough that even the NYT is getting it. 

At its 1777 inception, the flag’s very design signified unity, the joining of the 13 colonies, said John R. Vile, a professor of political science and a dean at Middle Tennessee State University.

Politicizing the American flag is thus a perversion of its original intent, according to Professor Vile, who is also the author of “The American Flag: An Encyclopedia of the Stars and Stripes In U.S. History, Culture and Law.” He added, “We can’t allow that to happen.”

So don't. 

Standard American

The band is new to me, but they've got a respectable name: "Gunnar and the Grizzly Boys." 

What interests me about this song is not that it valorizes the usual kinds of Americans -- truck drivers, firefighters, blue collar mechanics, veterans, etc. -- but that it valorizes older men. The band is young, but everyone they portray as their models are at least middle aged. Vietnam Veterans are in their 70s now. 

That is very sensible and healthy, but it's out of order with our society as it has been really since the Vietnam Veterans were young. How does a young man learn how to be a good man? Naturally, they should look to the old men who were. 

Boys Having Fun

You've all heard this song a million times, as have I. That said, the video they apparently filmed back when they were first performing it is new to me. The first nearly two minutes isn't that interesting -- just performance of the piece -- but after that you get some great footage. 

Riding motorcycles! Jumping motorcycles! Wheelies! Riding horses! Fast cars! Blowguns! The American flag!

Pretty good entry to the Fourth of July weekend. 

A Mousetrap in the Twenty-First Century

The invention of the mousetrap does not date from our days; as soon as societies, in forming, had invented any kind of police, that police invented mousetraps.

As perhaps our readers are not familiar with the slang of the Rue de Jerusalem, and as it is fifteen years since we applied this word for the first time to this thing, allow us to explain to them what is a mousetrap.

When in a house, of whatever kind it may be, an individual suspected of any crime is arrested, the arrest is held secret. Four or five men are placed in ambuscade in the first room. The door is opened to all who knock. It is closed after them, and they are arrested; so that at the end of two or three days they have in their power almost all the HABITUES of the establishment. And that is a mousetrap.

The apartment of M. Bonacieux, then, became a mousetrap; and whoever appeared there was taken and interrogated by the cardinal’s people. It must be observed that as a separate passage led to the first floor, in which d’Artagnan lodged, those who called on him were exempted from this detention.

-Alexander Dumas, Père, The Three Musketeers

To whit.

Catholic Churches Burning in Canada

A rash of church burnings in Canada continues with the destruction of another church in Edmonton. 

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, previously told CBC News there are "mixed emotions" about the Catholic Church among Penticton Indian Band members.

Phillip said some members of the community have "an intense hatred for the Catholic Church in regard to the residential school experience."

What they're talking about is the recent discovery of 751 graves of children located at government-funded boarding schools, which were largely staffed by nuns and priests. The story is being told in Canada (and in the United States in certain circles) that this was a kind of Catholic colonialism and genocide against Native Americans. 

“This was a crime against humanity, an assault on a First Nation people,” said Chief Bobby Cameron, of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, the provincial federation of Indigenous groups. “The only crime we ever committed as children was being born Indigenous,” he said.... A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 2008 to investigate the residential schools, called the practice “cultural genocide.” 

However, undermining that narrative is the fact that there is an exactly parallel story in Ireland. There, the issue is just said to be that there were high levels of child mortality in the early 20th century. 

The discovery confirms decades of suspicions that the vast majority of children who died at the home were interred on the site in unmarked graves, a common practice at such Catholic-run facilities amid high child mortality rates in early 20th-century Ireland.

Naturally, the Biden administration is rushing to investigate American-based schools from the same period to see if any more bodies can be found. Expect this to be a productive field of inquiry since it hits all the right notes: anti-American, anti-Catholic/Christian, with just the right tone of oppression, allegations of racism, and colonialism.

UPDATE: Another reason this narrative has legs: the Chinese government is pushing it as a hedge against its own current practice of actual genocide against the Uighur and cultural genocide against the Tibetans. 

Excess Deaths Among the Young

A subject we've discussed occasionally is the topic of a Bloomberg article. 

Musical Sophistication

Recently under discussion, here are some examples from the 1930s and 1940s of music that is more complex than what you are likely to hear today. 

It might be difficult to say if these are more or less sophisticated than the medieval styles; that probably requires a lot of theoretical framework that I do not have in place. If long-time commenter Piercello happens to be around, he can perhaps provide some of that: it is in his area of expertise. 

FBI Violating Constitutional Rights of "Domestic Extremists" Since Election

Trump was still president when they started routinely violating the Constitution in pursuit of his supporters. 

[T]he FBI has continued to perform warrantless searches through the NSA's most sensitive databases for routine criminal investigations, despite being told by a federal judge in 2018 and 2019 that such a use was an unconstitutional breach of privacy.  

The FBI focused many of its warrantless searches - commonly referred to as backdoor queries - on suspected 'far-right' domestic terrorists, The Daily Beast reported.  

It's unclear from the heavily-redacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court report whether the FBI uncovered any criminal extremist behavior or made any arrests resulting from the searches.  

UPDATE: Microsoft executive testifies that they provide clandestine surveillance of Americans to the FBI without a warrant thousands of times a year.  

The Ride

Asheville was perfectly pleasant today. I saw three cops, or one and a half percent of the remaining force, all hanging out together near downtown. 

But man, what a ride today. 

That was from the way home. I’d have taken a photo on the way in, but it would have just looked like the inside of a cloud. 

Crime and its Accidents

Apparently the huge spikes in crime are starting to worry some folks. Not because of the suffering associated with the crime; because of the politics. 

I'm going to Asheville tomorrow, where fully a third of the police department has resigned. Asheville is currently twice as dangerous as the national rate, making it now one of the more dangerous cities nationwide. There is beginning to be some comment among the politicians there too.

Council members also heard a presentation from APD Chief David Zack regarding various categories of crime in the city. He noted that Asheville’s number of violent crimes, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, was about 45% higher in 2020 than in 2011.

Am I worried about riding into Asheville? Of course I am not. These will step widely around me. It is not the strong who suffer from increases in aggravated assault, robbery, or rape. The traffic is more dangerous to me than the criminals. 

But I also have only one vote, and thus my opinion can be disregarded by the powerful. Those who live in fear have many votes, provided that elections can be returned to a ground where the votes of the people really matter. 

Bardcore

A style of remixed music of which I've just become aware is "Bardcore," a playful attempt to re-imagine contemporary songs in a medieval style. All are limited by the fact that contemporary music is not as sophisticated as medieval music actually was; but they do have the advantage of being played on beautiful acoustic instruments and, if sung, sung by people who actually know how to sing.

You'll find a lot more if you follow this first link to YouTube. Many of them are of truly contemporary pop music, which is too terrible to sample. I'm going to pick one where the original is actually at least a little interesting. Here's a Bardcore version of an Iron Maiden tune.

Here is Iron Maiden's original.



And here, just to compare, is a random selection of medieval music. This isn't even a fair introduction; there are whole genres of this stuff, from polyphony and chant to chansons and ballads. This is a fun selection of instrumentals similar to what the Bardcore kids are trying to imitate. 

UPDATE: This one's not bad.

UPDATE: A piece from 2020.

Honesty from the Washington Post

Amid the constant gaslighting, how refreshing to see a fully honest fact check. 

In fact, you do not have to look far in the Constitution to see that private individuals could own cannons. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 gives Congress the power to declare war. But there is another element of that clause that might seem strange to modern ears — Congress also had the power to “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” What’s that? These were special waivers that allowed private individuals to act as pirates on behalf of the United States against countries engaged in war with it. The “letter of marque” allowed a warship to cross into another country’s territory to take a ship, while a “letter of reprisal” gave authorization to bring the ship back to the home port of the capturer. 

Individuals who were given these waivers and owned warships obviously also obtained cannons for use in battle.

Memphis

 

A Generation Lost in Latin America

Deep into the second year of the pandemic, Latin America is facing an education crisis. It has suffered the longest school shutdowns of any region in the world.... Millions of children in Latin America may have already left the school system, the World Bank estimates. In Mexico, 1.8 million children and young people abandoned their educations this school year because of the pandemic or economic hardship, according to the national statistics agency.

Ecuador lost an estimated 90,000 primary and secondary school students. Peru says it lost 170,000. And officials worry that the real losses are far higher because countless children, like Maicol, are technically still enrolled but struggling to hang on. More than five million children in Brazil have had no access to education during the pandemic, a level not seen in more than 20 years, Unicef says.

As the article points out, Latin America has for some reason been hit especially hard by the pandemic; with less than 10% of the world's population, it has 30+% of the deaths. Some of that is doubtless a record-keeping issue; statistics from China are assuredly unreliable, as all official information from China. Still, it must be informing the discussion about the wisdom of lockdowns. 

Nevertheless the cost is exceedingly high. In addition to the increases of poverty and even starvation at the margins, millions of children are losing their chance to receive the kind of basic education that would give them a chance. Their children and grandchildren will suffer for decades from what has been done in the last year or so. 

Train as You Fight

The old ways are not forgotten:

 "A Co 2/121 48th IBCT and the Canadian 48th Highlanders initiate an ambush with bagpipe"

Thunder in the Smokies

Maggie Valley. Not the greatest rally ever, but it’s good to see people getting back to life. 

A beautiful Shovelhead, named after the distinctive Harley engine. The engine is cast iron, and it was the last one Harley made that you could tear all the way down at a campsite or in a hotel room with a tool bag. The downside was that you probably had to. 

Mascots abound. 

One of the Mad Max bikes. 

Changing Gears

 

Do it yourself

We Could Use a Few Warrior Bishops...

 

No, this wasn't actually worn by a 13th century bishop into battle, but it's incredible craftsmanship and artistry regardless, and I love the implications of the whole project.  The man who made it is quite a talented armorer, it's worth scrolling through his facebook feed to see more of his work.

Politics and the Digital: A Theory

Now this is a thesis worth discussing.

Theorists of technology are becoming the most significant sources of political ideas; theorists of politics are becoming incapable of understanding significant technological ideas.

Unschooled in perceiving the development of digital technology for what it is, political leaders now frenetically throw around appeals to concepts—slogans, “values,” “ideals”—that have come unglued from the reality formed by our surrounding digital environment.... [These] destabilizing trends raise (significantly) two linked issues, one more abstract and one more particular. First, is the Western political tradition obsolete? Second, is America, because of its regime, worth the trouble of trying to preserve?

It's a longer argument, but if any of you are drawn into it I'd like to discuss it with you. Just to raise one point that he only briefly mentions, digital pornography seems to me to be at the back of this explosion of genders. In the digital world, and only there, these things can seem as if they have some reality: it might carry a kind of sense to say that one is a 'pansexual otherkin,' because as a search term that (and maybe only that) reliably hooks you up with content that floats your boat. The digital space creates its own reality, and people who live more or less exclusively in it can come to believe that reality is more meaningful than the physical one. 

That kind of thing leads to a basic disruption of the categories of ordinary life in the physical world, especially when it passes into political organizing. Whereas it was once obvious that one is male or female -- indeed, one's physical body knows what it is and broadcasts it to everyone else via pheromones -- the departure from the physical reality into the digital one creates an alienation and detachment from the physical constraints. 

Yet the digital identifiers don't carry meaning the way the embodied reality does. 

Whiteness is evil, but deprogram the evil, and whiteness is empty—hollow, meaningless, obsolete. We already see the same experience at work with maleness: deprogram the evil that defines it, according to the vanguard Left, and what is left is a disgusting, disenchanted neuter. Take away fatherhood (patriarchy), priesthood (molestation), military or law enforcement service (racism), business leadership (capitalist greed), and what is left is a civilization of post-boys, autogynephilic, cripplingly awkward, knowingly purposeless....

This leads to a politics, but not one of equality as you might expect. Discovering all previously powerful categories to be empty in the new reality, you might think they would simply be jettisoned in favor of a kind of perfect equality: everyone is the same, they just have different tastes.  As the article goes on to explore, that is not at all what is happening; perhaps, the author suggests, America can salvage what is becoming in the minds of our youth. 

Federalist 46 on the Present Question

Do you need F-15s and nukes to move against the government, or might rifles do in a pinch? The 'blood of patriots and tyrants' bit that Joe Biden is rejecting is from Thomas Jefferson, so let's see what James Madison has to say.

The only refuge left for those who prophecy the downfall of the state governments, is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the states should for a sufficient period of time elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the states should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.

OK, well, Madison got that one wrong.  

Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the state governments with the people on their side would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield in the United States an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.

I've seen this argument floated as recently as this week. How many brigades can be fielded, given that it will take several per city? Having controlled the cities, how will you ensure the food and other logistics that would be required to sustain them will be coming from the countryside? Could you control the countryside instead with the relatively small number of troops under arms, even if they all chose to obey orders rather than revolt against tyranny? 

Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

Ah, yes. That's come up this week as well. 

And it is not certain that with this aid alone, they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will, and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned, in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors.

Madison thinks it's not going to be close. Maybe some of that political prudence I've been suggesting to the government would be wise after all.  

Buck Dancing

 

If you're not from the Appalachians, you may not know about Buck Dancing. Here's an old gentleman demonstrating. 

 

Some Useful Outlets on the Right

A general problem facing people on the right who are concerned about the direction of the nation is that most of the power in media lies with their opponents. Even on the right, there is a sharp division; older once-powerful publications like National Review are not as vibrant as once. They still manage sharp criticisms, but their positive program is limited. Thus, I would like to lay out a few places where I think vibrant thought on the right is still occurring. 

One of the best publications working today is The American Mind, which is a production of the Claremont Institute. They have a major section they call "Salvos: The Counterrevolution," which includes important articles on the subject from some dynamic thinkers on the right. Their "Memos" are more diffuse, but touch on numerous important topics. In the other direction, their "Features" include larger-scale projects on different topics of importance. I'm particularly interested in the "Redrawing the Lines" feature, begun by Michael Anton but now including a number of essays on the subject of how America could be improved -- and peacefully -- by a process of re-drawing how states and localities work. I think they may be the best thing going for presenting a positive program of reform.

Human Events was once Reagan's favorite journal of conservative opinion. It has since ceased to publish a print edition, and changed hands a few times. The current leadership is young, daring, and willing to entertain ideas that are both radical and yet aimed at the best in the American tradition. They also have an aggressive editorial staff and process, which aims at ensuring quality of published pieces. That's unusual these days by itself. 

American Greatness is more Trumpist (although VDH publishes there, providing some overlap with NR), but definitely worth following. Julie Kelly (mentioned below) is a voice worthy of attention. She is perhaps the only person who seems committed to fighting for the rights of those arrested regarding the January 6th incursion, initially a dubious proposition made worthy by the inexcusable government behavior in those cases. 

I imagine the field has shifted from publications like these to podcasts, but as you all are aware, I hate podcasts. Useful suggestions welcome in the comments. 

UPDATE: The Federalist is a good place too, more news oriented than the others but still analytical.

There Are No Rogue Gun Dealers

Having spent my adult life among the community, I can state with confidence that I've never met a licensed gun dealer who fits the Biden description. Statistics bear out that this is a non-issue.

A 2016 survey, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics under DOJ, of federal and state inmates found that the overwhelming majority of inmates who used a gun while committing their crimes didn't buy their weapon from a licensed dealer. 

"Among prisoners who possessed a gun during their offense, 90% did not obtain it from a retail source," which includes flea markets and pawn shops, in addition to licensed gun dealers, Department of Justice statisticians noted in a 2019 analysis of that data. Roughly 7% obtained their guns directly from licensed dealers, the analysis noted. 

"Of the approximate 7% that purchased their weapon through an FFL [federal firearms licensee], almost 100% of those sales were completed in compliance with the laws and regulations that govern the sale of a firearm, meaning at the time they purchased the firearm, they were most likely not prohibited from doing so[,]"

I suppose I'd rather they devoted their attention to this issue than others, however, since their renewed attention will produce no substantial changes. 

UPDATE: Inconceivable!

Maoist Self-Criticism in US Federal Court

 "My lawyer has given me names of books and movies to help me see what life is like for others in our country. I’ve learned that even though we live in a wonderful country things still need to improve. People of all colors should feel as safe as I do to walk down the street.”

That passage is part book report, part white privilege mea culpa submitted to a federal court this month by Anna Morgan-Lloyd... 49-year-old grandmother of five... who has a clean criminal record[. She] pleaded guilty to one count of “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building”—but not before she consented to undergo a reeducation exercise at the urging of her court-appointed lawyer....

Her attorney and the government seem pleased with Lloyd’s reformation. “Though she supported the past president in January, she totally accepts President Biden as the leader of our country,” Shaner wrote to the court. “She has worked hard to come to terms with what she believed before January 6th, 2021 and what she has learned since then.” 

I suppose it is similar to the fake jailhouse conversions lots of prisoners claim to have experienced while awaiting sentencing. The analogy is not exact, of course; there is a substantial change between 'totally accepting the authority of God' and 'totally accepting the authority of Joe Biden.' 

Shame on the government for engaging in this, and shame on the unworthy judge presiding over it. 

UPDATE: Julie Kelly points out that, 'in the other America,' 50% of Portland riot charges have now been dismissed. Nobody's being asked to read defenses of America or capitalism.

This is a perversion of the idea of equality under the law, but it is also a perversion of the whole idea of prosecution of violations of the law. Anti-patriots who wish to destroy America are let to go free; patriots are forced to recant their patriotism in order to receive reduced sentences. The government has become its own enemy. 

Orwell and Diversity

Judicial Watch announced today that it received 111 pages of records from Wellesley Public Schools in Massachusetts which confirm the use of “affinity spaces” that divide students and staff based on race as a priority and objective of the school district’s “diversity, equity and inclusion” plan.

Emphasis added. 

An Enigma Haunts America

Whatever could be behind this mysterious surge in murderous crime, which is striking Democrat-controlled cities all across America? City governments are at a loss. We may never know what is causing this inexplicable thing. 

An Insight on Political Violence

This post from Insty tonight is three years old, but the intervening three years have confirmed this insight. 

A friend of mine who is a political activist said something interesting the other day, and that was for most people on the left political violence is a knob, and they can turn the heat up and down, with things like protests, and riots, all the way up to destruction of property, and sometimes murder… But for the vast majority of folks on the right, it’s an off and on switch. 

We've seen that rheostat function at work over the last year. BLM/Antifa have gone all the way to setting Federal buildings on fire and burning police stations, sometimes lowering to marches that cut off interstates, sometimes raising to beating people in the streets (or even murder). 

People on the right are still thinking we'll hold some forensic audits, after which we'll have the evidence to pursue a new round of court cases and legislative actions, maybe some elections in 2022 or 2024. Whereas BLM and Antifa enjoy widespread support on the left, the much-smaller right-leaning groups like the Proud Boys are broadly disdained as drunken yahoos rather than ideological allies. 

The switch has still not been flipped. The political right is communitarian. If it flips the switch, it'll flip it all together at once. Church groups and communities, not tiny activist groups, will be the mechanisms. State governments will start lining up with it because, well, what choice would they have? 

That's what keeps them up at night, I guess. There's still time, though, for the government to discover a workable prudence that could let us stumble through all this peacefully. Let those audits happen. Let the court cases occur. Legislative processes are functioning even now. Give it time, government. If you don't force the issue through foolish action, in time it will work itself out. 

A Jacksonian Party

Here is something I wrote in 2004, a very long time ago. I am less sanguine now than once about our ability to reform terror states -- almost successful in Iraq, but not; never close to successful in Afghanistan. Otherwise, I still think the ideas are basically sound.

If it comes to that, I will start a new party myself--I think we will call ourselves the Jacksonian Party. I mean, of course, James Jackson, and therefore a Jeffersonian party; but people who like Andrew Jackson will be welcome too. It's a big tent for American Classical Liberals, and ought to be able to pull from Republicans as well as Democrats. It will be founded on the real, and honorable, left of American culture: Jefferson's vision, which James Jackson shared, and for which he fought so valiantly.

It is that left which does not merely idolize the poor, but upholds them and finds ways to make them powerful. The support of unions is one way. Another is by supporting their right to bear arms, so that they do not rely upon a distant and disinterested state for their personal security or that of their families. Even in the city, the state is distant when the bandit is already in your home. Furthermore, and more importantly, an armed citizen is not merely more independent of the state. He is personally capable of defending the state, the lawful order, and the common peace, wherever he goes. Whether it is felons or terrorists who threaten that order and that peace, he is ready. The disarmed citizen is a ward of the state. The Armed citizen is its guardian. The state is his to uphold.

Another matter: we need a renewed focus on the rights and duties of the citizen, so that the poor will understand the power they already have by statute, but have forgotten how to wield. Consider jury nullification. Special interests may write the laws, but we have every right to make exceptions. The powerful and the rich do not sit in judgement over us: we judge ourselves.

Another matter: the defense and support of small businesses, who are the "Yeoman Farmers" of the city. No man is freer than he who employs himself, whether it is the owner of his own land, or the owner of his own shop. If we are going to fiddle with tax policy, let's fiddle with it in a way that encourages and supports small businesses and farmers.

Another matter: education culture. Private-sector unions are a defense for the poor, but public-sector unions are the enemy of everyone outside themselves. Private-sector unions encourage profit sharing, but there is no profit in the public sector--there is only tax money, which must be drawn from the poor as from the rich, and which is drawn at the point of a gun. Restraining public spending is a civil rights issue. The less money you must send to the government, the more you can use to build your own personal capital, and pull yourself up from poverty.

On the same topic, educators should themselves be educated. This should be a real education on the topic they intend to teach, not an education in "educational theory." No one needs that. By the time they are prepared to teach, they have had the most practical education in educating--they have attended twelve years of public school, four years of college, and have at some point had the practical apprenticeship of being an teacher's aide and a student teacher. They have seen education done for more than a decade, have a number of working models in mind, and have practiced the art themselves. What they need is to know their subject matter. We need historians teaching History, and mathematicians teaching math. A large majority of the public is being educated by people whose knowledge of a given subject is no greater than the textbooks they have been assigned. They can't enlarge upon the text, and they can't tell the students when the text goes wrong.

In foreign policy: we should recognize that international terrorist organizations actually are subject to an existing international law: the law of the sea. Precisely like the roving bands of brigands and pirates of the 1600s and 1700s, they are organized against civilization, travel through multiple jurisdictions and through lawless areas alike. They are not combatants of any state, and are protected therefore by neither the Geneva Conventions nor the rules of war. Like pirates, they are subject to summary execution by the officers of any nation that comes into control of them; or by interrogation and some more merciful response, if we prefer and at our discretion. This brutality on the part of civilized men is justified for the exact reason it was justified of old: the threat these bands pose to the transportation infrastructure is a dagger at the heart of civilization. We cannot maintain our cities, our populations, our ability to combat disease or famine, or our relative freedom from total war over resources, without the massive but fragile transportation capacity we have developed.

This is not idle or of small importance. A small increase in transport costs kills at the margins--for example, aid to Africa is reduced as it is more expensive to transport, but resources are fixed. A large increase threatens civilization itself. Our cities do not contain enough food to feed the populace for more than about three days. That is no problem; more food is coming. But if the ability to transport that food is severely harmed--starvation, and in many regions of the world, disease. A serious disruption could unleash a resource war by nations that see mass starvation if they don't capture food, oil, and other needful things. Such a disruption is possible if these terror groups continue their infiltration of the West, and come into possession of WMD.

For that reason, the reform of terror-sponsor states is paramount. So is the reform of failed states that are not necessarily terror-sponsors, but where terrorists are able to travel freely due to bribes of local officials or through outright lawlessness. So long as we can do so while maintaining an all-volunteer force, the United States ought to feel free to act on these places one by one. This has the practical matter, for a Jacksonian party, of bringing liberty and strength to the poor and unfree abroad exactly as we wish to do at home.

There are other matters, but this is enough for now.

After another nearly two decades of public education, it may be that there are no longer enough Americans who have any idea what the old values were -- let alone who value them. Yet that does not make those values wrong. It simply reinforces what we already know, i.e., our education systems have failed this country comprehensively.

She Coulda Been a Contender

Meet Kuinini ‘Nini’ Manumua, the woman who spent her young life training to go to the Olympics and would have done so this year except she was replaced by a transgender athlete from New Zealand. Nini was competing for Tonga this year, although she has competed for the USA in earlier youth sports having dual nationality. 

I too might be able to compete in the Olympics in the squat event, if only I identified as female. Here's the comparison changing out only male vs. female lifts. 

Doubtless there's some adjustment for age, but setting the female lifting category to 18-23, I still rate better than 99.99% 'of lifters weighing 240 pounds,' which relatively few women do with a high muscle/fat ratio. That's got to be close to the Olympic level (whereas 98% simply is not, and the best lifters outweigh me by quite a bit anyway). 

Better luck in four years. Maybe by then the madness will have passed, and the young lady will still only be 25. 

UPDATE: Shows you what I know about the Olympics, which have never interested me. Apparently they don't do the squat at the Olympics. Who'd have thought you'd leave out the most basic strength lift from competition? But it's not a thing.

Here are some women who are squatting at the top of the game, and as I suspected, the top of the game is in the 600-700 pound range. That's absolutely admirable and they work hard to get there, but the top male range is hundreds of pounds heavier. Either let's throw out the sex/gender divisions once and for all, and let the best man win; or let's keep the women's division for women, who are physically quite different. 

A Footnote to History

Thanks to 9/11, the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center is little-remembered today. However, at the time it was one of the most significant terror attacks in U.S. history, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand. If the bomb had succeeded in its intended purpose, toppling the North Tower into the South, it might have claimed tens of thousands of lives.

What is even less well-known, though, is that the bomb that nearly murdered tens of thousands was built with the help of an FBI informant. 

In fairness they usually try to roll people up at the 'I know a guy who can sell you explosives' stage these days.

Ballad of the Grey Berets

It hasn't been written yet, and given the era it will probably be autotuned, but the USAF now has a new kind of elite operator: Special Reconnaissance Airmen, distinguished in uniform by a grey beret.

Late Republic Nonsense

My friend David Reaboi has started a new Substack, which I guess is kind of like a blog and kind of like a subscription newsletter. It's called Late Republic Nonsense, and focuses more on art and culture than on politics. 

Dave is a big mid-century guy and hugely knowledgeable about jazz music especially. Jazz is not one of my interests, although much of it is pleasant enough and I can admire what was involved in the artistry. If it happens to be one of your interests, or if you're simply a lover of mid-20th century culture, cinema, music, and art, you might want to subscribe to Late Republic Nonsense. If you just want to try it out, there's a free option as well. 

Spiraling Violence in American Cities

The decision by prosecutors to increase the prosecution of police while voiding the prosecutions of looters is going to prove disastrous. 

In addition to the new threat of prosecution, police face an increased willingness among the population to simply kill them. Police killed by homicide are up over 40% this year from last year. It's a small denominator, so the big percentage increase only represents an extra eleven homicides. Still, the trend is even more ominous:

2021: 38 homicides

2020: 27 ""

2019: 24 ""

2018: 33 ""

2017: 22 ""

The stats for overall police deaths, higher obviously than deaths by homicide, are at the link. 

This is combined with cultural fragmentation, which is being pursued intentionally by the Federal government not only under the leadership of the current administration but by the bureaucracy even in spite of the Trump administration's attempt at pushback. The result is, inter alia, that this weekend when Juneteenth celebrations collided with Puerto Rico Day celebration, a couple was dragged out of their car and executed in the street. (The video at the link ought to be shocking, but it would be a good idea to watch it to prepare yourselves for what is coming in this country.)

Atlanta's mayor has an answer: the Republicans lifted COVID restrictions too early and also Georgia has lax gun laws in her opinion. They are the same gun laws Georgia has had, though, in what was until recently a two-decade halving of the violent crime rate. The spike in violent crime doesn't appear even to correlate with the lifting of COVID restrictions, but more with the imposition of them. Even that correlation is probably not causative, as the real issue is unrelated.

Readers know that I love the absence of the police locally; there are none, and I want none. That's an effective solution in an environment like this one. Citizens can self-police effectively, free of onerous government regulations and irksome petty laws. 

Cities are another animal. They're an objectively worse place to live, albeit with theaters and better restaurants. Who wants to go to the theater in a war zone, though? 

An Auspicious Day

Today happens to be the summer solstice (just a bit before midnight), Father’s Day, my anniversary, and an important family birthday. My son presented me with this gift for the occasion:

I assume that it needs no introduction in this crowd. 

Surprise!

In principle there's nothing wrong with Juneteenth. It's holiday celebrating some Texans kept in slavery being freed by Union troops, who arrived to inform them that their former masters had been forcing them to work after they'd been formally freed. Their freedom is good, and the fact that they were freed is worth celebrating. So too is the general idea that 'the truth shall set you free,' and that the lies of the wicked perish eventually.

As a substitute national holiday for Independence Day, however, it won't do. There's no reason not to celebrate both, but there is a definite reason to never allow the 4th of July to be replaced by it. Juneteenth is the holiday about the government freeing you. The 4th of July is the holiday about us freeing ourselves. It is the holiday about overthrowing tyrannical governments and that by force of arms. It celebrates the spirit of rebellion and lives as a defiance of all evil powers. 

That spirit is irreplaceable and ever necessary. May its flame be eternal in all free hearts; may any tyrant who ever seeks to quench that flame be scorched unto death.

The Power of HR

This begins as a long meditation on the rise of Communism and strategies for surviving it. It ends, shockingly, with the danger of Human Resources as a mode of human organization.

The abrupt ascendancy of HR as the central organizing power of society extends far beyond literature, of course. It has certainly overtaken philosophy, the academic discipline I know best. In the middle ages philosophy was said to be the “handmaiden” [ancillaris] of theology; in the modern period it became the handmaiden of science. Today philosophy is in many respects an ancillary of human resources (as here, for example).

In literature as in philosophy, we may at least comfort ourselves with the enduring existence of the treasures of the past, to which at least for the moment our information technologies continue to provide us access.

For the moment they do. Some of us still own libraries. If you don't, well, most public libraries sell older books that "nobody wants" anymore. I imagine you'll find the classics for cheap if you drop by. 

Wauking Song

Some ladies of the outer Hebrides sing merrily. 

Update on Communion

Apparently some bishops are still Catholics.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly voted, 168-55, to draft a document that they hope will prevent President Biden and other Catholic politicians from receiving Communion if they advocate for abortion rights, the Associated Press reports.

Why it matters: Biden is the United States' second Catholic president and the country's most religiously observant leader since Jimmy Carter, per the New York Times. Enforcing the rule to deny Communion would be up to individual bishops.

Doubtless President Biden will find a bishop who is willing to grant him communion. Perhaps there is even one who will assure him that he is not in a state of mortal sin, such as that he should first confess (see 1385ff). Yet it must be telling that so large a majority was willing to embarrass a nominally Catholic President.

Speaking of abortion, the Southern Baptists voted to call for the outright abolition of the practice. One of my Baptists cousins told me that, only what she said was, "The Southern Baptists voted for abolition!"

"Aren't they about a hundred and fifty years late?" I answered in honest confusion. 

She's a good Christian. She'll probably forgive me someday.

If You Don't Like to Laugh

just ignore this post. Soooo... Southern quarantine:

   

A Sad Story

“Under the suggestion and guidance of the BIPOC members” of the group, a New Zealand youth environmental protest group inspired by teen activist Greta Thunberg disbanded, accusing itself of racism.

The racism is real enough. Both "BIPOC" and "Pākehā" will someday be treated as racial slurs, but they can't see it.

Prudence and Philadelphia

A good point on a reasonably good decision.

Conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch were prepared to issue a sweeping decision...

To avoid a sweeping outcome that likely would have forced the court's liberal justices into dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts appears to have settled on a narrower ruling against the city of Philadelphia — one that could secure their support. That kind of consensus-building on the high court, with a potentially divisive case decided narrowly and with the broadest possible consensus, is a welcome model of how to govern in a dangerously polarized time.

But the larger reason why the decision deserves praise is that it upholds a key principle of political liberalism. The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion.

This is the same point I was making about Manchin the other day, only applied to the conservative side trimming its wings in order to have a more prudential (and less destabilizing) outcome. 

I think the Court has also adopted this model because of the Biden court-packing scheme: unanimous decisions undercut the case for court-packing. If you believe you could add 2 or 4 new Justices and win every time, the non-prudent but tempting move is to pack the Court. If they're producing 9-0 decisions even on controversial social issues, it suddenly looks less realistic as a way of ensuring you get your way.

Prudence is one of the Aristotelian virtues, and in these unstable times we can see why it is. In more stable times it can seem like the vice of irresoluteness, a lack of firmness in pursuing a just cause. Yet here we stand on the verge of civil war, and these little acts of prudence help hold things together for a while longer. Perhaps, in the end, they will save things; but even if not, they gave us a chance to save things.

Fall Guys in Fulton County

The Georgia Secretary of State -- who has been steadfast in trying to prevent an audit of results -- has assembled a litany of problems in the Fulton County election. If you read through it, it's clear the results from Fulton are totally unreliable; however, it's also clear that they intend to claim it was just a combination of needing more resources and bad management decisions. 

Georgia needs a full, Arizona style audit. 

Austin Shooting

Fourteen shot in Austin, apparently by two people trying and failing to shoot each other in a large crowd. Reportedly the Bandidos MC secured the area so the defunded police — present for the crowded festival, but in much reduced numbers — could concentrate on rendering aid to the victims. The news reporters don’t confirm it explicitly, but I do see a whole lot of Harleys in the background of their shots. 

More on Atlanta

The neighborhood of Buckhead, in north Atlanta, by some measures the wealthiest (although it is definitely inferior to Druid Hills, a much older neighborhood designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, now merely the ninth richest). I have walked through Buckhead many times though it wasn't really my kind of place. I once saw Concrete Blonde at the Roxy theater there.  

It's full of restaurants and very expensive hotels, the city's wealthiest shopping district, a few very rich churches, and the kind of trendy nightclubs that you normally wouldn't see in the South. 

And now it's trying to secede from Atlanta over sky-high murder rates.

Homicides were up 63 percent across Atlanta from January 1 through May 23 and rape rates increased 108 percent.

Shooting incidents rose 45 percent, robberies were up 2 percent and aggravated assaults jumped 29 percent.

Adjusting for population, a person living in Atlanta is more likely to be a victim of a serious crime, including murder and aggravated assault, than in Chicago, where crime rates are higher, reported 11Alive....

The sharp increase in crime rates has prompted residents in the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood to form the Buckhead Exploratory Committee to create its own police force and look into the possibility of breaking away from Atlanta, after around 200 officers left the city's police force in the wake of the shooting death of black man Rayshard Brooks by a white cop in June 2020.  

There are now two bills in the Georgia State Legislature to have Buckhead secede from the city, but city officials have opposed the idea of separating the wealthy, largely white neighborhood from the rest of Atlanta, which is predominantly black, arguing it would siphon away much of the city's tax base.

Rich people are going to have their police, one way or another. The rest of the city might not be able to pay for as many services, but I suppose they can cut the police budget to make up the shortfall. 

John Stewart on the Lab "Theory"

He has a couple of pretty excellent points here.

The tent-peg

Isaiah (22:22-23) had a way with words:

{22} And I will put the key of the house of David over his shoulder, and he shall open and there be none to shut, and shut and there be none to open. {23} And I will drive him in as a tent-peg in a firm place, and he shall be a glorious throne for his father's house.

Biden Denied Communion

Wow.

President Biden, who is in Europe for several high level meetings, is taking off the morning of June 15 to meet Pope Francis as President of the United States for the first time. The President's entourage had originally requested for Biden to attend Mass with the Pope early in the morning, but the proposal was nixed by the Vatican after considering the impact that President Biden receiving Holy Communion from the Pope would have on the discussions the USCCB is planning to have during their meeting starting Wednesday, June 16. The U.S. bishops are slated to vote on creating a committee that would draft a document about Eucharistic coherence. 

It's not just about the impact blah blah blah. The Vatican refused to have the President of the United States take communion with them. This is not the first time he has been denied communion, but it is a denial by the mortal head of the church.

For non-religious people, this isn't a big deal; it's a ceremony that didn't happen (or will, but without the President present). 

In fact, it is a big deal. I hope President Biden's soul is not endangered by persistent refusal to reform, though ultimately that is his choice and not my own. We should pray for him, as we ought to do for political leaders even when they are in less danger.

We are Not Amused

This Arizona business is getting interesting. When the state governments turn against the Feds, well, in our system they're more properly the sovereign ones. That is why the general police power resides with the states, not the Federal government.

Right Up Grim's Alley

I'm a bit late, but thought I'd give a shout out to VFW Post 5202 in Waynesville, NC, who had their annual Bikers in Boxers event a few months back. Video at the link, if, uh, you're into that sort of thing. No one's judging.

"An Outmoded Word"

The word is "retarded," in case you were wondering. Chuck Schumer said it, and he's a top Democratic leader, so it gets this wildly generous treatment. 

That word used to mean "developmentally disabled" or something like that. Now it means "stupid people." Nobody thinks he meant to refer to children with learning disabilities. He meant "people who disagree with me." It's rude, and he definitely does look down on you if you don't think like him. We can be adults and just admit that. 

Ibuprofen?

The CDC is admitting there's an issue with the vaccine, at least for young men.

Lots of rumors are circulating about this stuff, which I hope are untrue. This is, however, why we we wait for a full Phase 3 trial before we approve a new vaccine for widespread distribution. Hopefully these things are going to be great and will have no bad long-term effects, or ones that are super-manageable (as treatment with ibuprofen would indicate). 

Hopefully, but not definitely. I wouldn't give any vaccines to anyone young at this time. The idea that we're going to start a Phase 2/3 trial for children is hugely alarming to me. I would never give a child an untested vaccine. The old can run their hazards as they choose, but children are likely to live to be 80 if you don't meddle with them. They can afford a year or two of waiting to see if this thing produces unwanted side effects. Let's take the time and get it right, says I.

UPDATE: Women too. 

Happy Flag Day

 

Audit Update

AZ:  

 “We found a ballot shortage, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the votes,” Josh Barnett, an audit organizer who led the affidavit drive to make the audit happen, tells NATIONAL FILE. “It looks like a couple hundred thousand ballots are unaccounted for. The ballots are missing.”

Oh, really? Two hundred thousand ballots allegedly counted on election day are... just not there? 

 GA: 

"The total number of absentee ballots whose chain of custody was purportedly documented in these 385 missing Fulton County absentee ballot transfer forms was 18,901, more than 6,000 votes greater than the less than 12,000 vote margin of Biden’s certified victory in the state," the report said....

"As we review the documents provided to you and our daily log. We noticed that a few forms are missing, it seems when 25 plus core personnel were quarantined due to positive COVID-19 outbreak at the EPC, some procedural paperwork may have been misplaced," she told the Star News.

A few forms are missing, you say. Like eighteen thousand legally required forms, without which we have no reason to believe the votes were legally cast.  [UPDATE: One in four, apparently.]

We used to say 'if it's not close, they can't cheat,' but it turns out that they can. There's no constitutional remedy for a stolen election, but perhaps some people could go to jail. 

80s Music

There was probably another song at some point. There was a whole decade. I'm not sure what it was.

Demons!

Once upon a time I was walking through Atlanta, and I came across some sort of religious organization that was all black, but all dressed in white robes. A woman of perhaps eighty or ninety was among them, wearing glasses that were Coke-bottle thick. She rolled her eyes up at me, took me in, and shouted: "A Demon!"

That's where this lady is, only you're paying her to educate you about race. Seriously, her PayPal is on the board so you'll know where to send the money.

(I of course did the old woman no harm whatsoever. Perhaps real demons can be known by their fruits, like other things; the fruit of our interaction was entirely benign.) 

The Top Threat

Eeeeehhh.... maybe not Climate Change.

The military's top officer asserted on Thursday that the biggest threats the U.S. faces are China and Russia, a day after President Joe Biden recounted to American troops during a trip to the U.K. that military leaders told him climate change represents the "greatest threat to America."

"Climate change does impact, but the president is looking at a much broader angle than I am," Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional panel Thursday morning. "I'm looking at it from a strictly military standpoint. And from a strictly military standpoint, I'm putting China, Russia up there."

I mean it's China, without question.

Libya/Syria

Oh, dear.

Quad Charts are Fun

 

A Spirited Response

It's been a minute since the Attorney General of the United States was threatened with state prison time.