Fair Warning: Frenetic, Stream of Semi-Consciousness Posting Ahead

The fall semester has counter-attacked. Summer vacation has been forced to fall back and relinquish the field. While I regroup to counter-counter-attack yet again, my posting will probably be frenetic and possibly even more stream-of-consciousness than usual. Maybe even stream-of-near-unconsciousness.

At some point I'll probably post something downright dumb and I won't realize it until you tell me. Be assured: It will have sounded pretty good on not-enough sleep and maybe a relaxing adult beverage.

Meanwhile, here's another round of Corb Lund. Let me recommend a double Tullamore Dew Single Malt 10-year, neat, for accompaniment.

Hypothetically, How Does the Revolution Happen?

I was over at neo-neocon recently and the topic of a new American revolution or civil war came up. It's kind of difficult to imagine how it would begin, and since Krag and some others seem to think it's likely, I thought I'd ask for hypothetical answers.

Here are my thoughts on insurgency / civil war / revolution in the near future.

I don’t see a new civil war happening unless some states decide to secede. This isn't unthinkable (Texit, anyone?) but I think the states would at least try a constitutional convention first, and then if that failed, secede. That would be quite some way down the road.

There could possibly be an attempt at revolution, maybe in the form of a coup, but I doubt it. At least, not as a first step.

I think it’s more likely an insurgency would be the way it developed. A small insurgency would probably be quickly crushed, but a widespread insurgency could develop into either a civil war, if it could somehow gain territory and regular forces, or a revolution, if it were widespread and popular enough.

An insurgency could be where it stopped, as well. We could be looking at a situation maybe similar to Northern Ireland. Possibly the insurgency could create no-go zones for the authorities, but not get any further. I think this would eventually fail, although it could take a generation or so.

It's difficult for me to assess what would happen with our current security forces. I've read a number of commenters on various sites who claimed that the military and police would be on the revolutionaries side, but that's not necessarily true. I think Conservatives are divided between those willing to go outlaw and those whose honor is bound up in law and order, even if it ends in results they find objectionable. It's hard to say.

I also think that answers the claim that Conservatives have the police, military, and gun owners, so the Left can't win. I think the fighting would be done by Conservatives on both sides, outlaws vs. law-and-order types.

I think it ends in disaster for several reasons. First, I don’t think enough Americans understand or care enough about liberty to join the revolutionaries. If they cared enough to fight for liberty, they would have cared enough to vote for it before now. Many young Americans are increasingly hostile to liberty, and many of the old are risk-averse. So I don’t think it would ever be successful enough to draw in those sitting on the fence.

Another reason is, without outside help, insurgencies never win, not as long as the government is willing to keep fighting. It is only when the government decides it isn’t worth fighting anymore and gives up that insurgencies can win.

Instead, I think any insurgency or attempt at revolution would end up being just another crisis the Left would not let go to waste, and they would become more powerful from it. And we would all lose more liberty.

There are other disasters that could occur as well. The drug cartels would almost certainly get into it, and what if Russia or China decided to play by providing arms, money, advisors, etc.? What if La Raza took the opportunity and made their “reconquista” a violent insurgency as well? Bad news all around.

Anyway, what do you think? How does it start? How does it play out?

"Scientific Canon"?

Now that is an enlightening way of putting it.

Burkina Faso, Burkini Fiasco, Whatever...

Heh.

A True Heroine & Martyr

Meet Kayla Mueller, aid worker captured by ISIS, who defended her Christian faith before the face of her murderer.

Irony Abounds

Headline: "How President Donald Trump Could Ruin His Enemies' Lives."

The article makes a lot of good points, and indeed explains why the unconstrained Federal government is such a tremendous danger to the very liberty it was created to protect. Only now do they see the terror of the monster they've created.

What they also don't see is how it's been used, and is being used, in so many of these ways. In fact, if you talked to them about the IRS scandal, you'd be told that was just wild conspiracy theory.

Nor do they ponder how much institutional resistance there would be to a Trump attempt to turn a bureaucracy made up very disproportionately of Democrats against his enemies. A Clinton attempt, by contrast, would be as happily embraced as the Obama attempts have been.

Military Survival Tips with Mat Best

This guy just learned something for sure.

(Full video is here.)

Foundations

"A lot of smoke, and no fire," she says.

I feel some heat coming off of these.

Story one:

... the American people, their representatives, and law enforcement were never supposed to see these Clinton documents. She blatantly broke the law to destroy them, instead of handing them over to the State Department. “Clinton’s lawyers deleted these emails without turning them over to the State Department, though it turns out that they are clearly public records that explain just how a momentous decision was made on a major arms deal. In spite of that, the FBI recommended no prosecution[.]"

Story two:

"I have never seen a diplomatic cable that had as stark a description of one energy company trying to cheat."
— Fred Fleitz, Center for Security Policy

...While the CFIUS deliberations were taking place, people who stood to profit from the Uranium One sale donated more than $2.6 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Also, Renaissance Capital, an investment bank with connections to the Russian government, paid former President Bill Clinton $500,000 to deliver a speech -- more than his usual fee.

Even before the sale was under consideration, the Clinton Foundation received $31.3 million in donations from one person, Frank Giustra, who stood to benefit from the sale....

"I think it is a smoking gun," Gray said. "By not acting, she helped. And the only way she could have avoided criminal liability was to recuse herself, which she did not. I think it is a clear violation of ethics statutes."

Story three:

From 2009 through 2013, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had refused to designate Boko Haram as an official Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in spite of intense bipartisan pressure to do so. Why? Both Citizens United and Senator David Vitter have sought FOIA releases of documents explaining State’s thought process at this time. However, there is a major Clinton Foundation donor who had a clear interest: a Nigerian oilfield billionaire named Gilbert Chagoury.

Gilbert Chagoury has substantial oil exploration interests in Nigeria. He also pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2009, the same year Hilary Clinton took office as Secretary of State. Gilbert Chagoury is part of a small Nigerian clique that includes President Muhamadu Buhari. He was interested in seeing Buhari elected, and is reportedly the one who pushed for Axelrod’s firm to be brought in.

It would have been in the business interests of Chagoury, and Buhari to keep former president Goodluck Jonathan from initiating oil ventures in northern Nigeria until Buhari was able to secure the presidency. That would make sure that the contracts got into the right hands.

UPDATE: Pretty hot over here, too.

As This Election Season Demonstrates ...

T&P: Alternative Marine Raider Insignia

They have some suggestions. You can read about one of the things they reference here.

Honesty in Training

Apparently honesty is not always thought to be the best policy after all.

Story one: Army pulls training slide listing Clinton as insider threat.

Story two: Stanford pulls training on sexual harassment and alcohol that is a bit too straightforward about reality for comfort.

In both cases, I think these materials are among the best I've ever seen in their genres, both of which are irritating but necessary aspects of contemporary life. Read the archived drinking page for yourself. It doesn't just treat the dangers of rape (which is what caused the objection), but that women risk organ damage at lower levels and shorter periods of heavy drinking. If the intent of the training is to help young women learn how to manage the risks that alcohol poses to them, both socially and as a chemical, this is a fantastic page.

Likewise, the OPSEC slide put its finger on a serious issue that is hard to talk about: that those who outrank you, both in the chain of command and also as civilian appointees or elected officials, may themselves be the risk. You can't let someone's higher rank cause you to turn a blind eye to bad practices. It's just because the State Department lacked such a culture that some of America's most sensitive secrets were exposed by Hillary Clinton to our national enemies. If the intent of OPSEC training is actually operational security, that was a great slide.

We'll have to do with weaker sauce that leaves these risks unaddressed, I suppose.

"A Nation For Sale Under Hillary Clinton"

Well, not the whole nation, thank you. A few of us are not to be bought.

On the other hand, as Auda Abu Tai said, why should they wish to buy a man like me? What good am I to them?

Kurt Schlichter: Prophet

Well, novelist, really. It just feels prophetic, sometimes.

The Inauguration Speech America’s Corrupt and Incompetent Ruling Class Will Make A Reality

...

For too long, the elites looked down on us even as they stole our labor and our heritage to enrich themselves. For too long, they hid behind laws that apply only to us and not to them, behind a media that lied to us to protect them, behind an economic system that stole from us to protect them. That ends today!

Enemies of the people and their lapdogs in the media, it is time for you to be held accountable!

They speak of the Constitution, but your will is my constitution! Your needs are my Bill of Rights! Under my rule, your voice will be America’s voice!

...

I highly recommend his "future history" novel, Conservative Insurgency. Told from the perspective of a history Ph.D. candidate working on his dissertation in the 2040s, it tells the story of how constitutional conservatives created a successful cultural insurgency and re-established themselves as the dominant political, social, and cultural force in the nation.

The book is intended as a road guide for conservatives today who are hoping to do that very thing.

Given our discussions of the possibilities of a new civil war, the book deserves a read as a way change might be effected without significant violence. If anyone has or does read it, let's discuss it. I'd be interested to know what you think.

Say What Now?

More scientific studies prove that national parks and natural areas are racist, deny equal access.... Among the changes encouraged by the Centennial Initiative is a redesign of all national parks to remove intimidating imagery, such as the vehicles driven by and uniforms worn by park rangers, both of which “have law enforcement connotations” and therefore “present a significant impediment to engaging all Americans.”

First of all, park rangers often actually are law enforcement officers, so removing that 'connotation' would be confusing. They're there to help you, but they're also there to make sure you obey the parks rules -- many of which are actually Federal laws.

Second, speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time in National Parks around the country -- if you get more than 50 feet from the road, you'll never see rangers anyway. If you don't like cops, hike a little. It'll improve your health, and I can promise you that I have never seen a park ranger on any backcountry trail in any state or National park ever.

Park rangers have to be the least intimidating police in the country. Almost all they do is fill out forms and sell you access to campsites and such. There's an outside chance one might be around if you needed help, but it's not like they're going to be breathing down your neck while you tramp over Clingman's Dome or scale the Tetons in spite of clear warning signs telling you not to do that. Hypothetically, that last one.

Feeling quizzy

Which GWOT Are You?

Now You're Talking

Headline: "Trump: Special prosecutor must investigate Clinton 'immediately.'"

Immediately isn't soon enough, really.

Things For Which I Am Grateful

After more than a week of receiving visitors while staying with my mother, I am deeply grateful to be back at my home. The one with a locking gate at the road, another at the top of the pasture, and a sign by the road gate that reads:

POSTED
NO TRESPASSING
KEEP OUT

"Good Friend of Ours"

Included among the Abedin-Band emails is an exchange revealing that when Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain requested a meeting with Secretary of State Clinton, he was forced to go through the Clinton Foundation for an appointment. Abedin advised Band that when she went through “normal channels” at State, Clinton declined to meet. After Band intervened, however, the meeting was set up within forty-eight hours. According to the Clinton Foundation website... had contributed $32 million to CGI.... reportedly gave between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation....gave an additional $25,000 to $50,000.

The real issue isn't that this is how Secretary Clinton conducted state business. It's that this is how President Clinton will conduct state business. The Federal government of the United States will no longer be for the People, but for her "good friends," that is, the ones who are at the top of the bribery scale.

This Sounds Like A Solid Briefing

These briefings are always interminable and painful, especially since you've already sat through goodness knows how many of them. This one raises what is really an excellent point that I don't think I've ever heard covered before. Good for the briefer for finding a way to make the briefing not only more amusing (and therefore more interesting), but to raise a new and real concern.

H/t: US Army W.T.F! Moments. They're a lot like the old milblogs used to be.

UPDATE: For the record, I heard not one but two pre-deployment briefings on the laws of war that cited Allen B. West as a bad example, and while he was a sitting Congressman. Clinton doesn't deserve more deference.

Top Clinton Adviser Spent Years Editing Radical Islamic Journal

I think the story about how this journal published a point-by-point takedown of her famous Beijing speech is hilarious.

But I think my favorite part of the story comes at the end, when Clinton is Secretary of State:

[I]n 2010, Huma Abedin arranged for then-Secretary of State Clinton to speak alongside Abedin’s hijab-wearing mother at an all-girls college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. According to a transcript of the speech, Clinton said Americans have to do a better job of getting past “the stereotypes and the mischaracterizations” of the oppressed Saudi woman. She also assured the audience of burqa-clad girls that not all American girls go “around in a bikini bathing suit.”

If we had a real press, somebody would be running with a headline built around Hillary Clinton's opposition to bikinis.