Posts Tagged → freedom
As goes Israel, so goes America
Lots of my fellow conservatives are poo-poohing Israel’s war for survival, because “that’s over there, and we are doing just fine way over here, so why should we either care or get involved?”
I am an America-first guy. No ifs ands or buts, America comes first in all things. Behind this commitment is a simple calculus: If America falls, every other cool place will also fall. And when we say fall, we mean the end of individual freedom across the planet. America is the last bastion of individual freedom; there is no other place for freedom loving people to go. And no one else will bail us out if America does fail. So, America first means an absolute commitment to preserving the highest and best freedom on Planet Earth. It is here that I make my stand. I hope you do, too.
Years ago a reader of this blog asked me to write about Agenda 21, the United Nations targeting of individual freedom under the guise of better health and better environment and so on. Agenda 21 is the usual Marxist pablum of do-gooders without a thought for its inevitable negatives. The gist is that whatever the UN wanted to achieve with Agenda 21 was good, and no one was ever asking about the down sides, the costs, the consequences. The reason I neglected to address Agenda 21 until right now is that a literal hailstorm of attacks on America from top to bottom was well under way, and still is, and I believed then that while Agenda 21 might appear to be a big part of the problems the USA was experiencing at the time, the truth was that a lot of other hidden efforts were much more dangerous.
Well, fast forward almost ten years and here we are, a constitutional America literally under siege from every angle, from every corner, even from within our own government. Agenda 21 might be interesting, but there is a lot of other evil crap that will be fatal to the American republic literally right in front of our faces. Turns out that Agenda 21 alone is kind of quaint policy debate stuff. Fact is, America is under attack by much more, much worse crap that doesn’t even have a catchy name.
Three weeks ago, a lot of conservatives might have had truly mixed feelings and mixed thoughts about Israel. Most conservatives like that Israel is a democracy, that it is a Western nation with the rule of law, that the people there speak great English, and that Israel has always been a close and important military ally of America. On the other hand, a lot of conservatives are mistrustful of the tangled web of official relationships between Israel’s government and our own. And many resent their tax money going there for whatever (about 90% of the American taxpayer money that goes to Israel pays for Israel to buy American-made weaponry).
However, since the bloody October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, conservatives have had another growing concern: Will this latest war become yet another place for young Americans to fight and die, pursuing vague goals and intangible results…all while the war machine cha-chings up the bucks.
Here’s the thing, folks. All of the above is true, and it is also possible for America to support Israel without sending any troops, and really just being more of a cheerleader as Israel cleans up the trash. But don’t think that what is happening in Israel can’t or won’t happen here in America. Don’t think you can simply close your eyes and ignore what is happening “over there” because it is not happening “over here.”
Because the same kind of people trying to destroy Israel also live right here in America. And they want to destroy America for the same reason they want to destroy Israel.
I think it is just a matter of time before America is attacked in a hundred different locations by a hundred different attackers, all driven by Islamic supremacism. I am not alone in saying this, because you don’t have to have a great analytical mind to know that the hundreds of Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese, and Chinese literally walking over America’s southern border all pose a huge threat to our people. They are not here to hookem horns party hearty and watch a football game. They are here to hurt us, to kill us, to destroy our civilization, to strip us of our rights, and to make us submit and to force convert us all to some other belief system.
So, Israel is the canary in the coal mine for America. If Israel falls, then whoa, America, you are really on your own, and we had better be on our guard. The same forces that could destroy Israel could destroy America. Don’t get complacent and say to yourself “Eh, that’s happening way over there, it doesn’t involve me, and it can’t happen over here.”
Not only can it happen here, there are hundreds of Iranians and Syrians and others from known terrorist countries living here right now. They will blow us up for the same reason Hamas is trying to blow up Israel. There is no separating America from Israel in this regard; both countries are hated by primitive, evil savages for the same reason. Interestingly, while some of the $85 billion worth of American weapons summarily abandoned in Afghanistan by the Biden Administration are showing up in Gaza, used against Israelis, one can’t help but wonder if they will also show up back here in America, but this time in the hands of our enemies.
When I was a kid and got into fistfights, and someone’s older brother jumped in to help his jerk little brother kick my ass, and I found myself outnumbered, I always appreciated having someone unexpected jump in on my side to help even the odds. Teams have a way of reinforcing each other, increasing their chances of survival. Israel right now is doing OK and doesn’t need America to jump in militarily. America doesn’t have to necessarily fully jump in on Israel’s side right now, but we had better be watching closely what happens there and what is happening here at home. Because as Israel goes, so goes us, so goes America.
Democratic self-rule is not supposed to be easy
Up until Congressman Mike Johnson was unanimously elected as the next Speaker of the US House of Representatives last week, political watchers, news reporters, and insiders were in a state of panic, panic I tell ya.
The Epoch Times described the US House of Representatives scrum for selecting a Speaker, after China-owned RINO Kevin McCarthy was ejected by hero Congressman Matt Gaetz, as a time of “paralysis.”
The unreliable and constantly discredited New York Times called the blessed time without a Speaker of the House as “weeks of chaos.”
Conservative talk radio was filled up to puke-on-your-feet levels of “Gaetz should have had a plan,” and “You only remove the Speaker when you have a plan,” and similar Conservative Inc. mistrust of the essential democratic process and worshiping of the unnaturally smooth “normal” process that just has to be corrupt. Sean Hannity, Clay and Buck, Glenn Beck, and the rest of you radio guys, you know who you are.
The rest of the press/media/ political outlets, both establishment/legacy and new alike, were of a common mind: Washington works best when it works perfectly smoothly, efficiently, and there are no hiccups, apparently. And thus we conclude that apparently democratic processes of debating and voting and disagreeing are uncomfortable to political insiders. Isn’t that reassuring?
Thankfully, when Speaker Mike Johnson was eventually coronated, we had the Babylon Bee in the room to shed the most accurate light on the situation: Their headline “Smoke Rises Over Capitol Indicating Congress Has Resumed Setting Taxpayers’ Money On Fire” wasn’t really funny, because the truth is painful.
That Babylon Bee humor was an updated version of Mark Twain’s observations of Congress: “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
And his “There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
But wait, there’s more of how Americans then and now really feel about Congress when it is working properly:
“This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer.” (Will Rogers)
“The taxpayers are sending congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back.” (Will Rogers)
“I love to go to Washington, if only to be near my money.” (Bob Hope)
“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.” (Ronald Reagan)
“Members of Congress should be compelled to wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers, so we could identify their corporate sponsors.” (Caroline Baum)
The truth is that self-rule by a group of citizens, by way of their elected representatives, is not supposed to be easy, or smooth, or efficient, or painless, or without occasional hiccups. To expect nothing but easy, smooth sailing when power and money are being fought over would be a childish fantasy. Or an evil wish.
Think about some of the total brawls we have witnessed in recent years from South Korea’s parliament, or Japan’s parliament. Chairs flying, punches thrown, martial arts kicks landing on unhappy faces! Likewise in a few European parliamentary democracies in recent years, where policy disagreements were settled with fist fights. Vive le human passion for truth, I say.
Well do I recall first seeing 18th and 19th century drawings and political cartoons of fisticuffs, cudglings, and canings in the US Congress, as well as accurate pictures of fatal duels among elected officials. These old drawings showed the true inner workings of representative government – members beating the snot out of each other. The other good side of these bloodlettings and drawn-out disputes is that when responsible people feel strongly about freedom vs tyranny, about slavery vs abolition, about fair taxation vs taxation without representation (which Americans are living under right now), they have strong disagreements. Government commensurately slows down and waits for the disagreements to get resolved. Good, this is natural and healthy.
You know what scares me in politics? Bipartisanship. Yep, that old let’s–reach-across-the-aisle crap means only one thing: Both political parties have reached agreement on mutually beneficial ways of wasting and pocketing our hard-earned tax money that the government coerced out of our pockets at gunpoint.
I was glad to see Rep. Kevin McCarthy ejected from the Speaker’s seat. Smoooooth McCarthy was an embarrassment in so many ways (not the least of which his evil role in covertly delaying and unnecessarily drawing out the selection process in the hopes of being re-installed as Speaker), and he smells of corruption.
I was glad to see Rep. Matt Gaetz and others (where was my US Congressman Scott Perry in all this?) demand that McCarthy be held accountable for breaking the promises he made to attain the Speaker’s seat. I was glad to see Rep. Gaetz eventually widely recognized and appreciated for having toppled the DC Swamp’s man in Congress and replacing him with Rep. Mike Johnson, who appears to be a decent person from East Succotash America and not yet familiar with greasy handshakes.
Overall, the shut down and gridlock in Congress during the struggle for the Speakership was a big gain for the US citizenry, and I would like to know what Mark Twain would have said about it. Whatever Mark Twain would have said about those glorious weeks of Congressional inaction, we just know he would have hit the nail on the head.
We The People 1, Uniparty 0
Overly preened, waxed, effete, phony pretty boy career politician and freaking corrupt as hell now former Speaker of the US House Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his brief Speakership yesterday. First time in American history, the vote on McCarthy represents a slowly turning tide in favor of We, The People as more and more of us American citizens struggle to regain control of our rogue government from an evil bipartisan Uniparty made of both Democrats and establishment Republicans.
McCarthy is the kind of flaccid, spineless, limp-wristed establishment career RINO “Republican” who does everything for his own personal gain, and for his party’s gain, and apparently zero for The American People’s gain.
Despite representing a majority in the US House, since becoming Speaker earlier this year McCarthy gave in on nearly every Democrat Party demand and Big Brother Government funding ploy. There was literally nothing the Democrat Party and the Biden White House demanded that McCarthy did not and would not cave to. An additional 87,000 heavily armed IRS agents? Sure, said McCarthy, why not have an even bigger helping of terrorized American citizens cowering from official jackbooted thugs in their homes.
Like most GOPe pukes, Kevin McCarthy is much more beholden to the politically partisan, far-left, America-hating, American-hating, Constitution hating, freedom hating establishment media like the Washington Post and the New York Times than he is to the US Constitution or even basic principles like individual freedom, small government, less intrusive government, etc. McCarthy is worried about what the partisan establishment media will say about him, and not about what his voters will think of him. His big dollar corporate donors make sure he has plenty of money to repel upstart challengers who might want more decision making put back into the hands of the American citizenry, and less in the hands of corporate lobbyists and their loyal lapdogs like McCarthy.
McCarthy did zero to represent his constituents or the tens of millions of voters who have increasingly voted to stop feeding the Washington DC beast, and apparently it was his secret deal with China Joe Biden to fund Ukraine yet again with billions of US Taxpayer dollars (as our bridges and roads disintegrate) that got him in trouble with his own caucus. Well, some of the Republican caucus, because there are waaaay too many “Republican” congressmen who are perfectly happy with the decisions McCarthy made. These are the congressmen who see themselves as the moderate wing of the Democrat Party, not as an opposition party. Gotta get these traitors out of office, Mister and Missus America!
Anyhow, kudos to Rep. Matt Gaetz for having the balls to take on McCarthy and hold him to the pledges McCarthy had made in order to become Speaker earlier this year. It is telling that McCarthy increasingly broke those pledges and seemed sure that he would not be held accountable. Unlike former speaker Nancy Pelosi, McCarthy had zero interest in unifying and holding his caucus together by giving in here and there to the conservative members by whose grace he ascended the throne (and by whose grace he was removed).
This is a telling fact: McCarthy had no interest in mollifying his conservative patriot wing. He gave them nothing, and gave the communist Democrat Party everything it asked for.
And thus it became apparent that McCarthy (and so many “moderate” “Republicans” like him) has no loyalty to a constitutional America. He blows bullsh*t up everyone’s butt, and then does the opposite. He ran as an R but acted like a loyal D. Hmmmmmmm, no wonder people ask how much secret payoff money McCarthy must have received from China or some other wealthy gift giver somewhere. Anyhow, it was time for McCarthy to be challenged and hopefully removed. Thanks to Rep. Matt Gaetz, We, The People scored 1 against the evil Uniparty.
I am surely not alone in being intrigued that GOPe Republicans and the New York Times alike are horrified, HORRIFIED at the “chaos” supposedly ensuing from McCarthy’s ouster. It is also intriguing that any action that goes against the interest of the bipartisan Uniparty, and which challenges illegal and increasingly un-checked Federal government power over us supposedly free citizens, or which legally challenges blatantly stolen elections, is immediately branded by the Uniparty and its establishment media outlets as an insurrection, chaos, illegal, etc. It is also intriguing that the Uniparty looooves a smoothly running rogue government, and hates anyone who questions it or challenges it.
Kevin McCarthy’s ouster from the Speakership is a really big deal. If nothing else it is a sign that there are at least a handful of patriots in the US House willing to take risks with their political careers for the benefit of We, The People. Turns out there are a few who understand that The Bigger The Government, The Smaller The Citizen. Turns out you and I are not completely alone in our dispute with our rogue federal government.
Some action items for the next Speaker: a) purge the US Capitol Police of lawless rogues who hate America, b) investigate and hold accountable all members of the US Capitol Police who committed unnecessary acts of violence against innocent protestors on January 6th, c) actually release all of the January 6th footage so that Americans can make up their own minds about what really happened, d) begin impeachment proceedings against lawless members of the Biden Administration, including FBI Chris Wray, AG Merrick Garland, DHS Alejandro Mayorkas, and others whose nonstop lying to Congress should land them in jail for the rest of their lives.
To What and to Whom are you loyal?
Couple of interesting conversations in the past 48 hours about loyalties, one in the Juneau, Alaska airport with a guy distributing whisky around the world, and the other guy a lawyer back East. Both educated but practical, both smart and articulate, neither particularly ideological, and neither a consumer of Breitbart or Gateway Pundit news information. Which is to say, both are opinionated but not well informed, and their loyalties show it.
Both men say they are Republicans or the admittedly endangered species Kennedy Democrats (John F. Kennedy today would be a far-right America-First conservative Republican, but I digress) both say they are moderates, both say they want a “centrist” or a moderate to be the next president. Their joint political loyalty is to the idea of bipartisan and moderate political philosophy.
The lawyer takes great umbrage at President Trump taking on the executive branch’s administrative state, saying that “Trump wants to make himself monarch of America.”
The whisky salesman wants “a return to civility.”
As far as I can tell, both these very different men are devotees of ideas or images of ideas that were last seen dead on the side of the road America has traveled in the past ten years. Americans chose Donald Trump precisely because of the so-called “political moderates” standing for nothing in particular and constantly making self-serving “bipartisan” deals amongst themselves that always, always exclude Mister and Missus America. It’s what prompted the America First/ Make America Great Again movement.
As a great sage once said, If I am not for myself, who will be for me? In other words, you can’t live in America and be concerned more about people and places outside of America and still have America thrive and survive or even last as America for long. Thus MAGA and Trump enduring and actually thriving despite an unrelenting attack by the establishment media, Hollywood, academia, the Federal executive branch’s administrative state, corporate America, Wall Street, and the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association, to name but a few of America’s domestic enemies.
The American people know their survival and freedom is on the line, and they have stuck with their only true advocate through thick and thin.
The notion of “civility” also died when the establishment media came out of the closet in 2008 not as ideological crossdressers, but as war-painted cannibals bent on wanton, bloody destruction of everyone they opposed. Compare the openly partisan fake news media now to 2008 and it’s like they aren’t even the same species; that is how much toxic political poison the mainstream media “news reporters” have drunk since going all-in for non-vetted Barack Hussein Obama back in 2008. The un-civil establishment media is so openly un-civil and fake that the Biden White House issued an open memo demanding that all Fake Newsdom rally ’round the Biden Crime Family and attack Republicans instead of reporting on the treasonous international bribery the Biden family has engaged in for years.
As they say, you can’t make this stuff up, because this truth we are living is crazier than any fiction we could write. And I don’t know what planet a grown, intelligent, experienced adult American is living on to want or expect civility and moderation in a heavily one-sided toxic atmosphere like this. Trump isn’t the cause of this environment, he is the victim and the symptom of the corrupt sickness assailing America by way of “moderate” divided loyalties.
You – an American citizen of voting age – cannot both be loyal to America as a sovereign nation with the rule of law applying equally to all citizens and also support a wide-open southern border with millions of illegal immigrants coming in. You – the proverbial reasonable citizen in the street – cannot be loyal to an America where the rule of law prevails in all things, and also support a federal bureaucracy that is untouchable, unreachable, and that insubordinately does not answer to its Chief Executive, who was (and still is) Trump.
Trump a monarch? Yes, it sounds ridiculous, but…well, the US President is Chief Executive of the Executive Branch of American federal government. The Chief Executive is in a way, I suppose, a sort of monarch in his executive domain there. He is the boss. When the taxpayer-paid staff of that same executive branch openly rebels against their chief executive and acts insubordinately, it is they, not the President, who is acting like a monarch. Trump was elected by The People to run the executive branch, and the staff people of that executive branch are supposed to abide by their oaths of office, and follow the orders of their chief executive. When those staff people do what they want, and not what the elected chief executive wants, then they are each acting like petty kings. They are in open rebellion against The People of America.
So here we are, a people of divided loyalties. We want things that can’t possibly exist, and we are loyal to fake news media outlets because we still want the taste and smell of the old civility and moderation we once enjoyed. We want an unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucracy to continue on as if its continuing rebellion against the President was no big deal, while simultaneously telling ourselves that we are the good Americans. After all, we want stability and security and moderation and civility. And so we support the true villains in American politics, instead of the champions of a free America with the rule of law for all, the MAGA America First advocates like President Donald Trump.
If your hunting club suddenly turns anti-gun, would you stay loyal to it? If your work place suddenly throws you out into the street for no good reason, would you stay loyal to them? If your children’s school suddenly became disloyal to your children’s best interests and to you, would you remain loyal to that school?
I myself am loyal only to the founding first principles for which American government is supposed to stand. When the government ceases to represent or implement those principles, then that government and the individual staff people in it no longer have my loyalty. They are loyal to themselves and to their power, not to me and my rights.
I am loyal to Power To The People. We, The People own the federal bureaucracy, not the rogue, corrupt, violent, lawless staff at the FBI, ATF, DHS et al. who are the Gestapo KGB strongmen of the Biden fascists seeking to bend all people to their evil will through illegal midnight raids on the homes of their political opponents. These people cannot ever have the loyalty of the American People. And people who are loyal to these vile anti-freedom alphabet organizations are no longer Americans, because they have abandoned the basic principles of fairness and due process that used to make America America.
Whither America right now is a question of loyalty, your loyalty, to whom and to what.
Midsummer report
My apologies for the long absence here. Summer is in full swing and our family has been operating at full tilt speed. Time only for doing things, and none for writing about it all, until now.
First off, our oldest kid was married on Independence Day. Held at a pretty and historic farm, it was a fantastic wedding, and we feel like we acquired a wonderful addition to our family. However, the preparation necessary for that event took up a lot of time and energy, for many months. And then there was the recovery week. And then there was the vacation week. Hence no blog posts. Full credit to my wife for all of the wedding planning.
At least I myself am back in the saddle, while other people around me are still recovering from their vacation. Not everyone does well with the surf fishing bum lifestyle, including sleeping on the beach, eating questionable food from a warm cooler that has been pawed over and drooled on by feral raccoons, and drinking fetid water. I myself thrive in this kind of environment, and so I am back to report back to our three readers.
What can I say about the wedding other than I fired our small black powder cannon seven times, for good luck. It was Independence Day, and while the venue does not allow fireworks, they did allow the cannon (it’s a cast iron, steel sleeved replica swivel gun with a 1.75″ bore). And in my speech as the bride’s father, how could I miss an opportunity to point out that Independence Day was brought to us by citizens with guns? That is a fact, is it not?
And (of course, I guess) I heard back afterwards that some of our wedding guests were offended by the cannon and also offended by my mention of the origins of American freedom – citizens with guns. You can’t make this stuff up if you tried, like it’s a Hollywood movie script caricature of spoiled rotten children who get everything that Planet Earth can provide and yet nonetheless complain about it. Something like “The food here is terrible and the portions are so small.”
Are Americans now really offended by Independence Day fireworks? Are they offended by displays of patriotism and mentioning of historical facts that unfortunately run contrary to some evil political narratives that privately owned guns are bad and our freedom was brought to Americans by a immaculately conceived federal government that descended from Heaven? Are some wedding guests now so crass that they actually complain about the bride’s father setting off his celebratory toy cannon for the enjoyment of all the normal fun-loving people in attendance?
I have a hard time believing these things, but I did get to witness this stuff. America is in big trouble when its own citizens, young and old, hate its founding and can’t give a proud father his one moment and some space to celebrate it. Jiminy crickets.
Just returned from a subsequent beach trip to a a long spit of federally managed property on the east coast. The National Park Service rangers were 99% normal, nice, intelligent Americans, thank you very much, Gage, Donald, and Stephen.
In this national park there is a problem with artificially high numbers of deer, foxes, and racoons. They have no natural predators and they are multiplying at breakneck rates and having huge negative impacts on the environment and local ecology. Vegetation shows a distinct deer browse line about four feet above the ground, and the racoons are everywhere, aggressive, and aiming to ruin your trip. I watched a red fox steal a camper’s breakfast sausage meal right off of his plate on the guy’s picnic table. We had raccoons patrolling our campsite and under our table as soon as we broke out our food. They will grab your food right out of your hand. It is a fact that raccoons are host to some nasty parasites they excrete in their poop, which was abundantly displayed all around the campsites. Raccoons are also the number one vector for rabies among wildlife.
Aside from posing health threats and incessantly badgering the humans who are trying to enjoy the park, the foxes and raccoons also eat the eggs of rare nesting shore birds. These rare birds enjoy huge swaths of cordoned off human-free dunes and beaches in the park (and also on federal and state lands out on Long Island, like Orient Point and Montauk). And yet the same exact NPS staff enforcing the human no-go dune zones policy are absolutely fine with the overabundant nest-raiding foxes and raccoons that render all the no-go zones meaningless. The staff do not support hunting or trapping these destructive pests, either to improve the park visitor experience or to protect the natural environment.
How can the rare birds successfully nest on the ground and hatch their chicks there when the artificially super overabundant egg-eating raccoons and foxes are allowed to roam at will?
Talking with various National Park Service staff about this problem resulted in exposure to various levels of education and serious/unserious mindset. Most of the NPS staff acknowledged there is a wildlife problem on site that must be addressed. Hunting the deer and trapping the foxes and raccoons is the normal and responsible way to deal with this artificial human-caused environmental problem. These are the responsible and serious ways of addressing a visitor problem on land that is owned by the US taxpayer and whose management is entrusted to taxpayer-paid bureaucrats.
However, when I mentioned the above normal solutions to a young, handsome, tall NPS Park Policeman patrolling our campground, he responded “The same can be said about humans — there are just too many humans. And your solution to the overabundant raccoon problem is not humane.” He would get rid of the humans and allow the artificially high numbers of nuisance wildlife to proliferate. With taxpayer-paid federal employees of this guy’s low caliber and high wokeness quotient, the park visitor experience is going to degrade. C’mon, NPS, you can screen your employee applicants better than this. This foolish people-hating young guy should never have a gun and a badge, much less wear an NPS uniform.
Overall the surf fishing was fun if mostly unproductive. Probably due to the high heat and ferocious sunshine. I can report that catching cownose/ bullnose rays on strong surf tackle is a hoot, but then safely decoupling that animal from the tackle is a whole other thing. They whip their barbed tails around trying to nail the fisherman, who is trying to release them back into the ocean (I learned to place something heavy on the tail while using heavy pliers to remove or break off the hook). We did witness a large shark violently feeding close to shore, and it would be a fair guess to say it was probably eating these rays, which we caught and saw in abundance on both the bay side and the ocean surf side.
So that is the mid-summer report. Fast action, lots of family, some big family celebration and lots of family movement across the beautiful American landscape for work and vacation. I hope that you the reader are also enjoying your summertime. Summer is such a glorious time to be with family and friends, to visit new places, to camp out under the stars and cook over an open fire, to think through life’s normal challenges and to spend time with people we love…and then it is over just when we are all starting to really get into it.
So make the most of your summer.
Campsite neighbor Steve, a PhD engineer ex-patriot Brit and defiant leftist, helped MAGA Maniac Josh fix my malfunctioning headlamp, demonstrating that it’s easy to be enemies when separated by keyboards and easy to be friends when living side by side
Nice level NPS campsites with fire ring and grill
Each campsite has a pavilion and a picnic table. Is this really camping?
Asbury Park Brewery is a local flavor that I was happy to support. No sign anywhere of Bud Lite or Budweiser anything, thankfully
Symbol of foolish National Park Service policies seeking to protect rare shore birds by excluding people from their habitat, but allowing artificially overabundant populations of nest-raiding raccoons and foxes to roam at will.
Beach goers nonetheless entered this area because there were zero nesting birds in it and there were literally tons of foxes running around in it. Come on National Park Service, you can do much smarter than this
Ahhhhh… summer vacation on the Atlantic Coast
Career politicians ended representative democracy
At its founding, America was envisioned as a representative government, a constitutional republic, where We, The People would vote for good citizens from amongst our ranks to represent our interests in government. Guy leaves his farm and plow behind to do his civic duty, returns back to the farm four or six years later. It is a good idea, because it does away with unfair feudalism and hierarchy, where only a few people at the top have power and everyone else is a powerless serf/slave/peon with no individual rights. The people making the laws are the same people who will be subject to the same laws. Everyone is treated fairly under the law.
And for a long time America worked pretty well on this model. Yes, there have been some political scandals along the way, and some power grabs that were turned back. Typically the American citizenry have been jealous of their rights and understandably suspicious of government in every way, and so they “throw the bums out” when the collective situation gets bad.
But somewhere in the past sixty years, maybe eighty years, America got deeply into political careerism. You know, where elected officials Mary Jane and Billy Bob were so respected and maybe even revered, either for their honorable traits or for their ability to deliver taxpayer funds to private beneficiaries, that the voters routinely, even habitually vote for them at every election. And so these people who kept getting elected in primaries and in general elections became career politicians. Either their entire career or most of it was spent working their way up a sort of “ladder” from local positions of authority to national positions of authority. And thus did people aim to have a career in politics, because of all sorts of reasons, some good, some bad, some corrupt, but there developed an entire culture within the two main political parties, Democrat and Republican, where party bosses would work with special interest groups to line up tame candidates who owed their political career not to We, The People, but to the party bosses and special interest groups.
And career politicians began to get really rich from their relatively low-paying public jobs. All the more reason to just stay in there and not do anything else with your life!
And so here we are, mid 2023, and career politicians in both political parties are willfully destroying America (e.g. faux “debt ceiling” wild spending spree that no one can ever pay for, Department of Defense can’t track expenditures below $100,000,000 and so our tax dollars are wasted and stolen from us, $83 billion worth of American military hardware is abandoned to our enemies in Afghanistan by Biden, neither party will hold Rep. Adam Schiff accountable for being a serial liar needlessly costing taxpayers $32 million etc).
Because career politicians are so personally invested in their political careers that if they deviate and try to do the right thing, then they stand a good chance of losing their elected office. And then doing the wrong thing becomes accepted and then promoted by the various established information outlets.
And so career politicians continue to make one bad decision after another, to hold onto their own personal power. To the point where even when Americans lose, when America loses, career politicians still win.
And so we reach the present financially and culturally unsustainable points that will inevitably result in America failing, and everyone losing their individual rights, and then some feudal overlords take over and use brute force like everyone else around the world lives under.
I know, I know, so many readers here laugh out loud when I write this stuff.
“America destroyed! Unsustainable! Ha ha ha that Josh guy sure is an idiot, because he obviously doesn’t know America is waaay waaay too big to fail!”
And so despite a long human history littered with wrecked human civilizations, the warnings from taxpaying worker bees like me go not just unheeded, but mocked and belittled by career political staffers and career politicians in both parties as they all continue to make financially and culturally unsustainable and reckless decisions for the collective rest of us. And at the end of their day, all the careerists see is money and power, and so anyone within their orbit can commit the most grievously corrupt behavior without being held accountable. As one of my mentors Frank used to say, the longer a career politician is in office, the tighter the horse blinders get, until they see nothing except what is right in front of them, which is money and power.
The rest of us? The We, The People worker bees? We see the corrupt rot all around us eating away at America. We see Rome beginning to burn, while the career politicians feast and live carefree lives devoid of discipline or honesty. This is not going to last, friends. If we all continue to re-elect career politicians, then our freedom-loving civilization is probably going to end within the lifetimes of the people reading these words, and everything we take for granted will be gone. All of it. It will all be History, as they say.
Trans-conversation not allowed
“Trans” Definition: Across, beyond, through, changing thoroughly (Random House dictionary, 1987, the best printed book you can have in your home, because it represents the pinnacle of Western Civilization English language before it was thoroughly corrupted with non-definable nonsense which has resulted in the internal collapse of our nation).
To have a meaningful conversation and exchange of ideas (which results in increased understanding and personal growth) across, beyond, and through our natural personal and cultural differences and boundaries, all humans have historically talked to one another. Fifteen thousand years ago, the multitude of Mongolian tribes who had migrated across the climate change Bering land bridge into the Americas all ended up speaking different languages as a multitude of different Indian tribes, and yet interacting directly and honestly with one another across their differences.
In the 1400s, Chinese, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Dutch explorers sailed their ships across the planet to meet, communicate, and trade with other cultures with different skin colors and languages. In the 1600s, different European tribes (primarily Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Franks, and Celts) who migrated into the Americas all joined together and amalgamated across their cultural and linguistic boundaries to form a singular national and several regional identities.
All of these humans from the beginning of modern humanity crossed physical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries to exchange ideas and items with one another, often joining together, sometimes disagreeing, but always communicating. No artificial boundaries were allowed. If a boundary or difference between them was unnecessary or served no healthy purpose, then that boundary and difference was discarded. Albeit sometimes by force of arms, but discarded nonetheless.
So, knowing these demonstrable, measurable, definable facts about humans historically communicating with one another, let us ask this important question: What realistic, healthy purpose is served by the unnatural gag order and discriminatory bar on honest conversations about the sexual ideology movement and its resulting trans-sexual assault on women’s rights?
Why can’t the majority of Americans, Canadians, or Europeans presently ask questions and talk fully about this non-sensical, destructive, censorious movement that has taken over academia, medicine, law, and much of government services?
To not only stop Americans from having a conversation about “Trans” athletes destroying women’s sports, but for the pro-Trans movement to then also utterly destroy the personal and professional lives of those people who merely try to have these important conversations demonstrates that this is not a natural human experience we are having right now. Knowing that humans have historically crossed every sort of boundary to reach one another, how can it be said that this aggressive censorship and brutal blocking of communication about the subject is natural and thus healthy?
The simple and honest answer here is that the pro-censorship side is made up of evil, intolerant, discriminatory authoritarians relying on 100% subjective and unprovable nonsense (that has a lot of scientifically proven data contradicting it). People who cannot have an honest debate or discussion, and who try to destroy anyone who even questions much less challenges their orthodoxy, are by definition really bad people. Sure, they try to cloak themselves in righteousness, and they claim that honest discussions cause “harm” to some tiny fraction of humans somewhere. But they are the ones committing the greatest and most widespread harm to the greatest number of people.
These inhuman censorship people must be confronted, shamed, and stopped. As they have pulled out all of the stops to destroy us, so should we pull out all of the stops to fight back. They started this fight; they purposefully undermined every First Amendment right we citizens have enjoyed for 240 years, and so we have every right to fight fire with fire. We are waging a just war back against injustices imposed on us by violent authoritarians. I see our situation as eerily similar to World War Two, where the side representing human freedom and good waged a just war against evil Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and Japan.
If you have a Woke university asking you for money, decline to contribute and instead support university board candidates who believe in the classical liberal idea of free speech. If you have a Woke township official making bizarre, un-American decisions about your property rights, or demanding that you accept their anti-English language pronouns while they reject your correct pronouns, then mount a strong effort to have them voted out or removed from office. If your kid has a Woke sports coach at school who makes scientifically indefensible decisions about sports competitions and shared locker rooms, then mount an aggressive effort to remove that coach (and similarly defend sports coaches who adhere to scientifically sound decisions). Same for school board members – Woke = bad = run for their seats.
Isn’t it ironic that the one crucial thing that the “Trans” movement does not tolerate is the full communication among all of us and across our different boundaries about the crushing slavery that the Trans movement truly represents and means for the vast majority of us? Even the gay and possibly Trans people in my own family, each of whom I love completely and welcome in my life absolutely and always, cannot tolerate an honest discussion about this subject. Such is the stuff of rigid religious ideologies!
This Trans movement – as it is currently structured and represented – is not a human thing. It is not an innately healthy or honest human experience. Rather, it is an anti-human artificial contrivance operating far outside historic human norms and much more aligned with Nazis, Fascists, and Stalinists.
Because the current Trans movement is an existential threat to you and your essential humanity, it is normal and justified for you to fear it and be phobic of it. It is just one more gruesome face of evil fascism that must be confronted and defeated to save our freedom of choice, freedom of conscience, and physical freedom.
