Posts Tagged → history
DMZ Mexico here we come
Mexico has always had a lawless cowboy “Pancho Villa” kind of relationship with America. Historically, Mexican raiders would come across the border, whether that border was where it is now, or when Mexico owned what is now Texas and raided across into what is now Oklahoma, California, New Mexico, Arizona etc. Mexicans always preyed upon Americans, whether they were lone homesteaders or big cattle barons.
Anyone who has an interest in this rough border history can pretty well boil it down to the Alamo (a frontier fort that became a symbol of American resistance to Spain and Mexican imperialism, and then later a successful rallying cry in search of revenge for the Mexican massacre of wounded Americans there, “Remember the Alamo!“) and you can watch several good movies about that. Or you can read up on the Texas Rangers. No, not Chuck Norris type Texas Rangers, with nickel-plated Colt 45 1911s and fast cars, or the baseball team, but the very early and very real Texas Rangers. Guys like Frank Hamer. Guys tough as steel wearing true ten gallon hats, riding beautiful strong horses, with big Bowie knives strapped, lever action Winchester rifles across the pommel, and Colt Peacemaker revolvers on their hip, chasing Mexican cattle rustlers, banditos, and thieves back and forth the border in bloody mortal combat.
Books with amazing photos have been published, and I think some early silent movies were done on the Mexican-American border. It is a history that few Americans know about today, because our relationship with Mexico has been defined for a long time in terms of tourism, itself a very new human experience, and to lesser extent the importation of fresh fruits and vegetables long grown with human excrement in lieu of animal manure.
It is also a history now rife with all kinds of modern far-Left anti-America fabrications and nonsense, not the least of which is at history.com, as well as many other anti-America websites that blatantly lie and whine about the legitimate American defense of its borders.
America’s relationship with Mexico only began to become something positive when Americans became tourists there. Acapulco, later the Yucatan Peninsula, became destinations for the then-new 1960s cruise ships. Then industrial investment came, car factories, John Deere tractor parts factories, some hand tools, all positive, although readers should know that Mexican law still forbids foreigners from owning land there.
Over time Americans became literally fat and happy, our own material success killing us, robbing us of our competitive spirit and even of our own will to live. Americans became oblivious to the myriad problems afflicting us, including cross-border drug exports from Mexico. The beautiful movie Act of Valor captured the old American attitude towards border security, before the Biden Administration and its bipartisan supporters opened the border wide for everyone and everything – human sex trafficking, including small children, fentanyl, marijuana, assorted pills, cocaine, forty million foreign invaders from around the planet, just walking in to America.
Suddenly Americans began to really suffer from all the open border problems, and notice the cause. Thousands of illegal alien drunk drivers killing entire American families, repeat offender homicidal maniacs raping and murdering beautiful young American girls, beautiful and promising young American boys and men accidentally ingesting poisonous drugs and dying. The list of maladies afflicting Americans from the Mexico export of bad stuff became too big, too bad, too serious to ignore any longer.
And so Americans voted for President Donald Trump to close the open border, stop the one-way flow of death, violence, and destruction from Mexico, and fix the problem once and for all. And so within thirty days of being sworn in, President Trump correctly declared the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorists. This means their members who are here on American soil do not enjoy the protections of civil rights or basic criminal law. Rather, they are legally and correctly viewed as armed invaders who intend to do Americans harm, and so they can be shot like dogs, on sight. Beautiful.
Things are looking up, right? Well, not so fast.
In response to all this good course correction stuff, Mexico is right now in the speedy process of making it illegal to hold their citizens accountable for their illegal acts, in Mexico or in America. In other words, the Mexican government is working hard to protect the drug cartels and their human smuggling, drug smuggling, weapons smuggling, and violence smuggling. Presently a pile of drug cartel hit squads are actively murdering Americans and foreigners right here on American soil, usually over drug dealing and money laundering. The Mexican government wants this situation to continue.
Essentially America is going back to the ultra violent 1860s frontier relationship that we had with Mexico, except that it is now official Mexican government policy to unleash their marauders upon us. America is facing a Mexican guerilla war on our southern border, from Tijuana all the way to Florida’s coastline, enabled by the Mexican government.
I am not a military expert, or really a military anything. I could not command a platoon let alone a pineapple. However, I am a long and passionate consumer of human history, and I think history is instructive in instances such as what America now faces along our Mexican border. America must take decisive control of the most dire situation there right now, which is the lawless borderland that allows psychotic murderers easy access deep into our homeland.
Extending a hard American military presence across the Mexican border is hopefully not needed, but it is what is going to have to happen in some shape or form to give us the full control of our side that we need. It is fully 100% justified. It is time for a demilitarized zone on the Mexican side. Whether that DMZ is a half mile, a mile, or ten miles, it is what needs to happen to give America the protection we need from Mexico’s predatory behavior, both official and unofficial wink-wink nudge-nudge.
I want to say that I admire Mexicans. I think the legal Mexican immigrants to America are the new Americans. In my experience, they universally work very hard, value tight and strong families, they believe in God and His higher law. They are patriotic and proudly serve in America’s toughest combat units. Great people, great Americans. Welcome, please.
I spent time in Mexico as a kid, as a volunteer on a Green Cross ambulance among the pobrecitos in a very sad, very poor area. It is a story for another time, but I came to love regular Mexicans at that time, and I still feel very warmly towards those who want to become legal Americans and share in this incredible country with us. They are most welcome here.
It is the lawless banditos we are worried about here, with this borderland issue. And that includes the Mexican government.
Frank Hamer, Texas Ranger and righteous American patriot
Texas Rangers patrolling the Rio Grand River
Pancho Villa, Mexican bandito
Without Chanuka there is no Christmas
Decades ago in graduate school, I was friends with a lovely classmate named Christine. Christine was from Kenya, studying graduate economics at Vanderbilt, with the expectation of returning to her country and taking up an important post in the Kenyan government. Smart, beautiful, articulate, kindly, Christine was the embodiment of what the rest of the world would like Africa to become, and what its leaders had hoped it could be.
One thing about Christine that surprised me was that, as religious a Methodist as she was (yes, Africa has more true blue religious Methodists than America, where Mainline Protestantism has become a Socialist anti-Christianity movement), she knew nothing of the Old Testament AKA the Torah. Christine thought that Christianity simply appeared to the world, and had its own kind of virgin birth, if you will. No connection to anything else, no roots in any other religion, or place.
One can easily blame the simple minded missionaries who taught Christine’s grandparents a Christianity devoid of its own history. As for Christine, you don’t know what you don’t know, correct? However, everyone has a responsibility for their beliefs, and now in our modern Internet age, where all questions can be answered to some degree of accuracy within a few seconds, and to a much higher degree of surety within a couple minutes, every one of us simply has to maintain some level of curiosity about the world around us, to stay informed. We must stay informed.
Christine taught me something that bears telling again today: Christmas owes its existence to the Orthodox Jews who successfully fought and won a brutal civil war against the Leftwing Democrats of their day, 2300 years ago.
Known as “Apikorsim”, Hellenists, Hedonists, whatever, the in-essence Democrat Party socialist Jews of 2300 years ago tried to impose a Godless paganism on the religious (Orthodox) Jews of Israel/Judea.
And the Orthodox Jews fought back.
Their leaders were known as the Maccabees/ Hasmoneans, largely drawn from the Jewish priests, and they prevailed against a much larger, better organized, better armed force by utilizing guerilla warfare. The Maccabees slowly whittled down the liberal Jews and their Greek allies through hit-and-run tactics and merciless head-long frontal attacks by highly motivated, battle-hardened warriors.
And so, when the Orthodox Jews prevailed on the battlefield, recaptured Jerusalem, re-dedicated the Temple there, and restarted the holy service in the Temple, Torah Judaism was saved. And because Torah Judaism was saved, a certain religiously observant Jew named Yeshua was born about 250 years later. And because that Jew went on to become a religious ascetic (a Nazirite like Samson), he became an outspoken critic of the religious ways or failings of his fellow Jews, and the occupying Romans, as he saw them.
The rest is history, if you know anything about the Second Temple period of Judaism or the early years of Christianity.
Point being, because Orthodox Jews fought the Leftist Jews of their time, Christianity was eventually born and eventually Christmas was created (observed the 25th day of December, just as Chanuka is always the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev on a lunar calendar, which means Kislev 25th always floats around relative to the Gregorian calendar we use in America and Europe).
Tonight marks the beginning of Chanuka and the end of Christmas Day. Without Chanuka, there would be no Christmas. It is important for everyone to remember history, and to know how we all got here to where we stand today. I wish that Christine would have known history, or had been educated to want to know history, because that sensitivity or intellectual curiosity would have saved her life…a story for another day.
Happy Chanuka, America and world.
Judah Maccabee, the kind of unintentional but direct father of Christmas
Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin
I have watched the fascinating interview with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin by journalist Tucker Carlson, and if you have any interest in world politics, you should watch it too, right here.
So the mainstream establishment politically partisan leftwing activist media, and their political members like Hillary Clinton, have all piled on Tucker Carlson for doing this interview. I don’t see why, except that the establishment media is jealous, or maybe afraid. Unlike the establishment media people, Tucker Carlson doesn’t ask softball questions or act like a fawning stooge.
He asked logical questions of Putin that visibly provoked Putin quite a few times. In fact, Tucker Carlson asked questions I would not necessarily have thought of, like if it is OK to carve up modern Ukraine among its former occupiers, as Putin stated, then is Putin advocating for giving northern Ukraine to Viktor Orban’s Hungary? Would Putin be ok with Poland taking a big piece of Ukraine, too?
Putin did not like those questions! He oh-so-very-clearly dislikes being challenged and is not used to it.
For his part, Putin was fascinating. He gave an impressive recitation of Eastern European history, beginning at the year 862, from memory. While I have studied the history of Europe a lot, I do not think I could give you all of the “who kicked Mary and who hit John” moments that make up the chaotic past and present of Eastern Europe, much less Western Europe, from memory.
One area that Putin was clearly not being truthful about was this “Denazification” of Ukraine justification-excuse for invading Ukraine. Yes, there were Nazi collaborators in World War II. There were also Ukrainian Communists in World War II. Russia also committed a genocide-by-forced-starvation against Ukraine, called the Holomodor, in great part in retaliation for atrocities committed by Ukrainians against Russians not too long before. There is indeed a long history of blood and feuds here.
Putin also stated that Poland collaborated with the Nazis in World War II. Yes, the same 1939 Poland that was invaded and crushed by the German Nazis, supposedly did it on purpose to help Germany. Despite the fact that it was the Soviet Russians who committed the Katyn Massacre of the Polish elite. Obviously Poland did not welcome or collaborate with the German Nazis, but Putin says they did, and moreover, that the Poles were themselves Nazis.
This is nonsense. It is not factual.
But, like I say, you have to hear this interview yourself to understand how the Russians really think, or at least how they want you to believe they think.
Whether or not Putin actually believes his own propaganda, it doesn’t matter. He says it, and to me it sounds crazy, but I will bet that a lot of other Russians believe the same things. Which is why these interviews and dialogues are so important. We humans should strive to understand one another. Or at least lie to each other, mutually. Some sort of understanding emerges, and if it prevents bloodshed, cruelty, and crying children and destroyed civilizations, then probably for the good.
Putin very clearly has a passion for the region and for Russia, which is to his credit. Because the one thing that has caught the fancy of a lot of Americans is that Putin loves his homeland Russia. If there is one thing that at least half of America admires it is an appreciation for one’s nation, and so Putin’s clear love of Mother Russia resonates with them.
Putin’s love of country, to the point of waging an illogical, incredibly destructive, and probably illegal invasion-war against Ukraine, is something we no longer see in America’s politicians. No, America’s politicians are largely fat globalists, citizens of the world, moral relativists who enter Congress worth fifty cents and who are then worth $29,000,000 three terms later. American politicians love money, not America, and they are allowing America to be invaded. American politicians are selling America to the highest bidders, most especially Joe Biden, whose literal name Joe Biden is all over illegal bribe and graft checks and money wires written by Chinese businessmen to him and his son Hunter Biden.
Putin doesn’t put up with traitors, which a lot of Americans find refreshing and wish would be the norm once again here in America.
Putin gave his perspective on his region’s history, which is obviously from his own view. I know for a fact that asking a Ukrainian citizen will result in a different view on a few of those same exact facts. Same goes for people from Poland, Lithuania, Finland and many other nations around there. For the past few hundred years at least, that big grizzly bear Russia has had its grip tightly on so many of its neighbors. And from the Russian perspective, this is normal and perfectly fine. If you are Kazakh, or Tajik, or some other ethnicity, you probably disagree with Russia’s actions.
One of the regions that Russia invaded and absolutely stomped to pieces in recent times, unarmed civilians and all, was Chechnya. Back before YouTube became all censorship oriented, you could watch actual video footage of Russian soldiers laughingly executing unarmed Chechen civilians in their ragged clothing, mothers and fathers, grandmas, and then walking on to the next rustic stone farmhouse and doing it all over again. I really defy anyone to try to justify this barbaric behavior. Same goes for Ukraine now.
And Putin complains that the CIA was responsible for Chechnya’s response…
Other items that fascinated me are Putin’s view on his experience squaring off against and sometimes trying to work with the CIA and American political leadership over the decades. He seems genuinely flummoxed why American leaders and bureaucrats alike do not trust Russia, even post-Soviet Russia. It is helpful to me to closely watch Putin’s face as he voices his disbelief, and his reluctant acceptance of realpolitik, over the proxy wars and NATO maneuvering along Russia’s borders.
Maybe he really does believe what he is saying.
Long ago, a friend of mine who taught Russian history and military doctrine at the US Army War College in Carlisle, PA, pointed out that over its long history Russia has never had democracy or representative government. Russian culture has always favored some sort of headman, dictator, Tsar, whatever, and so, believe it or not, today’s Russia with all of its obvious problems, and its journalists being thrown out of windows, is still relatively open and free compared to its history and its potential now and future.
In other words, as ruthless dictators go, Putin is not so bad. He could be a lot worse.
In any event, Tucker Carlson has done a good deed here. He sat down and had an honest-to-goodness real and very long interview with a head of state that no one in the American political-media establishment wants us to hear from.
You should ask Why the American political-media establishment wants us to be shut off from Putin’s perspective. Is it because so many American bureaucrats and politicians have been privately and very illegally benefiting from Ukraine’s oil and gas business, and from its illegal bioweapon labs set up at the behest of Dr. Mengele Fauci and American Big Pharma companies? These illegal relationships have been coming to light in the past few years, mostly now as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Watch the interview, and be thankful that a free America still exists in part, despite the Biden Regime’s best efforts to turn America into a violent police state, and freedom never being free and having to be occasionally renewed by the blood of patriots and tyrants alike.
UPDATE: Tucker Carlson goes food shopping in Moscow. Whoa.
Two great shows coming up soon!
Two great shows are coming up soon. If you live in central Pennsylvania, then fortunate you. If you live farther out or even far away, even out of state, both are worth traveling to, even from far, far away.
The first show starts this Friday, the 18th Century Artisan’s Faire, now (as of last year) held in Carlisle, PA, at the Carlisle Expo Center at 100 K Street. It used to be called the Lewisburg Show, because for decades it was held in Lewisburg, PA, along Route 15. The Carlisle Expo Center is SO MUCH BETTER than the prior hotel venue. I went to this show last year and could have easily spent both days there. Better lay-out, better room, more room, higher ceilings and far better lighting.
If you are afflicted with history-itis, with a passion for hand-made tools and utensils of all sorts, including eating utensils like forks and knives and plates, with blacksmithing and historic reenacting, with hand-carved curly maple furniture and gunstocks, leatherworking, with anything black powder or flintlock or percussion, with 17th and 18th century clothing, then this show is for you. I have been attending for I don’t know how many years, a long time, and every time I go it’s worth it. The nationwide talent that is assembled at this show is amazing to experience.
The second show starts this Saturday, the Great American Outdoor Show. It is held for the whole week in Harrisburg at the Farm Show Complex on Cameron Street. This is the “new” show built on the ashes of the old one, which I helped end by starting a boycott.
The prior show was run by a British promoter, and they had no feel for America, Americans, guns, gun rights etc. In the immediate political backwash of another Democrat-run mass school shooting, that British promoter tried to prohibit exhibitors from having AR-15 platform rifles. That set off a slight negative reaction among the paid participants, advertisers, and attendees that culminated in the boycott, which ended the show that year. And it ended that tone deaf promoter’s role in the show ever-after.
In the press interviews I did about shutting down that show, my favorite quote was “The British did not understand Americans in 1776, and they still don’t understand us in 2012.”
To which I think we can easily now add the entire Democrat Party, because it is openly and officially the political party of big government, of citizen disarmament and gun confiscation, of digital currency and your money control, of high taxes, of speech control, of thought control, of censorship, of car control, of health care control, of Covid lockdowns and private citizen movement control, but not USA border control.
Nope, under the Democrat Party the American border is wide freakin’ open to tens of millions of anyone and everyone from around the world.
So, go to these two shows. Both are very family friendly, regardless of what your family members each like. You will be really happy you did go. Enjoy America and freedom while you still can.
On Friday and Saturday you can rub elbows with gunpowder horn makers, flint knappers, flintlock and percussion rifle makers, black powder bag makers, historic dress and bonnet makers, tri-corner hat makers, and blacksmiths.
On Sunday you can go to the Farm Show Complex and see the whole world of tactical socks and vests, endless semiauto blast-em rifles as well as very cool historic lever action rifles and Wild West revolvers, bushcraft duck calls, high fence deer hunting legends and other TV created one-dimensional personalities, useful ATVs, fabulous boats, and cool end-of-the-world survival RVs, high tech synthetic and high tech wool outdoor boots and clothing, hunting guides from all around the world, and all kinds of fishing stuff. The Great American Outdoor Show really is an amazing experience. I highly recommend it.
I myself will be both a visitor and a volunteer at the GAOS. After many years of volunteering at the show and its predecessor, I took 2021-2023 off. This year I will be volunteering one or two days with the Pennsylvania Trappers Association, a wonderful conservation group of which I am a Life Member. Come on by the PTA booth and chat with us!
Gunmaker extraordinaire Mitch Yates
Leatherman’s new proprietor with his wares, which many black powder hunters use nationwide
Hoffman Forge. Jymm Hoffman made the outstanding modern steel anvil that we use in our own forge
I am a proud volunteer with the Pennsylvania Trappers Association at the GAOS.
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.
Russia & Ukraine & the West a year later
A year later after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a few realties emerge.
1) Massive scale wars with massive landscape-scale complete smoking rubble destruction and muddy trenches did not end after World War One (“The War to End All Wars“), or World War Two. Now, our entire beautiful blue and green planet appears to be on the edge of World War Three, and the carnage in Ukraine that right now seems so unimaginable is just the beginning.
2) Russia may harbor grievances against Germany for two back-to-back invasions in the past hundred years, but there is no avoiding the fact now that Russia is the aggressor here with Ukraine. No one likes a bully, and Russia cannot reasonably claim to be any sort of a victim while behaving this badly. No, sorry, few people in Europe or America accept the silly notion that Russia is entitled to invade and subdue and rule with an iron fist every nation near it. It is not right and it should not continue.
3) As rotten as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin may be, there is no denying that he loves Russia and he believes in basic European/ Western values. Yes, it is easy to lose sight of the value of these facts in the face of so much Putin-led barbarism and destruction. But very few European/ Western leaders love their own countries; in fact most of them seem to be at war with their own countries and with their own countrymen, and the West is collapsing as a result. Isn’t it an oddity that of all places on Earth, Russia actually looks like one of the more stable places to live and raise a family?
4) Ukraine became America’s corrupt whore during the Obama administration, and Ukraine was being run by the Biden family when someone named Donald Trump came along in 2017 and shined a bright light on the disgusting mess. Hence all of the stops being pulled out by the corporate media and their Democrat Party masters to stop Trump at any cost, even the price of stealing the 2020 election and turning the American federal government against the American people. All of the fake Russiagate hoax, the Ukraine phone call hoax, the two fake impeachments, were to keep President Trump from digging into the really bad and illegal American corruption farming operation in Ukraine. And now, corrupt Joe Biden is dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into Ukraine to prop it up to keep his corrupt operation from being fully exposed.
5) Ukraine isn’t really about defending a small, innocent country from a big bully neighbor. It is mostly about American politicians hiding and protecting their political and financial equivalent of a “black ops” country from further scrutiny. At least this war did not start out this way. Like all wars, this war is becoming about other things now.
6) The other thing that the Ukraine war is becoming is a firmer and much more organized alliance between Russia, China, and Iran as they seek to destroy the West. For those of us who love America, freedom, lots of delicious food and beer and easy weekends and endless entertainment and fun fun fun after a hard work week, this emerging alliance aimed at our throat is a really big problem. But as much as the Russia-China-Iran challenge to the West is more visible and threatening, a huge proportion of Americans ignore it and still take America and their safety for granted, still have their heads in the sand, and still want to keep voting for people who are aggressively undermining America from within. A weak America is how Americans will suddenly lose everything they enjoy and take for granted right now.
This war in Ukraine and how Americans understand it is how empires and cultures end. No, America is not too big to fail. But our own nation’s failure is beginning to happen right in Ukraine.
And isn’t it strange that the American Left, which spent 100 years undermining the American military and our national security in the name of “peace” is now hell bent on starting World War Three?
Another past war in an obscure European nation, and more dead beautiful young men with grieving parents. The yellow caption on this is incorrect. See the more accurate description below. It is heart breaking.
I dug around the Internet to find this bit of obscure history to help our own generation understand what is happening now in Ukraine. The parallels between 1912 Serbia (which became Yugoslavia) (does anyone today even remember that country?), the resulting World War I, and the current war in Ukraine are eerie as hell. History often repeats itself, but it doesn’t have to…
Beijing Biden’s Blitzkrieg on America, Day 14
For a corrupt, pedophile, senile, failed political establishment guy who in 47 years of office holding achieved nothing and was remarked only for his plagiarism and lies, not-my-president “Beijing” Joe Biden sure has accomplished a lot AGAINST American citizens in just 14 days.
All kinds of ruling by fiat – executive orders – a hallmark of dictators everywhere. The contents of these orders are so overwhelmingly against the rights and interests of everyday American citizens that it takes your breath away. And if anyone wondered why this flurry of activity is just the beginning of the left’s total insider assault on America, they can look no farther than the father of Biden’s actions, German Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler.
Adolf Hitler conducted his takeover of Germany in almost exactly the same way Biden and his anti-America Left associates are doing it. Absolute Blitzkrieg, or “lightning attack” in German. It was designed then to shock and overwhelm the German political system, and later the military defenses of surrounding nations, so that Hitler’s Nazi Party could assume full and unchallenged control.
America’s political system has been a 245-year delicately woven arrangement of checks and balances that favor no one group or party holding all of the power. It has been set up as a shock absorber meant to take the bounces that democratic politics occasionally give to the body politic. What America’s system was not set up to do was to facilitate and insulate the complete and sudden illegal takeover of the entire political system by one group, and yet this is exactly what has happened.
Like Adolf Hitler and all of the Eastern European communists before and after him, Beijing Biden is moving ultra fast to solidify his iron grip over all aspects of American life. Bloggers and political activists are being hunted down across America right now by teams of rogue FBI agents, while the FBI HQ issues press releases attributing the resulting extrajudicial assassinations of these individuals to “child slave trafficking.” The mainstream media, which is now an official arm of Biden’s American Nazi Party, simply mouths the official narrative of these unconstitutional operations designed to shut down and silence free Americans. No one looks into the FBI’s low-credibility claims, because the enemies of Biden and the corrupt FBI are the enemies of the US media.
And like dictators all around the world, Biden’s ruling elites have suddenly surrounded themselves with armed guards and walls and fences in Washington DC, while simultaneously telling Americans that WE cannot have a wall around our nation, nor guns with which to defend ourselves. And Democrat Party officials like PA Lt Gov John Fetterman are telling us that challenging the 2020 election results is “not protected speech,” after four years of Democrat Party and establishment media lying every single day about Donald Trump being a Russian spy, and Ukraine hoax, and and and… This hypocrisy is the new standard for behavior from the Nazi Democrat Party.
Problem is, America voted for Donald Trump, not Beijing Biden, and while Biden has his foot on the gas pedal to accelerate his hostile takeover before real opposition can develop, tens of millions of patriotic, loyal Americans are waking up to the stark new very evil reality they face.
I have no crystal ball, and I can’t predict anything. There are a lot of ways Americans can resist the Democrat Party’s all-out assault on America, including retrenching at the state and local level. Most of this has yet to be explored, although some of it is beginning to take shape, like the creation of Second Amendment sanctuary cities, counties, and states. In effect, these places will become no-go zones for corrupt enforcers of the Biden Regime, like rogue FBI and ATF agents. One thing I can surely predict with 100% accuracy is that this gamble by the Democrat Party to establish itself as the full and complete rulers of America will eventually fail, badly.
You can vote yourself into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out, goes one quip. And so one way or another, the Democrat Party’s insider assault on America will eventually fail, but only after a great many innocent people suffer as a consequence. Just like in Germany, and Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and…and…and… the list goes on in human history, where dictatorial over-reach results in the citizenry eventually rising up and taking back their own authority. But it is the very nature of tyrants and dictators to ignore history, and to think that THIS time, they will rule absolutely and without challenge.
Eventually lightning plays itself out, the storm passes, and the sunshine penetrates the darkness. It is as inevitable as the sun rising every morning.
Quiet hero Jim Broussard moves on to next stage of being
Jim Broussard was one of those old school quiet, soft-spoken Southern gentlemen who could easily get by at a liberal cocktail party just because he was the nicest, most affable guy on Planet Earth. Unless you pressed him hard on politics, he would smile easily, laugh easily, tell some easy jokes, and make some subtly incisive social or political comments, and ask a lot of questions. But inside he was more than just quick political wit and analyst. He was probably my favorite guy in Harrisburg politics, and for a very long time he “sat in” for Dr. Krug at Charlie Gerow’s monthly public policy meetings downtown. Two weeks ago Jim left human life as we know it on Planet Earth, and if there is an afterlife, I am confident Jim is enjoying the best it has to offer. The man lived life to its fullest, left a huge footprint, without crossing any double yellow lines or cursing.
Jim and I first crossed paths at Charlie Gerow’s office, probably around 2009. He impressed me, which is difficult to do (observers of Josh know this, for better and for worse). He immediately asked me out for coffee, and ever after for a buck he would give the best political advice available around here. He sent the best Christmas holiday cards, because he used collectible stamps from decades past, and every card included genuine well wishes about things specific to the recipient’s life. Jim Broussard was a big positive force on Planet Earth, and I will miss him very much.
Below is the email his wife sent out, which includes his obituary, and then some photos I took of Jim over the years while holding forth at Gerow’s place:
From 1968 to 1970, Dr. Broussard performed his active-duty military service in the Army Adjutant General’s Corps at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, reaching the rank of captain. Subsequently, he served as a reserve officer in the Office of the Chief of Military History. He taught American history at Clarkson College of Technology, Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State), served as the historian of the Indiana state legislature, and returned to teaching at Ball State University and the University of Delaware. In 1983, he was appointed chairman of the history and political science department at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA. His publications include The Southern Federalists, 1800-1816, and Ronald Reagan, Champion of Conservatism, as well as scholarly articles and book reviews.
In the late 1970’s, Dr. Broussard began working to start an historical society focused on the early national period of American history, which he thought a neglected field. He founded the Society for the History of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), which is now a thriving and respected part of the historical profession. In recent years, he came to view political history also as a neglected field, and at the time of his death was engaged in establishing the Center for Political History, based at Lebanon Valley College.
In 1989, Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey proposed a tax plan which required a constitutional amendment permitting different categories of people to be taxed at different rates. Dr. Broussard believed this would not only raise taxes but would do it in an unfair manner. He formed the group Citizens Against Higher Taxes (CAHT) and campaigned against the amendment across Pennsylvania. It was defeated by a margin of three to one, the biggest defeat of an amendment in the history of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Broussard listening to immediate past PA Governor Tom Corbett explain why he lost the 2014 election
Dr. Broussard was a member of the Lebanon Country Club, the Steitz Club, Phi Beta Kappa, and numerous historical societies. He is survived by his wife, Margaret; their son, David Broussard, and David’s wife, Sophie, and their children Elsa Rose and Samuel, of Atlanta; his brother, Thomas R. Broussard, of New York City; his sister, Nancy Leonard, of Kentucky; his sister, Dorothy Bell, of New Mexico; one niece and three nephews. Arrangements for services will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Center for Political History at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA.”
Jim sitting next to PA House Speaker Mike Turzai, with his hands clasped. Political whiz Charlie Gerow has his back to the camera on the right.
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.
