Author Topic: The Way Forward for the American Creed  (Read 384584 times)

DougMacG

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Re: God help us!
« Reply #1100 on: November 20, 2023, 06:47:55 AM »
"God help us, for God is the only one who can."

Great post!

I would add, God help us to help ourselves.

We "leave it in the hands of God" - only after we have all done everything humanly possible to fix it ourselves, to reverse the course we are on.

When Eastern Europe was in full oppression, I cringed when I saw Church leaders in Poland help bring comfort to the people in their oppression, rather than help lead and organize the overthrow of the regime.  Later it became clear they were instrumental in the overthrow and I stand corrected.

Today again it appears (from where I sit) the Church mainly stands with the oppressors. Meanwhile the church of anti-Judeo-Christianity is deeply in bed with the state and the state schools raising our young.

ccp

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1101 on: November 20, 2023, 07:09:58 AM »
" Today again it appears (from where I sit) the Church mainly stands with the oppressors. Meanwhile the church of anti-Judeo-Christianity is deeply in bed with the state and the state schools raising our young."

The Church like the DNC both see mass immigration as a means to increase their members.

Most are Latinos and most are Christians.





DougMacG

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We Need a Plan of Action
« Reply #1103 on: December 10, 2023, 05:09:32 AM »
"the world of higher education has become an enemy of truth, justice, and the American way. The saturation of the institution of higher education by the ideology of DEI is the capstone of the process.  But the same applies to just about every other major institution in American life — the national security establishment, the military, corporate America, the press, the media at large, and public education from kindergarten on. If there is an exception, it doesn’t come to mind offhand."

"We need a plan of action like the one that won the Cold War, which we actually seem to have lost on the home front."

  - Scott Johnson, Powerline
  https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/12/her-name-was-magill.php

« Last Edit: December 10, 2023, 05:39:23 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1104 on: December 10, 2023, 05:42:03 AM »
Important to articulate that point!

Tis a small thing, but on my FB page (approx 1900 following) I regularly post pithy quotes from our Founding Fathers, as well as links for pieces of American history, stories of American heroism, etc.

ccp

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1105 on: December 10, 2023, 07:21:43 AM »
agree

We don't celebrate George Washington because he owned slaves , which everyone knew since he became public historical figure.  We celebrate him because of his massive courageous contributions towards the establishment of America.

We don't celebrate Martin Luther King because he cheated on his wife, consorted with prostitutes or was found to be laughing witnessing a woman being raped, or because he plagiarized other people's lines for his speeches.

We didn't erect statues and call a street MLK Boulevard in every inner city in the nation for these reasons.
We celebrate his contribution to racial equality in the US peacefully.


Crafty_Dog

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1106 on: December 10, 2023, 07:32:03 AM »
Point well made, and the MLK example is particularly useful for purposes of rhetorical pugilism.

Body-by-Guinness

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The End Times Upon the US? Many Say Yes
« Reply #1107 on: January 28, 2024, 09:46:54 AM »
Another one that defies categorization as I couldn’t find a polling thread. Poll finds many Americans believe the end of the world is upon us, with religious folks and Republicans more likely to believe it than the left side of the aisle.

One of the (perhaps unintended) consequences of ongoing “climate crisis,” Covid, and other politicized doomsaying is a swath of populations expecting the end to be nigh. For the young in particular I believe this incessant thrum of doom meant to serve political ends is a gross disservice:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/08/about-four-in-ten-u-s-adults-believe-humanity-is-living-in-the-end-times/

Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1109 on: March 16, 2024, 01:16:42 PM »
Our American Creed is in grave danger.

I'm in the middle of listening to something


and would like to take a moment to jot down something that was said for deeper rumination:

a) Lies spread faster than Truth

b) Democracy cannot survive based upon Misinformation and Lies

Seems to me there are some deep implications here.

c) The theoretical super power of democracy is that we can listen to all sides and sort it out while authoritarian societies cannot.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2024, 01:28:12 PM by Crafty_Dog »

DougMacG

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1110 on: March 17, 2024, 07:06:20 AM »
Our American Creed is in grave danger.

I'm in the middle of listening to something


and would like to take a moment to jot down something that was said for deeper rumination:

a) Lies spread faster than Truth

b) Democracy cannot survive based upon Misinformation and Lies

Seems to me there are some deep implications here.

c) The theoretical super power of democracy is that we can listen to all sides and sort it out while authoritarian societies cannot.

Good points. I would add from where I sit,

1) There seems to be a demand for lies, misinformation, deception, "spin" (on the Left) to promote or back up views that fail without that.
Example, they wanted, needed a distinction between Trump and Biden on classified documents. Trump tried to cover it up, Biden didn't so it's not two systems of justice.  But so did Hillary.  Bleach Bit.  No prosecution.

2) I would add projection as an important tactic in deception.  We cover up our deception by accusing you of it.

3) Also 'missing information' is a big part of misinformation.  So many examples.  Not one Democrat reading the NYT everyday would know that revenues grew when marginal tax rates were cut.  Do they know social spending perpetuates poverty?  60 years to study it and still no clue?  Not one story.  Do they know we spend 40% more than we take in, while they propose to worsen that?  Do they know the earth has only warmed by one degree in 100 years?  In the scientific scale of degrees Kelvin, that is a 1/287 (0.0035) movement.  Hunter's laptop?  The checks Joe received?  Do they really not know about rape and human trafficking at the cartel controlled border?  Two million rapes not mentioned in the SOTU, and then mocked in the response.  And on and on. 

“Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
― David Burge
« Last Edit: March 17, 2024, 08:38:58 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1111 on: March 17, 2024, 01:50:01 PM »
Good points adding to the analytical framework.

Crafty_Dog

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Observation
« Reply #1112 on: March 20, 2024, 03:00:05 PM »
Recent years are but a continuation of the foundation laid in his first two terms by our current true president-- all that matters is getting across the finish line of Complete Power Always.

DougMacG

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The Way Forward, Example of getting a message out
« Reply #1113 on: March 26, 2024, 08:46:54 AM »
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/03/25/voter_i_am_leaving_the_democratic_party_over_healthcare_everything_they_said_was_not_true.html

9.5 minute video, zero expense, powerful persuasive message. Nothing fancy. I can put this under healthcare politics but we've already covered the points there. The real question is how do we reach more people and not just preach to our choir.

This guy told his story, detailed and meaningful, heartfelt and real life.  Not propaganda or repeating talking points. And if it is, it's really brilliant.

He made a self video, put it on Twitter, and somehow got it linked with the main columnist of real clear politics this morning.

The Forum here is an amazing resource. We have millions of page views, but don't know if that's just the government surveilling us. We follow the day to day. We follow the nation and the world and history and explore the most difficult topics, but when do we try to summarize what is most important of what we have learned and share it to a wider audience?

We have national elections decided by 40,000 votes?  What if you (or I) had nine and a half minutes to talk to a million undecided voters between now and the election, what would you want to tell them?

Young people watch video-based media and this guy is clearly trying to reach young people with what he has learned, in quite a non-threatening, non-imposing sort of way.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1114 on: March 26, 2024, 02:32:44 PM »
A powerful point Doug.

I am germinating some ideas in this respect, , ,



DougMacG

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« Last Edit: May 19, 2024, 01:56:47 PM by Crafty_Dog »


Body-by-Guinness

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Mark Lamb, AZ Sheriff on the Front Lines of the Immigration Issue
« Reply #1118 on: May 21, 2024, 06:51:01 AM »
This could go in more than one place, but given how elemental the American creed is to the gent's campaign and point of view I'll drop it here. And, FWIW, Recoil is the only gun rag worth subscribing to, both for pieces like this and for the fact it's the only one out there that isn't a de facto industry shill:

The American Sheriff: Mark Lamb About Upholding the Constitution, Border Security, and His Run for Senate
Patrick McCarthy
May 21, 2024 Join the Conversation

For most Americans, the security of the southern border is a subject to debate from afar. While the ripple effects of drug smuggling and human trafficking reach throughout our nation, reading news articles and studying statistics doesn’t yield the same perspective as witnessing the problem firsthand.

Since his election in 2017, Sheriff Mark Lamb has been serving at the forefront of this complex situation. His jurisdiction — Pinal County, Arizona, which covers a large area between Tucson and Phoenix — is smack dab in the middle of one of America’s most active trafficking corridors, and the problem is only getting worse.

In February of 2023, Lamb testified at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that human trafficking incidents in Pinal County had quadrupled during the previous two years, and that seizures of fentanyl pills had grown six-fold in the same time frame.

He said to the committee, “Our biggest frustration stems from being told by this administration and the media that there is not a crisis at our southern border, and the lie that our southern border is secure. Clearly, our statistics tell a different story.” A few months later, Lamb announced he’s taking the fight to Washington by running for U.S. Senate.

In addition to his strong stance on border security, Lamb has been an outspoken advocate of Second Amendment rights and the sworn duty of a sheriff to preserve the constitutional freedoms of fellow countrymen, leading to the nickname “The American Sheriff.”

As an extension of that viewpoint, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he openly defied a stay-at-home order issued by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, refusing to arrest or cite owners of businesses that remained open.


With a total area of 5,300 square miles, much of which is agricultural land and open expanses of desert, catching traffickers as they pass through Pinal County is a constant battle.
We met Sheriff Lamb one morning outside a U.S. Border Patrol field office near Interstate 10 and hopped into his truck for a brief ride-along. After cruising around the county for a few hours, we returned to his office and sat down to discuss his background, views, and senatorial ambitions to “yank the chain back on the federal government.”

RECOIL: Tell us a little bit about your upbringing.

I was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii — the Big Island. We lived there until I was 11 years old, then we moved to the Philippines and lived there for another year. Everybody asks, was my dad military? No, he was a graduate of Thunderbird, which is an international business school here in Arizona. He loved international business. So, we lived abroad and then had to regroup, and came back to Chandler, Arizona, which is where my dad was from. I went to junior high and high school in Chandler.

While I was in high school, my family moved to Panama, Central America. So, I spent a lot of time every summer there, and spent Christmases there. I was in Panama when the United States invaded during Operation Just Cause in 1989, rolling into ’90. I stood on guard with a gun out front of my building for multiple days. Then, I served a mission for my church in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I spent a lot of time outside of the United States, so much so that the first chapter in my first book I wrote was “Welcome to America.” As kids, it really gave us a good understanding of what it’s like to live abroad and what poverty really looks like. You gain a real appreciation, a deep love for America and the freedoms that we have.

What led you to pursue a career in law enforcement?

It was happenstance. I never thought about being a police officer, didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to be one. Nobody in my family or my wife’s family is a police officer.

I was 33 years old and had my own business. I knew I was missing something in my life. Both my wife and I knew that I could be doing more, needed more purpose. So, my neighbor asked me if I wanted to do a ride-along one night. I never would have guessed that I would find my purpose on that ride-along, but I went anyway.

It was at the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, on the Indian Reservation near Mesa, Tempe, and Scottsdale. It was a graveyard shift, and I remember that on one of the calls — I tell this story all the time — we went to the house of a guy who found a 20-year-old with his 14-year-old daughter. They got into a little physical altercation, the kid runs out the back, and we show up. He lets me out of the car, and I'm armed with a flashlight and courage out there, just looking for this guy.

On the reservation, you might have a house and then nothing behind it. At this particular house, there was an old, abandoned travel trailer out in the desert behind the house. I walk up to it with the flashlight, look in the window, and I see what I think is a quarter-sized area of skin amongst all the trash and clothes and debris in this trailer. I tell those guys, hey, I think he's in here. Sure enough, they go in, tase him, dig him out, and put him in cuffs.

The next morning, I woke up my wife and said, “I'm going to be a cop.” Six months later, I was in the academy, and I found what I love. I love the rule of law. I think it is the most important thing to our republic, which the founding fathers established in the preamble to the Constitution. The very first charge is to have justice.

I'm unapologetic about how much I think the rule of law means to this country. So, I take it very seriously and I've enjoyed every bit of my career since then. That ride along really changed the trajectory of my life.


As you worked your way up through the ranks, what was your ultimate goal?

I started with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and became a gang and drug detective within a couple of years. I really loved it. But unfortunately, I felt the president and the administration at the time were really undermining the rule of law. President Obama, his administration, I just thought they were doing things that were tearing away at the fabric of trust that society has in law enforcement. And things were changing. Social media was coming about. I thought, you know, somebody's got to do something about this.

The other thing that I noticed is in law enforcement, unfortunately, you don't always have the best leaders. You have supervisors. You don't always have leaders. And I saw things I thought I could do better. Instead of being that guy that was just going to sit and complain about it and run my mouth, I decided to do something about it. So, one day I told all the guys that I worked with, “I'm going to run for sheriff.” They thought I was crazy. [laughs]


I lived in Pinal County already, traveled into work every day. And I said, “No, I'm serious. I'm going to run for sheriff!” And they said, “Nah, you're crazy.” Well, six months later, I took a job here at Pinal County with the purpose of running for sheriff. I was here for a couple years working as a deputy, then as a reserve, and then I left so that I could run for sheriff.

I also started another business, made some money that would put me in a position to be able to do that. And then I ran for sheriff at the end of 2015 all through 2016, and was fortunate enough to win the primary 63 to 37 percent. And then go on to win the general election 60 to 40 percent.

So, that's how I got to this point. It was really just saying, I don't like what it is, and I want to be part of the solution. And so I went through some very uncomfortable times, made some hard, hard decisions. Really took some hits financially as a family to get to this point. But we knew what the target was, what the end goal was, and so we stayed focused on that. And with hard work, determination, and faith in God and the process, we were fortunate enough to be in this position.

You’ve been very outspoken about your support of the Second Amendment, but many legislators are working to dismantle it with unconstitutional laws. How can you and others in your line of work preserve 2A rights?

You know, that's a great question because I get labeled as a constitutional sheriff all the time. I think they mean it to be an insult. I don't take it as an insult.

First of all, as a sheriff, when I swore an oath — when I put my hand on that Bible and was elected, I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. And I always say to these reporters, you're referring to me as a constitutional sheriff. I swore the same oath as every other elected official. What you should be asking them is, why are they not upholding their oath?

Now, one of the challenges that a sheriff runs into that's different than a normal elected official is I am part of the executive branch. I don't make the laws. I don't judge on the laws.

I basically am an executive piece of it. So, what happens is you will have, like in many states, where they push to undo the Second Amendment, to subvert it, to infringe upon it. That’s what they’re really doing. Then, it puts a sheriff in a very tough spot. The sheriff has to make a decision.

Do you follow the state law that the men passed, which we have seen time and time again that the Supreme Court has upheld that they were wrong, or do you follow the Constitution?

I believe in the Constitution being the supreme law of the land, and I believe that it ultimately will always supersede. So, that's a long way of telling you that as long as I'm in a position of authority in government, I will always fight vehemently to defend the Second Amendment.

That's great to hear.

And let me take one more step further, because let me explain. Take the guns out of it. Let's just talk Second Amendment. It's an amendment to the Constitution. I wouldn't let you change the First Amendment or the Third or the Fourth or the Fifth or the Sixth or the Seventh and so on and so on.

I would not let you change those. What they've done is they've made it about a gun as opposed to making it about an amendment to the Constitution, because if you allow them to change the Second Amendment because you don't like guns, I promise you what is next is they will tell you that you can only speak freely on Wednesdays and you can only go to church once a month, or maybe the press can only write a paper on Sunday.

Or maybe — and you may think I'm being over-the-top — I would think that over the last few years this government and people in power have proven time and time again that wherever they can, they will take from you, and they won't give it back.

Above and beyond wanting to protect guns because I think they are imperative for our freedom, above and beyond that, taking the guns out of it, it is an amendment to the Constitution, and I will not let you change any of those amendments to the Constitution. If you want to pass another amendment, good luck. I won't be up for that either unless it's something that reduces the size of government and government's power.

When Arizona Governor Doug Ducey passed a statewide “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order in response to COVID, you refused to enforce that order, citing the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. What responsibility do LEOs have to make choices like these in the face of possible legal and career-ending consequences?

I think we have a solemn responsibility. They have entrusted the sheriffs to not only protect you from the bad guys, but to protect you from government overreach. It is my job to make sure that you are not trying to pass off a mandate or an order as a law, and unjustly pass things. The executive branch doesn't make laws.

The judicial branch shouldn't make laws, but they continue to rule. And by judgments, they’ve been making laws. But the sheriff has a solemn responsibility to defend the people's constitutional rights and their freedoms. And I viewed the lockdowns as a serious and egregious violation of people's rights. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say, “on behalf of a health emergency” or “because it's what's safe for people,” we can subvert or put the Constitution aside or put it on the bench for a little while. It's not the way it works. The Constitution is there. It is the supreme law of the land.

What they were doing, in my opinion — and I think ultimately it was proven, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out — they were violating people's constitutional rights. So, we told the governor, no, we weren't going to do that here in Pinal County.

I think the majority of the citizens appreciated the bold stance. I had some that didn't. But when I explained my stance to them, at least I took the time to say, I'm going to listen to you, and then I want you to listen to me as to where my stance is. And I have no doubt we stood on the correct side as we watched as the majority of places across this country violate people's constitutional rights.

We had a saying in SWAT: you will not rise to the occasion, you will only rise to the highest level of your training. Whatever it is that you do in life — whether it's photography, shooting guns, being a police officer — if you are not honing your craft, you will only be as good as whatever training you've taken or whatever time you've put into your craft.

So, I would say to anybody, especially somebody who is in law enforcement and carries a gun, make sure you are spending ample time training because I think it's important to the people that you're serving. I think it's important to yourself, so that you can come home safe to your family. For anybody else out there that carries a gun, an average citizen, I thoroughly support that. I pull people over and ask them if they have guns in the car. And if they say no, I say, “Well, why not? You should. It's dangerous out there.”

I fully support people's right to exercise their Second Amendment rights. I also tell them, please go out and get training so that you don't hurt yourself or somebody else, and so that you know when you can and cannot use deadly force. So, please educate yourself, get trained, carry a gun — do all of those things.

Defunding the police has become a topic of debate in many metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. What short-term and long-term effects will this have?

We've seen the short-term effects. The short-term effects have been catastrophic. I mean, we've seen cities literally being burnt to the ground. We're seeing crime on the rise in major cities. We're seeing police agencies that basically either abandoned sections of their jurisdiction or — because they don't want to be sued or they don't want to get in trouble — they've made the determination that they're going to be more of a cleanup crew than a proactive stopping crime crew. Part of me can't hardly blame them, but the other part of me says, no, look, you’ve still got to fight. You can't raise the white flag.

Those are the short-term effects. The long-term effects are what I said in the beginning. They’ve eroded the trust in law enforcement, and now anytime you allow something to be pervasive, it is much harder to get it out and fix it than if you would have just kept it out in the first place. When they do want a course correct, society is not going to like the outcome of how hard it's going to be to take the law and order back in this country. Plus, you have the long-term effect of hiring, finding people who want to do this job.

America's strength — everything that we have, all of it — was what the founding fathers said in the preamble to the Constitution. We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice. And number two was ensure domestic tranquility. They knew how important the rule of law was to America. And if we lose that — defunding the police is a way to do that — we ultimately will pay the price as citizens, and we may lose our republic because of it.

With that in mind, what do law enforcement agencies in the United States need most right now?

Strong leadership. Right now, you need strong leadership. In times of trouble and in times of stormy waters, you need a captain that will grab hold of the helm, that will stay on the course, that will protect the crew, and make sure that the crew's needs are met.

What we're seeing is weak leadership, abandoning their troops, firing people because of the social pressure that might come along with a decision that a police officer makes in a split second. I tell people very frankly, we are not in the business of good optics. If we show up, the optics of what we have to do to restore balance and order to chaos is not always good.

But my job is not to worry about the optics of it, my job is to worry about the outcome of it. And my job is to restore balance and order to chaos. And we do the best we can to prevent crime in every situation, but we will also hold you accountable if you break those laws. Should you choose to be violent with us, we are more than prepared to be violent with you as well.

This is the reality of the business we're in, and I stand with my people when they do what's right. When they know that you’ll have their back if they do what's right, they make better decisions. The police officers who make bad decisions are hesitating for a split second because they're not sure if they're going to get in trouble. And those split seconds, not only do they create bad decisions, they also are getting cops hurt across this country. And families are losing loved ones because they made that split-second pause to determine whether or not they were going to get in trouble.

We need leadership to stand against these social pushes that we're seeing in this country of defunding the police, of saying that only one race or one skin color matters, and those types of things. Those are all social constructs, and they are not true to what this country is. Nobody cares more for people than we do, because that's why we go out and put on a gun and a badge and we're willing to protect people every day.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering beginning a new career in law enforcement?

Do it. You know, we need warriors now more than ever. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's not a challenging job. It is a challenging job; it is a stressful job at times. It will bring the best out of you, though. It makes you a better person.

If you take this job, go out and enjoy it, work hard at it, and don't let the things that you see consume you. The average police officer, they say, will experience between 400 and 700 traumatic incidents in their career.

The average citizen only experiences two to four in their entire lifetime. The impact that this will have on us personally, and on our families is substantial. So, if you're going to do the job, do it, but make sure you have an anchor in your life. Whether it's religion, your family, or something else that anchors you so that your ship doesn't set off to sea with no rudder.

It's a great career. I think it is the most important and honorable career for this country, for maintaining our republic. Now is the time where you need warriors more than ever.

You’ve called the situation at the southern border “the greatest threat to national security right now.”

How has your experience here in Arizona led you to that conclusion?

We've been saying this for a while. This is not something that is new to us. October 7, 2023, really exposed just how vulnerable we are. I think a lot of Americans woke up to the fact that we are exposed.

We saw Hamas go into a very protected and very secure Israel and do what they did. Atrocities. Terrorism. And we see those same types of people coming into our borders all the time — 160 to 180 terrorists being caught a year, 16,000 criminals last year that were convicted of crimes in this country or wanted by law enforcement in this country trying to get back into America.

We're getting gang members from other countries. We're getting people that are coming from places like Mauritania that has become one of the leading breeding grounds for Al-Qaeda. We have Senegal, Chad, China. We have Chinese nationals coming across to the tune of over 30,000 in a year. And then we have the FBI telling us they found 10 makeshift Chinese police headquarters across this country.

This is the point that we're at. We're allowing these people to just walk across our border and give them carte blanche in our country. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when that rears its ugly head. So that's one piece of it. The second piece — probably even more important because it's affecting American lives every day — is the fentanyl piece. China is bringing fentanyl precursors, giving it to the cartels. The cartels are then making it into pills and powder. And they are bringing that fentanyl across our border. And it has become the leading cause of death amongst Americans between the ages of 18 to 45. We have lost over 100,000 Americans per year to fentanyl poisonings.

Let me put that into perspective. If you would drop a bomb on Phoenix and kill 100,000 people, what would we do as a country? We went to war for 20 years over 9-11. We're losing 100,000 civilians and our government is doing nothing. As a matter of fact, not only are they doing nothing, they’re pulling back even more so that the border is more unsecure than it has ever been.

We are seeing unprecedented amounts of people and drugs coming across while we are losing 100,000-plus American civilians, that could have been stopped, by the hands of people that are really enemies to this country. China and the cartels who have zero regard for human life. So, when we talk about the greatest threats to America, I'm the simple guy. I look at it and say, what's killing the most amount of Americans? Fentanyl.

So, I don't see how everybody else doesn't see that this is the greatest national security threat. This is what's claiming more American lives every day, and we are putting more Americans at risk every day with the amount of people that we are letting in here, many of them who hate America.

That’s why I say it is the greatest national security threat. There's nothing that's happening in the Middle East and there's nothing that's happening in Taiwan that affects me and my family more than what is happening at the southern border.



During the ride-along, we stopped in a field near an unassuming farm road where the landscape was scattered with dozens of empty water jugs, food cans, and carpet shoes left behind by illegal immigrants.
What would you say is the biggest misconception about the state of the southern border right now?

Well, I don't know that it’s a misconception — I think it's intentionally misleading. I think you have a government that is intentionally downplaying, and in most cases lying to the American people. They're standing at a podium telling you that the border is secure. They're telling you that people aren't just walking across the border. They are lying. They are. And they're doing nothing about it.

And the media — that’s why I say this is purposeful misleading — the media is covering for them. If you bring it up, then they want to quickly try to debunk what you say. Case in point, I just released a video recently where I said that a lot of these people crossing the border were getting cell phones, they were getting plane tickets to wherever they wanted to go in the country, getting Visa cards with $5,000.

The media could not work harder and faster to try to debunk me. Not to say, hey, we should look into this. They wanted to debunk me. And where did they go for their source? They went to the federal government, the same people that are actually giving our tax dollars to them. They do it through non-governmental organizations. And those non-governmental organizations or NGOs are the ones giving them the money. So, you have a complicit media that is covering for them.

The founding fathers would be turning over in their grave to know that the media betrayed the people. That is why the freedom of the press is in the First Amendment with the freedom of speech and religion and the right to assemble, because they knew how important the press would be in holding the government accountable. Not necessarily siding with the people but telling the people the truth. We don't have that anymore. And so that's one of the great threats to the American people. It's not even a miscommunication. It's flat-out misleading and lying to them.

We sat down with Mark Lamb to talk about his run for office, protecting the people of Arizona, and where to get a good cowboy hat.
Why did you make the choice to run for Senate?

I didn't want to. This was not on my list of things to do. I love being sheriff. I had a plan, not just as a sheriff but beyond that. But I just started seeing the way the country was going, and people were saying, hey, sheriff, you should run for Senate. So, I actually went to my wife and said, we've got to come up with a list of reasons why not to do this. And in that process, we started feeling very compelled to do it.

Then, we had a tragic thing that happened to us. I got a knock at the door at 8:30 at night on December 16, 2022. And it was a sheriff from Maricopa County, two of my chiefs, and two guys from Gilbert PD. My wife and I had been wrapping presents, and I had been out at a dinner and shopping and came home. I'd been home for maybe 20, 30 minutes and got the knock on the door.

I opened the door and immediately knew something wasn't right. One of my chiefs, who's known my kids for a long time — my middle son, Cooper, had a fiancée and an 11-month-old daughter. And the only thing my chief could say was, “Cooper and the baby are dead.” And so immediately, in the snap of a finger, I lost my son, I lost my 11-month-old granddaughter, and I lost my daughter-in-law.

I didn't want to do anything at that point. Didn't want to run for Senate, didn't want to run for sheriff, didn't want to even get out of bed. But a few weeks later, somebody said something to me that just sparked something. Going through this with my son reminded me: there is no guarantee for tomorrow, and the only thing we take with us in this life is what we do. And I could not stand on the corner and watch the building burn to the ground, especially when I knew I had the capability and the ability to do it.

There's an old Danish saying that I love: “Whoever has the ability has the responsibility.” Well, I have the ability on the border stuff and on crime. And I run a large agency with a budget of over $60 million with over 600 employees. And I have been working on trying to protect national security within my county for a long time. I have the ability, and I felt like I had the responsibility.

I always tell people, look, this country's in chaos. We can't get along. Politics is in chaos. The world's in chaos, frankly. And if your house was on fire or there were thieves in your house or there was a domestic situation where mom and dad can't get along, are you going to call a politician? No. You're going to call your sheriff. Why? Because we are trained and experienced in restoring balance and order to chaos. It is what we do every day.

You call us in the worst moments of your life. And in minutes, we are expected to start to restore balance and order to chaos. And this government, this country, this world needs men and women that are experienced and trained in restoring balance and order to chaos. So, I'm determined to be free, I'm determined to preserve America, and I'm going to Washington, D.C. for that.

When you ask me why I wanted to do it, I can't say that I wanted to do it. But I felt compelled to do it. And you better believe I'm going to go 100 percent and do what I have to do, because ultimately our country's on the line.


What will be some of your top priorities as a senator?

Securing the border. I mean, that's something we've got to do day one. Securing the border.

We've got to start restoring our energy independence. That's one of the ways we're going to dig our way out of the economic crisis we're in as well. We can't do that without energy independence because it takes energy to make a product, to ship a product, and to sell a product. It takes energy. And when you increase the cost of energy to the American people and to those industries, those costs will ultimately be absorbed by us. Whether it's in increased prices or through inflation, we will end up absorbing those costs.

Americans are going deeper in debt. Forty percent increase in credit card debt over the last year, from $765 billion to $1.1 trillion. We're at an all-time high on vehicle delinquencies. We're at a 20-year high on mortgage rates. I mean, our economy is in rough shape. We've got a lot of issues that this administration has bungled. But let's start by securing our border and fixing what is the greatest threat to our national security. Let's start there.

Let's stop the flow of fentanyl. Let's start to work on our economy immediately. And as it relates to crime, as a senator, my job is not to go out and tell local law enforcement and states what to do. I believe in the 10th Amendment. My job as a U.S. senator will be to yank the chain back on the federal government. We need to do some serious, serious oversight on federal law enforcement and really evaluate whether these agencies

even need to exist at this point. I hope to be digging into that really quick as well, because I think the American people would expect that of me as well.

Many Americans have become disillusioned by politicians who make promises but don't follow through, seemingly putting their own careers above their responsibility to their constituents.

How will you navigate the political swamp without getting bogged down in it?

Well, I think the key is not getting involved in the political swamp. That's the key. I'm not a politician. You know, I've taken stands when I was the only one standing for these things. Nobody else was there standing with me, and it was not easy.

But I will tell you, for me, it actually was easy, because the line is so distinct between what is right and wrong and what is constitutional and not constitutional. I hope to be that person that stands up for the American people. The way I avoid the political swamp is not be political.

I think what people will expect is for me to be the genuine person I've been for the last seven years as sheriff, and take that same no attitude to Washington, D.C., and start to fix some of this nonsense.

And I'm not sitting here saying it's going to be easy, but I think that the clearest path is to just stay on course — follow God, family, freedom, the Constitution. Those are my things. And I think that's what's going to keep me grounded, that's what's going to keep me weathering the pressures and the political storms in Washington to stand up for the people.


Where can readers learn more about you and your campaign?

Please go to sherifflambforsenate.com. If you live in Arizona, sign the petition. If you don't live in Arizona, you can still donate to my campaign.

You can share my messages online. You can go to Instagram, @americansheriff on Instagram. On Twitter, it's @sherifflamb1. On Facebook, it's Sheriff Lamb. And on TruthSocial, it's American Sheriff as well. But yes, please go support. Share the messages. Tell your friends. Donate some money if you've got a few bucks.

And sign the petition if you can. That's what it takes. Politics is not an easy thing.

Here's what I'm asking. My wife and I, my family, we have slid all of our chips into the center of this table on this hand. And we're asking that you throw a couple chips on the table with us. I'll do the rest of it. I'm just asking for a couple chips to help us as we bet all of it on this.

https://www.recoilweb.com/the-american-sheriff-mark-lamb-184541.html

Crafty_Dog

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1119 on: May 21, 2024, 10:59:34 AM »
I used to subscribe to Recoil.  Maybe I need to renew , , ,

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1120 on: May 21, 2024, 12:20:11 PM »
I used to subscribe to Recoil.  Maybe I need to renew , , ,

Don't do it! Too many really expensive, very cool toys and accesories grace those pages. Suspect my wife winces whenever an issue hits the mailbox....

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Noonan: Teach your children to love America
« Reply #1121 on: May 29, 2024, 06:29:40 AM »


Teach Your Children to Love America
For Memorial Day, I’m taking inspiration from the New York schools’ 1900 ‘Manual of Patriotism.’
Peggy Noonan
May 23, 2024 5:27 pm ET




The frontispiece from ‘Manual of Patriotism’ 1900. PHOTO: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Some Memorial Day thoughts on the importance of love:

Children don’t need to be taught to love their parents. From the moment they come out you are everything to them. They seem to arrive with a certain amount of love built in and fix it on the mother who holds them and looks into their eyes and the father who delights them by making them laugh. It really is something, this natural force that comes prepackaged. (In this corner we believe God did this, implanting the love; we believe God in fact invented love, for his and your pleasure.)

But after parents, family and nature—children are especially sensitive to and undefended against the idea of the miraculous within nature—children have to be taught to love certain things. Such as their country.

Parents, teach your children to love America, either as an extension of your own love or as a simple kindness to them.

We live in an age—I’ll say this part quickly as we all know it—in which children are instructed in 100 different ways through 100 different portals that America is and always was a dark and scheming place, that its history is the history of pushing people around, often in an amoral quest for wealth but also because we aren’t very nice. And we never meant it about the Declaration.

Ideology and idiocy imposed this view, shallowness too. It began some decades ago but has speeded up and became more extreme the past 10 years.

What does this atmosphere of unlove for America do to kids? To little ones 5 and 10 but also 15—what is its impact on them?

To kids from difficult circumstances it means there is no hope; you won’t escape a violent or unhappy family into a better place, the world outside, because it isn’t better. The world outside is America, which brutalizes the minority, the woman, the different. Inside is scary, outside is scarier. What a thing to do to vulnerable kids.

To kids from easier circumstances it does nothing good and carries a subtle bad effect. It means the thing you’re part of is, at its heart, corrupt, so you might as well be corrupt. The ugliness of America becomes a permission structure: We are amoral and you can be, too.

Kids live on dreams. Have the adults who’ve created this atmosphere forgotten that as they pursue their own resentments and make their accusations?

To kids in all circumstances, it denies a dream of a good thing you can make better. It undercuts the idea the people you came from were brave and hardy and did marvelous things. It robs you of a sense you’ve got this within you, and can go on and be a marvel too.

It denies kids a secure sense that they’re part of something sound and healthy. It subtly discourages them from trying to make things better—you can’t right something whose sicknesses are so structural. This isn’t a good way to bring up the future.

You have to start kids out with love. Irony and detachment will come soon enough, but start with love, if only to give them a memory of how that felt.

I’ve spent the past few days reading an old book, one that couldn’t possibly be published today because it’s so full of respect for America. “Manual of Patriotism: For Use in the Public Schools of the State of New York,” runs 461 pages of text and was published in 1900. The flag that illustrates this column is from its frontispiece.

The manual was written after the Legislature passed an 1898 law requiring public schools to display the American flag and “encourage patriotic exercises.” Organized veterans of the Civil War and of the Women’s Relief Corps, who were nurses on the battlefield, pushed for it to “awaken in the minds and hearts of the young” an “appreciation” for “the great deeds” of their nation.

Memorial Day meant a lot to those old veterans, but more was needed. Their generation was passing; they’d given everything to hold the nation together; they wanted the young to understand why.

Unsaid but between the lines: America at the turn of the 20th century was being engulfed by waves of immigrants; they too needed to understand what America is and means to be, so they would love it too.

What a book the manual is, what a flag-waving old classic.

How do you encourage love of country among schoolchildren? You let them have fun. You hold pageants and parades, have them read poems and learn songs. Let them dress up as figures in history and enact great events. This need not be costly: “An old-time coat or dress found in a garrett or unused drawer at home may serve all needful purposes.”

Tell the story of the American flag. The Continental Congress in 1777 said we need a national banner. Here enters the heroic Mrs. Elizabeth Ross of Philadelphia, known as Betsy, who, on the personal request of General Washington, started sewing. The stars and stripes from her hand, “were unfurled at the battle of Brandywine, in 1777. . . . They sang their song of triumph over defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga. . . . They saw the surrender of the enemy at Yorktown; they fluttered their ‘Goodbye’ to the British evacuating New York.”

Have children memorize and recite Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Have them enact the battle of Lexington and Concord and read aloud Emerson’s “Concord Hymn”:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

Advertisement


Tell the story of the Mayflower, of the making and meaning of the Compact, of the landing on Plymouth Rock: Quote an old poem: “Here, on this rock, and on this sterile soil, / Began the kingdom, not of kings, but men; / Began the making of the world again.”

Remind children, as Sen. James G. Blaine once said, that the U.S. was long “the only country with a known birthday. All the rest began they know not when, and grew into power, they knew not how.” America wasn’t just some brute force that pushed up from the mud; we announced our birth with a Declaration that was “a revelation”: All men are created equal.

The manual includes a lot of opinions on historical events. One I liked was the assertion that the Civil War ended the day Ulysses S. Grant was buried in 1885. Why? Because America saw who his pallbearers were: “Johnston and Buckner on one side of his bier, and Sherman and Sheridan upon the other.” The first two were generals of the Confederate army, the last two of the Union Army. Henry Ward Beecher wrote that their marching Grant to his tomb was “a silent symbol that liberty had conquered slavery, and peace war.”

You come away from that vignette thinking not only “what men,” but “what a country” that could tear itself in two, murder itself, forgive itself, go on.

Parents, help your children love this country. It will be good for them, and more to the point this country deserves it.

Also when you don’t love something you lose it. We don’t want that to happen.

Crafty_Dog

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Tucker on X: This is how they take your country away
« Reply #1122 on: July 10, 2024, 10:02:36 AM »

Very potent 49 minutes!

========================

@TuckerCarlson
·
Jul 2
This is how they take your country away.


Crafty_Dog

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Project 2025
« Reply #1123 on: July 11, 2024, 08:55:11 AM »
WT:

Project 2025

Challenging the size, power, cost and reach of the federal government

By Cal Thomas

One way to measure the power of conservative policy proposals is to monitor the reaction of the left.

The Heritage Foundation’s ideas for the next conservative president to implement must be good because liberals are hysterical in their opposition. That’s because they directly challenge the size, power, cost and reach of the federal government.

The word “fascist” has gained a certain cachet for the left, much like the smear “racist” once was. The New Republic magazine has illustrated the label by portraying Donald Trump as Hitler. It’s designed to keep people from considering the results of policies that aren’t working while ignoring or disparaging policies that have a track record of success.

The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” policy guide (Heritage. org) is full of credible proposals. Rather than allow opponents to mischaracterize them, people should read the book and see whether they are radical or rational.

The document is the work of 400 leading conservative thinkers and organizations. Some proposals will be familiar, like eliminating the useless Department of Education, which, given students’ underperformance in math, science and reading, has clearly flunked its test. Mr. Trump says he opposes some of their recommendations, though he admits he hasn’t read them. If he wins the election, he likely can be counted on to embrace many of them.

The philosophical foundation is expressed in the introduction to the document: “The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead. It requires the collective action of our movement. With the quickening approach of January 2025, we have two years and one chance to get it right.”

Reminiscent of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” Project 2025 makes four promises (specifics are under each one): Promise 1: “Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.” This includes doing away with all but two genders, diversity, equity and inclusion ideology and other ideas imposed on the country by unelected bureaucrats, and national school choice.

Promise 2: “Dismantle the administrative state and return selfgovernance to the American people.” The writers explain that “Conservatives desire a smaller government not for its own sake, but for the sake of human flourishing. But the Washington Establishment doesn’t want a constitutionally limited government because it means they lose power and are held more accountable by the people who put them in power.”

This recalls the philosophy of our 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, who said, “A government which requires of the people the contribution of the bulk of their substance and rewards cannot be classed as a free government, or long remain as such.” Promise 3: “Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.” Is there anyone but liars and the self-deluded who doesn’t believe we have a border problem?

Promise 4: “Secure our God-given individual right to enjoy ‘the blessing of liberty,’ by which they mean “Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought.” Restoring this requires the resurrection of a standard by which right and wrong, good and evil can be measured. This begins in our schools and universities, which have largely abandoned that standard with results we see in academic underperformance and the violation of laws, sometimes leading to campus violence as we witnessed this past spring.

These are not radical or fascist proposals but what previous generations considered common sense and self-evident truths.

Read the details for yourself, and unless you are a hard-core leftist, you are likely to agree and vote accordingly to restore what we once had but have lost to our national shame

ccp

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Cal Thomas on "Project 2025"
« Reply #1124 on: July 14, 2024, 12:39:32 PM »
https://jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas071124.php

doesn't sound like fascism or aristocracy or autocracy or nazism to me   :|


ccp

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Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« Reply #1126 on: July 19, 2024, 06:39:44 AM »
My Karate instructor was an ex marine.
He must be very pro Trump I would think.
He is well into his 80s now and I saw an article about him online about a yr ago when I looked him up.

He is still doing Karate moves every day in a pool at his retirement community.
I do remember distinctly him saying he will die on a mat!


Crafty_Dog

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Ramaswamy
« Reply #1128 on: August 06, 2024, 08:17:28 PM »
CCP's comment on this in the Anti-Trust thread inspires me to post it here as well.

Antitrust Can’t Bust a Monopoly of Ideas
Consumer-protection tools won’t be effective against the larger threat to American democracy.
By Vivek Ramaswamy
Aug. 5, 2020 12:06 pm ET

The House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee grilled the CEOs of Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon last week about alleged anticompetitive practices and market abuses. Chairman David Cicilline concluded by declaring that “we need to ensure the antitrust laws first written more than a century ago work in the digital age.” The American public is right to question the growing power of large corporations, but Congress misses the point by viewing this problem solely through the lens of antitrust.

Antitrust law was designed to protect consumers from monopolies and cartels that use market power to limit consumer choice and charge higher prices. It may have once been a relevant tool to fight the crude monopolistic pricing practices of tycoons like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. But the most troubling effects of concentrated corporate power are different today.

Companies like Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon provide consumers with a wider array of goods and services than ever and at remarkably low prices. Facebook’s social networks and Google’s search engines are free to users. Consumers enjoy abundant product offerings on Amazon and musical options on Apple’s iTunes Store.

But there’s a catch: The same companies that have improved consumer access to cheap products are increasingly limiting options in the marketplace of ideas and raising the cost of ideological dissent. This isn’t price fixing; it’s “idea fixing.” And it poses a greater long-term threat to the public than anything dreamed by the robber barons who ran Standard Oil and U.S. Steel.

On the premise of “social responsibility,” Alphabet subsidiary YouTube recently decided to begin removing political videos it deemed untruthful. The site has taken down videos that were critical of Covid-19 lockdown policies in certain states, stifling discourse about the most important scientific and public-policy debate of the year. YouTube’s stated litmus test is the World Health Organization’s assessment of what is and is not truthful. By that standard, YouTube would have removed any video in January claiming the coronavirus could be transmitted person to person, since that ran contrary to WHO’s position at the time.

Facebook’s decision this year to create a corporate politburo of “experts” to determine what types of speech are acceptable on its site is similarly troubling. It’s worth recalling that as recently as March most public-health experts, including the surgeon general and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were advising against wearing face masks. That previous error is not a persuasive argument against wearing masks now, but it is an argument for epistemic humility going forward. For experts and ordinary folks alike, the past teaches us that many of our current beliefs will be proved false, and that determinations of truth are always conditional and probabilistic. Unfettered dialogue isn’t a liberal-arts luxury; it is a necessity for science and democracy.

This problem extends beyond Big Tech. Take Goldman Sachs, a leading member of the small cartel of underwriters that enjoys “tollbooth” status as a gatekeeper for companies seeking to go public, thanks to securities regulations. In January, CEO David Solomon announced at the World Economic Forum that Goldman will refuse to take any company public that doesn’t have at least one “diverse” board member. Here Goldman is the sole arbiter of who counts as diverse.

Reasonable citizens may disagree about whether to rectify historical wrongs against minorities and women through explicit quotas or some other means. Frederick Douglass opposed quotas in the 19th century, as did many black leaders of the 20th century. Yet Goldman Sachs executives favor them today. America’s traditional mechanism for dealing with those disagreements is through open public debate culminating at the ballot box, not by corporate fiat issued from the mountaintops of Davos.

Liberals should be as worried as conservatives about the power of large companies to set the boundaries of acceptable debate. Progressives criticized the Supreme Court for permitting Hobby Lobby to deny insurance coverage for contraception to its female employees. Hobby Lobby is a family-owned arts-and-crafts store. Google, Facebook and Twitter enjoy a de facto oligopoly over the public debate many Americans witness on the internet, a primary source of political information in the digital age.

While Big Tech and Wall Street are currently pushing fashionable progressive ideas on issues from climate change to policing and diversity, that could easily change in the future. Beijing has successfully pressured American businesses to restrict their employees’ speech about China. The National Basketball Association, Disney, Marriott and more have caved in to that pressure.

It is hardly a stretch to worry that companies like Apple, Google and Twitter, which have already sought to collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party on regulation of “acceptable” ideas within China, could take those standards of “acceptability” in the U.S. to appease their CCP-affiliated stakeholders. Twitter suspended accounts of Chinese activists ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Apple has removed songs from iTunes that refer to Tiananmen Square and has suppressed its Taiwanese flag emoji in Hong Kong and Macau. Will these restraints eventually apply to American users too?

This is the poisoned fruit of “stakeholder capitalism.” If society demands that corporate executives use their platforms to improve society, it entrusts those same executives with deciding what constitutes a better society. Yet in the year of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter, this new idea—that corporate leaders should use their market power to implement social and political values—has quickly been ordained as the governing philosophy of American corporations.

America has a strong tradition of separating spheres of society to preserve the integrity of each. Separating capitalism from democracy is no less important than separating church from state. By using market power to exercise undue social, cultural and political power, today’s corporate leaders violate this fundamental American principle. It is time to resist this ideological cartel that now represents a more fundamental threat to the American public than any antitrust violation.

Mr. Ramaswamy is founder and CEO of Roivant Sciences.

Crafty_Dog

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The Global Multiethnic MAGA movement
« Reply #1129 on: August 21, 2024, 02:33:52 PM »
https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/21/the-global-multiethnic-maga-movement/


The Global, Multiethnic MAGA Movement
For reasons that are both moral and pragmatic, a global movement that victoriously defends Western Civilization must accept everyone who is sincerely committed to the project.

By Edward Ring
August 21, 2024

Starting in the 1950s, the conservative movement gradually evolved in two fundamental ways. On one hand, they created a durable coalition of pro-business conservatives, religious conservatives, and Cold War hawks. At the same time, largely under the leadership of William F. Buckley Jr. at the National Review, the movement was purged of factions that were considered extreme; racists and anti-Semites. Sometimes dubbed fusionism, the movement eventually propelled Ronald Reagan to the presidency and handed control of the U.S. Congress to the Republicans.

The legacy of Reagan and the Republican Party he led through the 1980s is mixed. He won the Cold War and deregulated industry. He also embarked on a debt-fueled spending binge that grew the federal government far beyond the limits he had promised to uphold.

((MARC:  Forgive me the tangent here but his misunderstanding here is a pet peeve of mine.  What happened is that the interface of baseline budgeting and the unexpectedly rapid decrease in inflation due to Fed Chairman Volcker hitting the monetary brakes in response to Dem howls that tax rate cuts would cause inflation led to a situation wherein the projected NOMINAL increases in spending became ACTUAL REAL increases, even after some nominal cuts to the baseline.

((This rather subtle point needs to be clearly understood.

((Also to be understood is that Dem insistence that tax rate cuts would be inflationary led to the tax RATE cuts  being phased in in return for Dem votes in Congress with the predictable result of deferring quite a bit of economic activity-- a point proven by the 10% surge in the first quarter wherein all the rate cuts became effective.

((In point of fact, as promised by the Laffer Curve, in constant dollars federal revenues were 35% greater in Reagan's last year than his first.  This number was calculated by me using the data from the IMF.

((Anyway back to the article, which I consider to be quite excellent))

But for better or for worse, the fusionism that defined the Reagan era is obsolete today. In its place, conservatives are coalescing again, this time in defense of Western Civilization itself. It is a movement that spans continents, and if it falters, who we are and how we live will be lost forever.

Just as it was more than a half-century ago, this new movement needs to form a coalition in order to have sufficient power to realign America, the UK, Australia, Canada, and other Western European nations in favor of conservatives. And just as it was back then, it also needs to purge itself of those factions that alienate people they ought to welcome. If these two things can be accomplished, we have the potential to build an international movement that shares principles and political objectives and attracts a supermajority of voters that sweeps aside established regimes.

The unifying principles of this movement are rooted in common sense. Enforce the law vigorously and equally. Permit free speech. Respect private property. Require reciprocity in trade with other nations, and preserve essential industries including farming and manufacturing. Protect the environment, but end the fraudulent “climate crisis” policies that are nothing more than a transfer of wealth and power to politicians and monopolists. Deregulate industries so corporations have to compete again on price, and redirect public investment into practical infrastructure and away from costly “green” solutions that are neither green nor solutions. Invest in technological military supremacy, which will deter most conflicts.

If every nation embraced these principles in the interests of their own citizens, it would not lead to a fragmentation of the “world order.” It would enhance a community of like-minded nations, all committed to democracy, and lead to an explosion of middle-class prosperity and upward mobility. The only losers would be government bureaucracies and expansionist corporations. But what of the other half of this dawning and necessary evolution of our movement? Who are the extremists who must be asked to either adapt or be renounced?

To answer this it would be useful to define the enemy. In every Western nation, the political leaders and government bureaucracies, backed up by a dizzying array of NGOs, multinational corporations, international banks, and individual billionaires, are all committed to the same scheme: They are overwhelming our nations with immigrants who are destitute and acculturated to corrupt despotism, and training them to resent us as privileged racists. They are actively indoctrinating our children with bizarre theories of “gender,” terrifying them with “climate crisis” panic, and making them hate themselves for living well on “stolen land.” And they are imposing identity-based personnel quotas at the expense of merit in every major institution, along with climate crisis rationing, social credits, digital currency, and omnipresent surveillance.

These are the cultural, political, and economic objectives of our enemy. And they control every major institution in the Western world. They want to turn us into livestock. They want to erase our national identity, erase our faith, destroy our economic independence, and control every facet of our lives.

The political figureheads of the enemy are easily identified. Keir Starmer. Simon Harris. Justin Trudeau. Emmanuel Macron. Ursula von der Leyen. And then there are the more sinister power brokers and money men: Klaus Schwab. Larry Fink. George Soros. And, of course, we have our very own authoritarian deceivers here in America: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It would be hard to imagine a smarmier pair of demagogues, and they are about to con American voters into giving them power.

This is the enemy. They must be stopped.

Now consider the friends we need, but who some still reject. A few years ago, I compiled a database of individuals who were being suppressed by social media. From August 2020 through August of 2021, I added names, eventually creating profiles for 355 people. They were selected for one reason: They had built online followings, usually relying on social media, and were being systematically suppressed. Demonitized, suppressed viewership, de-platformed, denied online payment processing, denied hosting and ISP services, and even canceled bank accounts.

If you look at these profiles, note how many of these individuals are black, Latino, Asian, Jewish, or gay. It’s a sizable percentage. For example, 60 of these outspoken, mostly canceled “extremists” in this database are black. Let’s be absolutely clear on this: We need these courageous freedom fighters on our side. We need to welcome them. We cannot win without them.

This is more than a pragmatic appeal, however, it is a moral appeal as well. It’s the enemy that has cleverly turned to identity politics to divide us. But the division that matters is ideological. Let the other side play that nihilistic game. If we play it, we lose.

Every Western nation has by now admitted immigrants who constitute anywhere between 5 percent and 25 percent of their populations. It has become obvious that a critical mass of these immigrants is coalescing in every nation, some more than others, who are hostile to the host culture and ready to impose their culture in their new home. Their numbers, and all their hostility, are being united with what we might call the indigenous left to form a political bloc that can, along with naive more traditional liberals, form electoral majorities. To see how this works, just look at the gyrations the political factions in France went through to stop the “far right” in their recent elections.

But within our populations of recent immigrants are also millions of thoroughly assimilated and productive citizens. They love their adopted country with the same fervor that, for example, immigrants arriving on American shores loved their new country a century ago. And they are horrified by the criminal gangs and the religious fundamentalists who are bringing to their new country the same extremism, corruption, and violence that they escaped from in their old country. We need these people on our side, and we must, with empathy, firmly disagree with those among us who cannot accept them. We must welcome everyone who shares our values and wants to fight with us to uphold our values. And for what it’s worth, without them we will lose.

Tulsi Gabbard, one of the most authentic politicians we’ve got in America today, recently said “By standing together, while we may not agree on every issue, we come together around our foundation, our core, a foundation of liberty and freedom. We forget sometimes that our founding fathers had strong disagreements with each other. They battled it out in private and in public. But ultimately they recognized the imperative of that moment in time, and the no-fail mission they had before them. We are facing a no-fail mission today.”

For reasons that are both moral and pragmatic, a global movement that victoriously defends Western Civilization must accept everyone who is sincerely committed to the project. With that unity, we will win.

Crafty_Dog

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Dennis Prager makes an essential point
« Reply #1130 on: October 01, 2024, 08:07:32 AM »
I have an interesting book titled "The Dogs of Capitalism" which is a history of certain dogs culminating in the pit bull terrier.   The book starts by making a point about how most dogs lack the necessary "gameness" needed for protection/guard work.  It tells a story of a police dog attacking the intended victim of a robbery (redirection) instead of the criminal because it was afraid of the criminal.

Prager's point here is dead on and reminds me I need to make more use of it.

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People Hate Those Who Fight Evil Far More Than Those Who Are Evil
Tue, Oct 1, 2024  •  Prager's Column
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I realized something very important about the human condition when I was in high school.

I realized that people tend to hate those who fight evil far more than they hate those engaged in doing evil.

What made me come to this conclusion was the way in which many people reacted to communism and to anti-communism.

To my amazement, a great many people — specifically, all leftists and many, though not all, liberals — hated anti-communists far more than they hated communism.

Because of my early preoccupation with good and evil, already in high school, I hated communism. How could one not, I wondered. Along with Nazism, it was the great evil of the 20th century. Needless to say, as a Jew and as a human, I hated Nazism. But as I was born after Nazism was vanquished, the great evil of my time was communism.

Communists murdered about 100 million people — all noncombatants and all innocent. Stalin murdered about 30 million people, including 5 million Ukrainians by starvation (in just two years: 1932-33). Mao killed about 60 million people. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians) killed about 3 million people, one in every four Cambodians, between 1975 and 1979. The North Korean communist regime killed between 2 million and 3 million people, not including another million killed in the Korean War started by the North Korean communists.

For every one of the 100 million killed by communists, add at least a dozen more people — family and friends — who were terribly and permanently affected by the death of their family member or friend. Then add another billion whose lives were ruined by having to live in a communist totalitarian state: their poverty, their loss of fundamental human rights, and their loss of dignity.

You would think that anyone with a functioning conscience and with any degree of compassion would hate communism. But that was not the case. Indeed, there were many people throughout the non-communist world who supported communism. And there was an even larger number of people who hated anti-communists, dismissing them as “Cold Warriors,” “warmongers,” “red-baiters,” etc.

At the present time, we are again witnessing this phenomenon — hatred of those who oppose evil rather than of those who do evil — with regard to Israel and its enemies. And on a far greater level. Israel is hated by individuals and governments throughout the world. Israel is the most reviled country at the United Nations as well as in Western media and, of course, in universities.

Israel is a liberal democracy with an independent judiciary, independent opposition press, and equal rights for women, gays and its Arab population (20% of the Israeli population). Its enemies — the Iranian regime, Hamas and Hezbollah — allow no such freedoms to those under their control. More relevantly, their primary goal — indeed, their stated reason for being — is to wipe out Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. Hamas and Hezbollah have built nothing, absolutely nothing, in Gaza and Lebanon, respectively. They exist solely to commit genocide against Israel and its Jews.

Why did so many people hate anti-communists more than communism? And why do even more people hate Israel more than Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah?

The general reason is that it is emotionally and psychologically difficult for most people to stare evil in the face. Evil is widely described as “dark.” But it is not dark; it is easy to look into the dark. What is far harder to look at is blinding bright light. Perhaps that is why Lucifer, the original name of the Christian devil, comes from the word “light.”

Why this is so — why people will not call evil “evil” — is probably related to a lack of courage. Once one declares something evil, one is morally bound to resist it, and people fear resisting evil. The fools who mock Christianity — whether through a work of “art” like “Piss Christ” (a crucifix in a jar of urine), or the Paris Olympics opening ceremony that mocked the Last Supper, or the Los Angeles Dodgers honoring the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” (men in drag dressed as nuns) — would never mock Islam. They fear Muslim wrath; they do not fear Christian wrath. Yet Islamic wrath has done and is doing far more evil in our time than Christian wrath.

And there is one additional reason for hating Israel — one that is specific to Israel — rather than those who seek to exterminate Israel: Jew-hatred, better known as antisemitism. The people who introduced a judging God and gave the world the Ten Commandments have been hated for thousands of years. Not those who systematically violate those commandments.