Posts Tagged → america
Liberals own every shooting in America
A dear old friend wrote me “You need to come down from your mountain and see the craziness that is taking over America!”
Hon, I am living on my mountain because of all the craziness that liberals have unleashed upon American society and Western Civilization. Liberals have just about ruined the best, freest, most incredible country in human history. Only in little remote pockets can we find peace of mind, peace and quiet, freedom and liberty, the ability to do as we need without having some government bureaucrat prying into our private lives or threatening us for growing a garden.
For decades liberals have been removing the wheels from the American car, and now that they have the wheels off, they demand that we voters turn over the car keys to them because they say the car is too dangerous for us to drive…
Professional criminal Maurice Hill’s shoot out in Philly yesterday left six officers injured. Maurice Hill had already committed a laundry list of violent crimes using firearms, and any one of those should have put him behind bars for decades.
But no, that did not happen despite many bites at the apple. Instead, liberal judges, liberal mayors, liberal prosecutors, liberal activists, liberal lawyers at the American Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Association, liberal doctors at the American Medical Association, and so on, liberals everywhere have done their utmost to turn criminals like Hill into “victims,” who deserve our empathy and gentlest caresses, instead of being held accountable for their actions. Liberals blame society, not criminals, for the destructive behavior of criminals like Hill.
And now, having practically destroyed America’s criminal justice system and having unleashed a tidal wave of violent criminals like Hill upon us taxpayers, liberals stamp their feet and pout and yell and cry and do other forms of angry child behavior to shame Americans into giving up our firearms.
Ban guns? No way!
America needs to ban liberalism and ban the destructive liberals who purvey, force and sneak liberalism upon the normal people who keep America functioning. Liberals ought to pay a special federal tax for being liberal, to help defray the huge costs they impose on American society.
Shockwave: from 1649 to 2019, 370 years of violent migration in America
Until 1649, the Huron Nation were a mighty Indian tribe, unafraid to use overwhelming violent force to take or raid the better hunting and trapping grounds of nearby Indian tribes who were not strong enough to withstand them.
For hundreds of years, from their fastness in Canada, the mighty Huron tribe had ranged deeply into rich hunting grounds that would become Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio. But a now familiar combination of factors resulted in their loss of power, a retreat back into Canada, and a resulting cascade of westward Indian migration that did not end until 250 years later, when the very last battles of the Indian Wars played out on the Great Plains in what is today Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and the Dakotas.
Beaten by imported cholera, smallpox, and an ad hoc alliance of lesser tribes, themselves the products of desperate starvation, loss of homeland, and mechanical pressure emanating outward from growing European settlement on the east coast, the year 1649 marked the defeated Huron Nation’s inability to project violent force beyond their original tribal base around the eastern Great Lakes in what is today southeastern Canada. It marked the beginning of their tactical retreat.
So in 1649, as the surviving Hurons retracted northward and westward, eventually southward, the demographic dominos really began to fall, as they already had along the east coast for the previous fifty years, but now en masse. One by one, two by two, smaller or lesser known Indian tribes in the Great Lakes region began to migrate westward and southward, pushed by those coming up from behind. One tribe displaced another along its southwestern migration path, with new tribes emerging and some old tribes merging. Some tribes were literally stamped out in genocidal raids. Historically, Indians colonized and occupied each other, and they always migrated because of “economic” circumstances.
The Oglala Sioux and the poverty-stricken, fish-eating Cheyenne (Tsi-Tsi-Tas in their own language) had emerged onto the Great Plains from the Minnesota lake district with a finely honed hunger for survival and unoccupied open spaces. We know them today as the most dominant and war-like of all the western Indians, but the truth is that they were simply of the few Indian tribes most determined to survive and prosper out of the stream of refugees fleeing ahead of the 1649 shockwave. And when we see magnificent and inspirational pictures of brave Plains Indians mounted on their war ponies, totally free on the prairies, we are not looking at thousands of years of cultural evolution. Rather, the horseback Indian is a modern creation of America and Europe.
On the southern plains, migrating Indians on foot had encountered the remainders of once-domesticated Spanish conquistador horses, subsequently gone wild and feral since the 1600s. By the 1750s herds of wild mustangs were being captured, broken, and ridden by Indians. Comanches, Sioux, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and many others used these new horses to keep pace with bison herds, to fight each other, and eventually to face off with mounted US Cavalry.
So in 1649 there was a demographic shock, a vacuum, and then an explosion which marked the fragmentation and full-throated migratory shift of Indian tribal power in the east, until the surviving results of their waves of westward migration then turned and fought the Bluecoats at the Washita and Little Big Horn in the 1880s.
The history lesson here is that already by 1630 European migratory settlement on the east coast had started a cascading migratory effect that only ended when the Oglala Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, and Arapahoe were herded onto “reservations,” and spirit-starved of any remaining patriotic vigor and will to fight in the 1890s.
Which leads us to the practical lesson here: The uncontrolled mass migration invasion into America that we are witnessing right now is really nothing new. Mass migration has been a natural constant in America, started by the American Indians themselves, with subsequent migrants coming from all around the globe. The recent undocumented and hostile migration is illegal according to a “peace treaty” of sorts that the two major political tribes negotiated years ago, but that ‘treaty’ has now been openly violated and broken. Today’s mass migration into America is being orchestrated primarily by one political “tribe” in order to gain political power over the other political “tribe,” and over everyone else living in America, too. And once that power is gained, the illegal invader political tribe will use the coercive force of official government to wrest whatever control over the citizens they desire, to compel us to live as they believe we should. Needless to say, that particular tribe is hostile, and does not believe in any of the founding agreements that created America, like the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
You don’t like this? Don’t feel like being a demographic refugee in your own land? Don’t want your personal liberties forcefully stripped from you? Then act like an American Indian: Project your force and protect your tribal land. Because in fact, your back is already up against the wall. Many of us just don’t know it yet, don’t know how dire things are. Many of us are a bit too materially comfortable and complacent to recognize our actual situation.
And then again, maybe we do just want to live on political reservations, to go where we are told to go, think what we are told to think, do as we are told to do. It seems easier than messy freedom and personal liberty, doesn’t it?
Five things that are worse than racism
Racism is bad, but there are many other things that are far worse.
Racism is bad in America because America’s Constitution, and our subsequent policy and law, are grounded on the core idea that all our citizens are equal before the law, that they should all have equal opportunities, and they should all have equal representation. Any kind of official discrimination between our citizens is inherently in conflict with that core principle; it undermines our cohesion as a nation fundamentally built on fairness to all who play by its rules. Racism is one of the most visible forms of discrimination, because at one time parts of the United States were segregated based on skin color. In 1794, American states nearly fought a civil war amongst themselves over slavery, and eventually the nation settled the question at the conclusion of “the” civil war in 1865.
America’s promise of fairness to all citizens was too strong of a value to ignore, and so hundreds of thousands of Caucasian men fought and died so that all Negro slaves could live as free citizens. It was a fight worth having; an idea for which it was worth sacrificing and risking the nation. Since that time all states and the American government have made every effort to stamp out not only racism, but all bigotry and discrimination of every sort.
On the other hand, outside of America, racism is standard operating procedure today. Literally everywhere you travel in the world, you will find native ethnic groups, cultures, even linguistic groups who openly disdain and discriminate against others based on appearance, primarily skin tone, but even different facial characteristics.
This is to say, outside of America and perhaps a few Western nations, racism is widespread and is considered to be normal. Especially so in Africa, where the 800 or so different ethnic groups still to this day compete amongst one another based on skin tones; even to the genocidal death, like the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, and the various ethnic antagonists in South Africa.
So, yes, racism is bad, and it is also an ancient and everyday human occurrence outside of America. What can we say, the rest of the world does not adhere to or aspire to American values and norms of equality. That is why the entire world is trying to come to America; America is hands-down better than any other nation on our planet, and everyone knows it.
Recently, subjective, false, and politically motivated accusations of racism have been casually bandied about among some political actors to the point where the term now means almost nothing. And what is intriguing is that while so much focus is put on to this one term, there are in fact many other things that are worse, and which are going on. Below is a short list of behaviors and beliefs that are worse than racism.
One: Reverse racism and racial hypocrisy. When a person accuses someone else, or a group of people, of racism, and yet also employs racism to make that accusation, it is reverse racism. This hypocrisy is worse than the basic form of discriminatory racism, because the reverse racist should know better, often does know better, and yet desires to inflict political damage to gain power and control more than they desire to be consistent. Examples of reverse racism include most forms of affirmative action, which have been recently taken to absurd levels at college admissions offices, and the overtly racist “Black Lives Matter” group. BLM members can be seen in videos aggressively confronting Caucasian students trying to quietly study at college and accusing them of inherent racism because of their “white” skin color. The irony of this overtly racist accusation seems lost on BLM and their supporters. So instead of diminishing racism, they have managed to purposefully increase it. Same with accusations of “white privilege,” the most racist thing I have ever heard in my life. Drive through rural America, and see how some people live. There is no “privilege” in it, and to allege that it is, is a patently racist action.
Two: Bearing false witness. Nearly every culture around the world places top value on telling the truth, especially about important things that hold human societies together. Bearing false witness, which is lying, is terribly destructive to everyone and everything, so that it is universally abhorred. And yet, false accusations (including and maybe even especially of racism) are made routinely by certain political actors. The destructive force of these false accusations can tear apart communities and even nations. Examples of false testimony include accusations against all police officers, all “whites,” and political support for violent anti free speech ANTIFA thugs. And how about the double legal standard applied to liberals and conservatives? A Christian baker can be officially forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding, but no gay baker will ever be similarly forced to bake a cake for religious Christians. Hillary Clinton can engage in all kinds of huge violations of important federal law with impunity, and yet Donald Trump gets falsely accused and investigated for having done nothing wrong at all. The endless character assassination of everyone who stands between liberals and their goal of destroying America….Perhaps the best example is the falseness of the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other self-appointed arbiters of what is racist and discriminatory, who themselves are racist and discriminatory.
“White lies” meant to lubricate and smooth social discourse and stability are often considered acceptable, if not desirable.
Three: Treason and sedition. In every human society, treason is the worst crime. Same in America. Free speech does not include efforts to destroy a nation. A great deal of what is called political criticism today are direct, treasonous efforts to destroy America from inside. One political party is openly dedicated to a lawless assault on every American institution and social structure. Examples include “sanctuary cities” that house illegal invaders, the unwillingness of one political party to follow even the basic rule of the US House of Representatives, and college professors everywhere who openly promote “revolution” against America. US Rep. Ilhan Omar is a great example of someone who moved to America and is trying to destroy America; she is a traitor, and so are her supporters. Traitors are usually executed, but deportation would be justified. Sending her back to Sudan [old Somaliland] is both justified and merciful. How and why treason and sedition became acceptable forms of political discourse is a mystery, and it must be ended, with crushing force, if necessary.
Four: Sexism. If racism is common across the globe, sexism is epidemic. While many islamic cultures endorse the mutilation of female genitals, so that the woman can feel no sexual pleasure as an adult, and while women unwillingly occupy second-class status almost everywhere around Planet Earth, the truth is that anti-male sexism is rampant throughout America, as exemplified by government job recruiting and university hiring practices. Clear examples of overt sexism against women are found when men pretending to be women compete in women-only sports. Men by nature are bigger, stronger, faster than women, so allowing men to pretend to be women in order to artificially win sports awards is obviously sexist. But the self-appointed guardians of women allow this to happen. This is much worse than racism.
Five: Last but not least, tolerating and promoting discrimination by others, while you yourself profess to be against racism and discrimination. This practice is so common today that it is almost part and parcel of our every day experience. If racism is bad, pretending to be against racism while facilitating it is even worse. Perhaps the best example is the Red Hen restaurant, whose owner openly discriminates against her political foes, even when they are her customers, including physical intimidation and abuse.
In conclusion, we can see that while much is made about subjective, hypocritical, almost always false accusations of “racism,” much that is worse than racism is not only tolerated, but promoted by the same people who run around yelling and screaming and accusing their political opponents of “racism.” The next time someone goes bonkers and starts slinging around accusations of racism like they are handing out potato chips, start looking at their background; see if they have already committed one or more of the five violations above. If they have, and you are almost guaranteed they have, then you can automatically discount their accusations. These are just a smokescreen for political purposes.
Many Americans are now seeing through this falseness, this corrosive and destructive political set of rules. And those Americans are justifiably becoming more and more angry about it.
And why wouldn’t they get upset? Nobody likes being discriminated against.
Home is Where the Heart Is
Home is where the heart is, goes the old and proven adage.
Home is that place you love, where you feel safe, loved, comfortable, surrounded by the fruits of your labors, like a flower garden behind a hand-laid stone wall, a manicured lawn, a bird bath or bird feeder, a porch for sitting on after a day of work. Maybe you raised a family in the home, and on bedroom walls in a couple places hidden from paint touch-ups there are some old finger prints from children who are now with families of their own. After putting so much work and love into your home, you naturally feel love for it. Just the memories alone inspire you!
So yes, your heart resides there, in your home, the ultimate symbol of all your efforts, the fruits of all your labors.
And so this is all true for those of us who have worked in and paid taxes here in America, our home, our house. Our Social Security payments, mine since I was fourteen years old, our volunteering for charitable organizations and Little League, our playing by the rules and laws of America, being good citizens. Always building the country up, making it a cozy and safe home for those who live here, who contribute to it, who will move here with the intention of participating in it.
And yet, unbelievably, America now houses people like US Reps Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and other elected representatives, who are actually openly advocating for tearing down the national house, our home, America. These people are openly working every day to destroy the home that you and I have built. Along with “free” healthcare, income, education, and even a “free” home for people who have come here illegally, never paid anything into Social Security, and who themselves fly the flags of the other nations from which they come, where their hearts remain.
None of us lifelong taxpayers will ever get any of this “free” stuff, even though it is our tax money that creates it in the first place!
Can you imagine if some stranger walked into your house and began tearing the place apart, and offering to hand out your furniture, clothing, your food to passersby on the street outside? It would be even worse if it was someone you had invited in, so they could participate in all of the wonderful opportunities America offers to anyone willing to work hard. Well, this all is exactly what is happening with Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and all of their supporters and enablers.
So it is a natural thing, an understandable and totally human thing, for our elected President to say “If you don’t like America, then go home to your parent countries.” He is definitely speaking for a majority of Americans. This should be no surprise to anyone. Every other country does the same. In every other country what Omar, Tlaib and their political party are doing would correctly be seen as treason and an intolerable act of war against the nation.
Like a lot of Americans, I applaud President Trump for writing this in one of his public messages the other day. Good for him. He understands that this current illegal invader situation is not sustainable. Not financially, not economically, not legally, not socially, and not politically. It is a testament to how good we Americans are at heart that this has been allowed to go on at all. We have such a strong generosity, even if we can’t always afford it. Americans are a giving people. Very few other nations, if any, will allow foreigners to literally walk into their nation and begin demanding free this and free that, tear down the border so anyone can literally walk in; it is quite insane. In most other countries, you would either be killed outright, or jailed, or expelled. Understandably.
Yes, we understand that there is a political party that has turned this illegal, lawless, anti-human, anti-America behavior into a business model, a way to gain political power. But just because that one political party is using and abusing the democratic process to achieve non-democratic results does not make this situation acceptable.
So I applaud President Trump for speaking out on behalf of the nation he was elected to lead, the home he was sworn to protect. He is doing what any American president is supposed to do. Anyone now opposing his standing up for America and our rule of law is openly a declared enemy of America.
America: Love it as it is, or leave it, as it is. And no, you cannot take our stuff with you. We worked for it, we built it, it is ours. It is not yours.
Ms. Rapinoe, America built that soccer cup win, not you
Miss Megan Rapinoe is captain of the US Women’s soccer team, which had a win recently, and which as a result has been in the news.
That is… the United States women’s soccer team.
That is, These United States for those failing to catch a big part of the what makes up the girls’ soccer team and its win: The USA.
This ladies’ soccer team was born, built and sustained in and by the United States of America, as representative of and for the benefit of the United States of America. That is, of and by and for all of us citizens.
Right in front of the USA logo that Rapinoe makes her living from, Rapinoe then kneels in her contemptuous disrespect and unappreciation
So when that ladies soccer team goes on to win some cup (is this term “cup” a secretly sexist reference to a man’s protective cup? Which raises the related question: Is it sexist to mock the use of a protective cup by a trans-man? After all, the cup is ergonomically designed to fit over certain male-only genitalia that the trans-man does not actually have…but we digress here…and why not, this entire subject and the people in it is and are all foolishness and digression from reality from beginning to end) some place (sorry, the meaning and attractiveness of soccer elude me), Miss Rapinoe is suddenly thrust into the limelight. Because she now represents us, America.
From that limelight Miss Rapinoe then says a lot of typically boorish and hypocritical things, and so, she just needs to be reminded of a few things, to hold her to account, to speak truth to her power, to provide balance to her selfishness and arrogance.
First, you didn’t build that cup win, Megan. No, no you did not. As a matter of fact, all of us Americans built it for you. We created the opportunity for you, we gave you your pay and your freebies and room and board and your travel expenses and and and…I could go on, but you get the point. You, Megan, you just showed up at publicly funded stadiums to kick around a little ball, and then subsequently preen and pose for the cameras, as if you are a hero or something.
Megan, you did not build those stadiums. You didn’t even make the soccer balls! Or even stitch the uniforms together.
No, all you did was show up, better fed and better cared for than your foreign competitors, because you are an American and a beneficiary of all the great things that a capitalist America offers to people like you, like abundant, affordable, clean and nutritious food. And capitalist sporting goods endorsements.
Except that you then blatantly disrespected all of us good Americans who made this possible for you. You spoke down about America, you falsely criticized America for both imagined injustices and for some from many, many decades ago. You even managed to falsely criticize the current president for holding beliefs that he actually does not hold, but which his predecessor did hold, and about which you were silent. While wearing the USA logo on your clothing.
So, second, no, Megan, you are no hero. You did not suffer or sacrifice for your beliefs, or for your kick ball hobby. In fact, you have actually been very well paid for kicking around a little ball on publicly funded and maintained and secured fields. Speaking of pay, women soccer players get 13% of the gross of their $73 million annual product, whereas men soccer players only get 9% of theirs. Again, if there is an imbalance, it is that men are short changed yet again, and yet again, some nitwit complains the opposite is true. The nitwit of this particular moment is Megan Rapinoe.
You did not build what you have now, Megan. You simply showed up and did what you have been doing all your life, which you have been able to to do because America awards people with all kinds of opportunities that few other nations can provide, and volunteers give their time so kids can play on public fields. And instead of showing your appreciation, you attacked America and her citizens. You refused to show respect for our flag or our anthem, as if you are so much better than all of us, the us who made the you possible in the first place.
Megan, you owe back America its money. Everything you have is because America gave so much to you, and yet you act as if you went out and created it all on your own. You are a hypocritical fraud, Megan. Give us our public tax money back, or give us the soccer cup thingy, because people like me, we built that and made it possible, not you. And while we are on the subject of you asking to benefit from increased capitalism on your behalf, you should be aware that your request for Americans to buy more soccer jerseys and buy more soccer tickets and donate more money has fallen on deaf ears here. To hell with that, Megan.
You screwed me, Megan Rapinoe, and you screwed America; so screw you, too.
Megan Rapinoe saying “Screw you, America!”
Independence Day Redux
Tomorrow is America’s July 4th Independence Day, the day Americans celebrate our Declaration of Independence from the tyrannical Great Britain in 1776.
In modern days we tend to take this holiday, and all it stands for, for granted. We enjoy fireworks displays, we grill out with family and friends, we travel and vacation, communities gather together to celebrate. After dark, red flares are lit around the entire circumference of Chautauqua Lake, which is pretty neat to see. All those disparate communities and property owners unified for that one moment. America’s greatest moment, our crowning achievement – God-given Liberty for all people.
What we do not celebrate or take note of today is what ensued after the Declaration of Independence. The long, bloody, wearying, expensive war with Britain and her mercenaries; the lost communities that were divided along loyalty lines, and which self-destructed in mass hangings and reprisals; the lost fathers and sons killed in combat; the bloody raids from Canada deep into Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, that lasted until after the War of 1812 had concluded.
The American War for Independence was, in fact, a civil war, our first civil war. On one side were advocates for political, social, and commercial stability, harmonious continuity, and loyalty to our British benefactors and feudal overlords. On the other hand were a handful of people who believed in something radical, something new, something previously unseen in human experience: Liberty for all, freedom of choice and of association, government devoted to representing the interests of The People, and not just the monarch or his chosen few.
Winning American freedom was very hard, and it cost a lot of lives lost and money spent. The destruction of towns north and south is still legendary. Boston, New York, and even Philadelphia were severely damaged, and with that went economic damage and deprivation that reached everyone.
Yet it was all of this deprivation and tenacious warfare and willing sacrifice that cemented the American spirit of self reliance, true grit, and patriotism for the most unique, freest, best nation on Earth. And yet, as success bred success and material success bred complacency and satiety, Americans began to lose that original spirit. Our material wealth has spoiled us and put many of us to sleep, to the point where we actually have a major political party advocating for the gifting of “free” healthcare to anyone who illegally walks into our country. And none of the current taxpaying citizens here qualify for that same free healthcare!
I do not think it is alarmist to say that America is now in another civil war. The evidence is all around us. Oh, we are not yet fully lined up and shooting at each other. But we are becoming fully lined up along ideological differences and shouting at each other, which is the exact way traditional battles are and have been fought with spears and swords or muskets and cannons. Both sides line up and size each other up, brandish their weapons, make bold declarations, and then charge.
Despite the many violent ANTIFA skirmishes against freedom and free speech advocates, Americans just have not yet charged at each other. This is because while the many normal Americans went to work, paid their taxes, mowed their lawns, volunteered, took their kids to Little League, another segment of the population was working hard at infiltrating and capturing institutions. Once captured, those institutions (Media, academia, education, unions, charitable foundations, all levels and branches of government, the Boy Scouts etc.) have been bent to the purpose of promoting leftist ideas and policies, to mainstream treasonous anti-America policies.
All of this infiltration and capturing has gone on under the feet of the normal Americans, the citizen taxpayers, who are just now beginning to wake up and realize that while they did their duty, others were doing their utmost to gain full control of our political institutions, in order to force a very non-free form of government upon us. A very non-America form of government.
Enjoy your Independence Day, friends. In between the beers and the hotdogs, you should consider talking with friends and family about current events, about how freedom and government accountability can be restored, how America can be brought back from the precipice on which it presently stands.
And maybe talk about an Independence Day redux, too.
Our family’s best and favorite summer vacation route
When our kids were younger, say from ages seven and up, we would take them on an annual vacation through Upstate New York. The trip was devoted mostly to Revolutionary War history, but also to American frontier history, American Indian history, and natural history. All kinds of historic forts dot the Mohawk Valley, and in between these places are all kinds of incredible natural history places, like the Herkimer diamond mines in Middleville, Moss Island, and the Canajoharie River carved pool. Lots of places to fish at every stop and everywhere in between.
We always started at Fort Ontario in Oswego, NY, and working east we would end at Fort Ticonderoga on the New York/Vermont border. Since we started this trip the forts have all gotten better and better. Fort Ontario refurbished all of their cannons a few years ago. Fort Stanwix has been majorly upgraded and has regular re-enactments. And Fort Ticonderoga now has the biggest private cannon collection in America, so get your tickets to the night time cannon shoot.
The Mohawk River is now largely a canal, and from Oswego to Moss Island you can watch small pleasure boats that started in Florida being raised from lock to lock as they make their way to Lake Ontario, and then to the Ohio River and back down to New Orleans, where they will circle back through the Gulf of Mexico to Florida. Many of the boat owners will stand on the deck to make sure their boat does not bang into the walls of the locks, and they are happy to tell you all about their trip so far. A few years ago one guy told us how his wife had just left the boat and him, and had rented a car to drive home. By the time he expected to arrive back in Florida in the Fall, her things would be gone from their home and the divorce papers would be waiting for him on the dining room table. He actually seemed pretty cheerful about it and said he was still excited to complete the trip, even by himself. By the time he was done telling us this short story, his boat had gone from one end of the lock to the other and was about to start sailing up river.
Our kids had never heard such a thing in their lives, and it gave us plenty to talk about the rest of the trip.
So here is the Revolutionary War route that our family has taken many times over the years, often summer after summer. As our children gained age, they gained new abilities to comprehend and appreciate what they were seeing. Definitely start at Oswego, and do not miss Fort Stanwix. There are all kinds of places to stay each night as you make your way east. Most of them are inexpensive, and many are historic, the the old hotel in Rome, NY, which is actually pretty nice. We usually spend at least one night camping at the Herkimer KOA in Middleville, NY, where we will spend one day mining Herkimer diamonds and another day exploring Moss Island and the historic General Herkimer homestead, which has real cannons and lots of history.
The Oriskany Battlefield monument is one of those places you can’t believe no one talks about, and when you get there and learn and see what took place, you realize how the entire Revolutionary War’s outcome hinged on this one fierce battle between Mohawk Valley patriots and British Regulars, with Indians on both sides.
Moss Island is incredible; I won’t spill the beans and you have to go see for your self, but you absolutely have to go, wearing hiking boots or good trail sneakers. The little town there has a great ice cream store, and my kids always liked fishing under the bridge as well as at Moss Island.
The Canajoharie River has the carved rock pools you can wade in, which I do not identify on the map because I ran out of label room.
Saratoga Battlefield is where a certain famous and then infamous American general made his name. Fort Ticonderoga is AMAZING, and if you are able to get tickets to the night time cannon shoot from the ramparts, you will not be left unimpressed. Trip home to Central or eastern PA, or NYC/New Jersey, is via the NY Throughway south to any number of state routes and highways, depending on how much time you have. We usually do this trip in seven days, though it can be done in ten or even five. The Remington factory tour tickets should be secured beforehand. It is an incredible tour, or at least it was. I think we took it before OSHA stepped in and limited it. The museum there is excellent in and of itself.
D-Day remembrance poses challenge for many people
Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, that incredible re-invasion of Nazi-occupied France from across the English Channel that was the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler’s cruelly evil “Thousand Year Reich.”
So what do people commemorate this week? Well, the American 82nd Airborne guys put on a live re-enactment of the cliff scaling at Point du Hoc, for one thing. A lot of ships and boats have been traveling across the English Channel for one re-enactment or demonstration purpose or another, as well as planes and I think even some parachuting. The purpose of all this activity is to visually and viscerally remind today’s people of what yesterday’s people did for them, how they sacrificed for them, died for them, gave everything they had so that today’s people could enjoy their lives free of fear, oppression, and military threats.
Problem is, do today’s people really understand or even care about D-Day and the Allied fight against totalitarian German war-making?
Many of us “older” people ask this question because so many of the younger people seem to think human history began with the invention of the iPhone, and that all one needs to be a functioning human being is a smart phone, a cup of expensive coffee, and the latest sloppy looking beanie hat, and that all of life’s successes will naturally follow if you simply appear in public like this.
Amazing examples of clueless disregard for what this week’s D-Day anniversary celebrations are about include Sadiq Khan behaving like a rotten jerk towards the elected leader of the Free World, Donald Trump, who made a lovely visit to England and France this week. Khan is mayor of London, and by any objective measure (crime, poverty, taxes, services, dirt, rats, fires) his politically correct city administration has been a disaster.
Without America’s intervention in World War II, without our nation’s huge sacrifice of young men and taxpayer money, Khan would not have the freedom today to spew his petty, nasty things against President Trump and freedom. Khan was joined yesterday by about five thousand fellow jerks who showed up to protest against Trump, for a “free Palestine,” for communism and against capitalism, for big government control and against individual liberty…an alphabet soup of leftwing causes as evidenced by the signs they waved about while cheerfully beating up two old men whose views they objected to.
So if London today elects an anti-Western Sadiq Khan to be its representative on the international stage, and Khan is full of petty, childish insults for the US president during this week celebrating freedom and democracy gratis America, then what does this say about the citizenry of London? Have they also forgotten why D-Day happened? Have they forgotten the nonstop German bombing of London’s citizenry, the massive destruction of London, the deprivation?
Do they even care?
With an elected representative like Sadiq Khan, it seems they don’t care. They don’t care about history, or the risks of totalitarianism, how we all got to where we are today, or the daily effort we all must make in our jobs, in our homes, and our communities to keep our common civilization moving forward. And in fact, many of Khan’s supporters seem pleasantly ignorant of D-Day and actually intent on bringing down our common civilization. What they plan to replace it with is anyone’s guess.
A natural question for Khan’s supporters is “Will your England be as free and have as many opportunities for self-improvement as the former England?”
Judging by the cruel and violent behavior of Siobhan Prigent against one of the old men, just asking the question of these folks will get you punched in the face.
And it is against this unnatural backdrop of foolish citizens demanding everything be given to them and that they not be asked to give back, that we celebrate the 75th anniversary of an incredibly complex multi-national operation to challenge the military success of an incredible evil, the very totalitarianism that Mayor Sadiq Khan and his followers seem to have in mind for Britain once again.
And so we see that in truth today’s memorialization of D-Day is not in vain, or just for pure history buffs who like pomp and circumstance, but rather to remind us that the same evil forces are unleashed against Britain and Western Civilization once more.
But this time from inside.
Bodies of a totalitarian government’s political enemies piled high at Dachau. This is in Europe, not in some far-off place we Westerners can’t pronounce. This is what happens to normal people like you and me when totalitarians like Sadiq Khan get full control of government
SWORD beach – 6 Jun 1944. This image is taken from a Royal Air Force Mustang aircraft of II (Army Cooperation) Squadron. The Mustang aircraft were made in America and supplied to the British. You can see the chaos unfolding on the beach, as high tide carried some troop boats all the way up to the top of the beach, and subsequent fire support and re-supply boats were stranded way below.
9,000 bodies were etched into the sand at Normandy Beach several years ago, by volunteers who wanted to visually depict the high cost of the opening effort to stop totalitarianism.
Hundreds of dead American and British soldiers along the D-Day beaches in Normandy
An American serviceman helping cover the bodies of the dead. He was raised in a culture of self sacrifice and risk-taking. Do America and Britain still have the same culture that produced these awesome men on D-Day?
London mayor Sadiq Khan’s anti-freedom supporters beat an old guy because he does not agree with their totalitarian views. Democracy is about disagreeing without violence and resolving differences at the voting booth. Sadiq Khan encourages this violence and is therefore against democracy
Another British grandpa is beaten by a mob of London mayor Sadiq Khan supporters. Siobhan Prigent is the blonde
Siobhan Prigent accuses British grandpa of being a “fucking Nazi” because he disagreed with her Nazi-like beliefs and behavior. Look carefully at her hateful face, her evil eyes. This is the face of what D-Day soldiers faced on the shores of Normandy
British grandpa has had enough abuse for simply disagreeing with Siobhan Prigent. A second later he was hit in the face with a mystery liquid and Siobhan and her violent pals kicked him to the ground.
Trump’s America-First Economy Throws Beautiful Curveball to Wall Street
Trade wars were supposed to be a thing of the past, as America had settled into a long, slow decline and eventual death at the hands of our erstwhile trading “partners,” who had been sucking at the USA teat for fifty years. America underwrote the settlement of World War II for Europe and Japan, and suffered as a result. But we thought we were too big to fail, and so we persisted.
And for those of more modern thoughts and memories, recall that for eight years Obama had placed both of his hands on the foreign side of the trade scale in an attempt to accelerate this decline. That eight year stagnant situation, combined with explosive growth in government power and conversely diminished citizen power, while shipping our factories abroad with new rust belt towns popping up all over America was the “new normal.”
And why not end America’s supremacy like this? Under both major political parties America’s trade imbalances were so egregiously bad, so bad for American citizens, for so long, because everyone else was gaining. Officially buoyed up by post-WWII economic theory and political economy theory that placed great value on some vague, never-defined world-wide “stability,” all underwritten by Americans. In funding that stability through sacrifice of our national interest, the theory went, the world was a safer, better place. America was sharing its wealth, buying peace, by keeping everyone else busy making money. Well, let’s be honest here: America’s workers were shifting their wealth to China, and Mexico, and India, and Europe, and Canada, while Wall Street made money no matter what. Wall Street hedge funds betting on and therefore for the failure of American businesses, against American interests, for the misspending of our tax dollars, are the classic example of this bizarre arrangement.
And around this asymmetrical arrangement developed asymmetrical ways of analyzing, tracking, predicting, and valuing economic activity. Like the DOW and other Wall Street measures of economic health. They have been tracking signs of a stable American decline, a drip drip drip bloodletting, not true growth, but rather how much tax money can be wrung or coerced from The People and conveyed to big businesses, not measuring actual value created from investment in our people and their jobs, but rather value on paper or digital.
And then along comes President Trump and his America-first economy, which at its core is the valuation and promotion of you, me and every other American citizen.
By demanding that America simply have equal trade with everyone else, and that it cease bleeding for the world’s benefit, and that we get as much coming in as we have going out or some approximation of that natural policy, President Trump has up-ended 75 years of screwy policy and screwy measures of success. It is that simple, and yet it is such a beautiful curve ball thrown to Wall Street.
Just look at how the tariffs on China have rattled Wall Street’s skewed measures of success, and stability. By America suddenly succeeding in the simplest way, and you and I having more opportunity, more money, Wall Street actually says our economy is down. Well, no, Wall Street, we the people are doing better, even if you are not. And isn’t it interesting that Wall Street was doing fantastic when Americans were degraded and doing poorly…
There’s an old saying that you’ll never beat the Irish, and in turn, you know you can’t beat Yankee ingenuity or will power, either. Americans will never be defeated, unless we decide to defeat ourselves. We came close, oh yes, we almost committed national suicide. But President Trump has shown us a better way, a way of national life.
It is a new day in America, and new beginning, Wall Street be damned.