Posts Tagged → protest
All lives matter, the law matters, civilization matters, running water matters
Watching so-called “peaceful protesters” burn down a bunch of American cities and demand to eliminate city police departments, in the name of God-knows-what anarchy, is no laughing matter. Because all lives matter, regardless of skin color, religion, political views, sex, etc. Everyone is created in the image of God and each American has the same rights as anyone else.
The scenes of anarchy and assaults on every aspect of American civilization are pretty confounding. After all, we Americans have the best quality of life in the world (Starbucks on every corner, a smart phone in every hand etc.). One of the cornerstones of our amazing quality of life is the law, the idea that there are parameters on personal behavior. Destruction, looting, thievery, violence, are all no-nos in every civilization; it is just that in America we have refined the art of enforcing the law down to a very fine science. Having that ability to solve most crimes really creates a high quality society.
That refinement is what American civilization runs on. That attention to detail is what gives our civilization such unfailing public services as clean running public water.
Now all of this approach to life, every bit of it and so much more, is up for grabs, as the Democrat Party seeks to create as much chaos, destruction, and unhappiness as they possibly can before the November election. What happens if the big cities do, in fact, disband their police forces? What if Joe Biden becomes president and says “You are right, no more applying the law, no more criminal prosecutions. Go ahead and do whatever you want to whomever you want, and there will be no consequences.”
We know what will happen, because we are already seeing it happen in places like Detroit and New York City – where the public drinking water supplies are polluted by a lack of government diligence in Detroit, and the wanton destruction of the world’s greatest city economy through simple public fear of being attacked and robbed in public in NYC. People can’t work, can’t live. So there are consequences for failure, it is just that failure is not a problem for liberals, because they keep re-electing the same failed liberal politicians. That is because liberals are now getting what they have been after, what they have said they were after, for fifty years: Revolution, and all of the destruction that comes with it. It really does not bother them.
Last week I communicated with a dear friend living in New York City. We have cared for one another as close friends for 30-some years. She owns restaurants; her husband is a successful architect. They have made good money from the American entrepreneurial system, and enjoyed all of the culture and opportunity NYC can offer. After expressing to me her shock and horror at how her neighborhood had been destroyed by wanton looting, she then said she would continue to support the politicians who allow this to happen, so long as it means opposing Donald Trump.
So there you have it, the befuddled mindset of a highly educated, highly successful business person on the Left: Winning at any cost, even if it means literally burning down America, including their own neighborhood. Including drinking polluted water. Heck, the cities with the biggest police problems are all liberal – ultra-liberal Minneapolis is where George Floyd died, at the hands of a liberal police officer. There was nothing new there. Liberals keep voting for failure; even when liberalism destroys everything they care about, liberals still keep voting for it.
It takes an all-America person to say All Lives Matter in this situation, because it is such an obviously needed reminder of how our American civilization really works, and what is needed to run it successfully at all levels. America is always all-hands-on-deck. It always has been a community-based nation. Everyone has to participate, at every level, for America to run right. We have to get personally involved, and we can’t let someone else vote for us, or make decisions for us. It is the little things that have always made America run well. Like the way in which a local school has classes that monitor public water quality, or how some segments of American society are having such difficulty succeeding that local clothing and food banks are set up to help them.
All of that is being tossed out right now, in favor of God knows what. When we see that God-knows-what destructive insanity, we have to remind ourselves that All Lives Matter. We have to take care of each other. Every one of us is important.
So toss out the anarchy and destruction, the artificial divisiveness. Embrace your community, and the law, and your neighbors. You will, we all will, be happier for it. America will be better for it.
p.s. originally I was inclined to write an essay entitled “Democrat Party: Make America into Mogadishu,” and I still might. But the crazy un-American violence happening around our great nation made me feel sad, and I wanted to say something that might remind someone, somewhere, of all the good this nation has achieved, so that they might aim for that, instead of supporting the violence that separates us from one another.
A culture of protest, a culture of animosity
If you desire to see the raw underbelly of an overly tolerant democracy, then watch or listen to today’s US Senate hearings on Judge Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh is a smart, friendly, humble, kind of nerdy, bookish federal judge who had the audacity to be nominated to the US Supreme Court.
Why audacity? Because he is not super liberal. Because he does not walk in lock-step with the media arm of the Democrat Party. Because he has a judicial philosophy that is directly connected to how America was founded. He does not run around making legal judgments that are contrary to the US Constitution.
All this makes him audacious in the eyes of people who would use the US Supreme Court to achieve de facto legislative results they cannot get in the US Congress. Kavanaugh is audacious in some people’s eyes because he dares to fill a vacant seat on the Court, and play a constructive role in administering US law and jurisprudence.
To me, it looks like the most boring job in the world. Though at one time, in the heat of my youth, I aspired to be a constitutional scholar and actually studied a lot of constitutional law at Penn State and in graduate school (Vanderbilt) in preparation for it. My uncle has argued twice in front of the US Supreme Court, and on his second trip I was honored to help draft an Amicus brief and sit in the audience while the justices grilled both sides.
But now, look at how even Kavanaugh, The Most Boring Man In The World, is attacked and dragged through the mud by opponents of a lawful society. A shameless howling mob greeted him and the entire world today in one of the world’s most hallowed democratic chambers, the US Senate. To watch and listen to Kavanaugh’s opponents today in The People’s chamber, you would not know that we live in the most civilized nation.
From the 1960s to present, a culture of protest has developed to the point where the ends justify the means. That is, if someone opposes a political issue or a political person, they can go batshit crazy in front of everyone and put on the most foolish antics, with the craziest accusations, and the most violent and destructive behavior, because they are simply protesting.
And because they are protesting, they must be correct, is how they think. And if people oppose them, or have a majority in a legislative chamber or on a court, then every possible brick must be thrown in order to stop them…is how they think.
Where protest has its healthy roots in the First Amendment’s guarantee of peaceable assembly and petitioning the government, today’s protests are anything but constitutional. They are violent and hate filled, lawless and vile, cruel and destructive of people and property.
A very real culture of animosity has resulted out of the 1960s, and it is a bad thing, a toxic thing, corrosive and uncivilized. Its practitioners do not wish to live and let live; they desire control above all, and the use of angry mobs and threats to intimidate their opponents into acquiescence.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Hungary fell the same way. Slowly but surely the Communists there used a combination of violent mobs and corrupted police and courts to eliminate their political opponents. The Hungarian Communists used democratic processes and institutions to achieve non-democratic, tyrannical ends. Hungary went from one of Europe’s great nations to completely oppressed under the Communist boot. Only through uprising and great sacrifice were the Hungarian people freed once again, long after many horrible repressive crimes had been committed.
That same thing is now happening today with the national Democrat Party, whose hatred for the common person, the working person, the taxpayer and citizen, America’s “normal” and boring people, like Judge Kavanaugh, is so overwhelming that it can no longer be controlled.
If you love America, if you enjoy your simple pleasures and the basic freedoms we have here, then tell your US senators you support Kavanaugh, and do not vote for Democrats. The national Democrats do not have your interests at heart. Democrats care much more for illegal aliens (purported “victims”) who murder and rape our children than they care for you or me, taxpaying citizens who have worked hard to build this nation.
A good, decent man, a Justice Kavanaugh will restore some semblance of lawful and constitutional behavior to America, and the howling mob opposes that. Don’t let them win. They are not “protestors,” they are angry, lawless destroyers who pretend they are under the protection of the First Amendment.
Wailing, gnashing of teeth…real simple
You know all this wailing, caterwauling, and gnashing of teeth about the political situation?
The “Russia did it” theme.
The “SHE WON” theme.
The street battles, the brutal assaults by anarchist ‘antifa’ and paid party hacks on MAGA and Trump supporters peacefully and legally assembling to voice their opinions, the unending, partisan mainstream media assault on the First Amendment and the truth….yeah all that.
You know what this is all about?
It is about the loss of power.
These are sore losers who watched ultimate control of government and citizen slip slowly through their fingers, and boy are they mad about it.
Throwing up a dustcloud of obfuscation is just an attempt to ‘fire all your bullets and see which one hits.”
Russia did it?
Did what?
Made Hillary Clinton publicly sick and privately untrustworthy?
Russia made Hillary’s campaign avoid key states they took for granted, but which ended up voting for her opponent, instead?
No one really believes this. Chanting it, screaming it, talking seriously about it on TV is just designed to cast a shadow over a political outsider who threatens the entire house of cards built by BOTH political parties over the past five decades.
“She Won”?
Really? Didn’t Bernie Sanders actually win the Democrat primary race, but because the Clintons had already paid off and scooped up every delegate from Boston to Beijing, it didn’t matter that Bernie would win a state primary.
He’d win a state primary, and yet Hillary’s delegates would increase more than Bernie’s.
Then it came to light that the DNC staff and leadership was working for Hillary. Actually giving her the answers to upcoming debate questions ahead of time. Because, as we learned from the spilled emails, those same leaders and staffers did not believe she could properly or persuasively answer the debate questions without having written answers in front of her.
That was cheating, cheating, and more cheating, so no, Hillary did not win, Bernie really won.
Either candidate would have tried to cement in place the vast government over-reach the Obama administration had engaged in since taking power in 2008. The examples of that over-reach are too numerous and too severe to repetitiously list here, and if you are at all inquisitive, then you can do a quick internet search and learn for yourself about all of the illegal legal shenanigans, the daily bypassing of court orders, the ignoring of the laws and our Constitution.
All in the pursuit of amassing power and control.
And that today is what is driving so many people crazy. They were so close, so very very close to having that power and control, and Trump took it away from them.
And until yesterday, US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was one of those most aggrieved people, yelling and screaming and accusing and making all sorts of wild claims, easily gobbled up by the mainstream media.
Now it turns out, DWS is likely a criminal, illegally selling DNC data to fraudsters working on her staff!
Yup, those are today’s headlines in a few corners of the Internet where people are more interested in actual facts than in power and control.
And in those corners the sunlight is shining, and it looks awfully clear that DWS is going to jail alongside her two aides, one of whom was arrested yesterday while trying to flee to Pakistan, where he had just wired a lot of money.
Folks, this yelling and screaming is a giant sore loser attempt to cover up incredible amounts of corruption.
The lid is about to come off the worm can, and we are all about to look deep inside at the mass of seething slimy worms. And whatever your party affiliation or ideology, none of us are going to like what we see.
Even the fake protestors will take a breather, because what has been going on is both totally wrong, and it must end.
End of Summer, Beginning of Cool Fall Begs Question: How Do People Live in Hot Climates Year-Round?
Temperate environments offer everyone something: Hot, cold, cool, warm, damp, dry, etc., at any given time of the year. It is true that at some points on the calendar, the heat or cold there may be intense. But those moments are but a temporary blip. A week or two this way or that way. Better weather always awaits, not too far around the corner. In temperate climates, Spring and Fall are typically the most enjoyable times of the year to be outside, with moderate temperatures lulling us to sleep under blankets at night, and refreshing us with gentle warmth during the day.
The margins around Summer and Winter always promise something better, and are full of natural hope. When Winter ends, the world here begins to grow. Life! Anew!
When someone cheerfully says “Yes, we are moving to Florida,” I wonder what the hell they are thinking. Not even the Seminole Indians truly appreciated or enjoyed the brutal heat and humidity there. Until they were driven into the Everglades at first, and then off the land entirely by Europeans, the Seminoles daily used the coastal waters to cool off during the Summer heat. Natural air conditioning worked for a semi-nomadic, highly mobile society like theirs. Today? Good God y’all, the place is a sweat factory from May through October, and only livable during the winter months. It is 100% artificial living.
Yes, I understand, many Americans are now so delicately sensitive to cold that they must be surrounded by expensive artificial air conditioning nine months of the year in order to remove themselves from three months of cold up north.
What is lost there is a natural, innate resilience our forefathers enjoyed. An ability to put up with brief extremes and discomforts. One must naturally wonder what sort of character traits are bred into or out of a people so devoid of natural discomforts that they shoehorn themselves into an unnatural environment.
That said, I am right now listening to a political rally going on at the otherwise sedate and beautifully historic Dixon University Center two blocks away from here. Tired old saws through a bullhorn like “What do we want? Justice. Now” are disturbing Harrisburg’s one remaining nice neighborhood. Delicate little snowflake people there are demanding some special treatment or other which they have neither earned nor deserve. Apparently the artificial environment created for them by taxpayers and hard working Americans is insufficiently comfortable, and they want MORE, NOW! [, Mom]
Please go to Florida, fake protest people. We deal in real here. It’s a temperate zone, dontcha know?
And boy, does Hurricane Matthew now entering south Florida add a whole new meaning to “hot area.”
Is it time for civil disobedience and ignoring kook judicial holdings?
Civil disobedience, non-resistance obstructionism, and peaceful protests against clearly unfair laws and violent government agents is time-honored in America.
Civil disobedience works because it appeals to the higher mind, it appeals to the best, highest conscience in Western Civilization. You have to have an open mind to have civil disobedience work on your political views so that you vote for change from the status quo.
It won’t work in a Muslim country, where civil disobedience will just get you locked up and tortured, or summarily killed.
It did work for Ghandi in India because the 1940s British empire valued democracy and voting rights, and the public cry at home over images of British soldiers shooting peaceful protestors in Delhi’s public streets threatened to up-end political control at home.
Americans have successfully employed civil disobedience since the 1920s: Segregation laws, no voting rights for women, a lack of equal rights or opportunity across so many sectors of society… the causes were real and political changes were needed for America to live up to its promise.
And ain’t America an amazing place that it is designed to change and heal old wounds, to become a better place?
Because the original use of civil disobedience was so righteous, because so many of the laws being protested in the 1920s through the 1960s were so outrageously unjust, the behavior eventually took on a connotation of being above the law and always justified. In fact, over time even violence became justified in the name of Marxist versions of “justice,” and pro-violence slogans like “No Justice, No Peace” evolved.
Today, violent, fake civil disobedience has been employed by the “Occupy Wall Street” thugs, and by the violent criminals in Ferguson, Missouri. These events always start off as a routine, rote, formula civil disobedience act, and then they quickly devolve into destruction, arson, violence, beatings, attacks on bystanders….all in the name of some Marxist version of “justice.”
Inevitably, politically allied elected officials have begun to implement their jobs in a similar fashion. No matter what the law says, they ignore it, and make a big public deal about subverting the law. As if they are justified. They actually take pride in failing to implement the law as they are supposed to.
Examples of elected officials ignoring and subverting the law are a county clerk of courts issuing same-sex marriage licenses, despite Pennsylvania law saying it is illegal. Or Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane refusing to defend state laws, because she personally disagrees with them. Or California banning state judges from belonging to the Boy Scouts. Or the Obama administration willfully failing to implement immigration law. Or Harrisburg City mayor Eric Papenfuse refusing to rescind city ordinances that are plainly illegal under state preemption law, because Papenfuse holds certain personal views about guns.
This lawlessness by the very people entrusted with safeguarding and implementing the law is dangerous. These wayward officials stand on quicksand, because the basis of our republican form of democracy is the rule of law – equal application of the law, irrespective of what one personally believes.
If government officials begin ignoring laws they disagree with, and implementing law that was not voted into being by the consent of the voters, then the rule of law is over, it has ended. The glue that holds America together is corroded, and the whole edifice can come down.
But let’s ask why only one side of the political debate does this. We know they get away with this because the mainstream media protects them, but the MSM veil has been pierced by the Internet, so the flow of information is no longer completely bottled up by fellow travelers.
Put another way, why don’t other people, say people like American traditionalists, “conservatives,” engage in the same behavior?
Here is an example of what could be done: Last week a federal judge ruled that Arizona must issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. Never mind that these people are in America ILLEGALLY, the claims they make for their applications could be and often are fraudulent, and the cost of these services is unfairly covered by taxpayers.
Why don’t the good officials of Arizona simply ignore that judge’s insane ruling? That judge has no ability to actually make Arizona issue drivers licenses, and if I worked in Arizona government, or if I still worked in federal government and had something to do with allowing illegal immigrants in, I would simply ignore that judge’s crazy ruling, or the illegal commands of the occupant of the White House.
There, folks, how do you like the taste of that medicine now?
Think of the many kook, nakedly political judicial decisions that are handed down, contrary to law and policy. Why reward these dictatorial jurists by following their dictates? Why not simply ignore them? God knows, they are earning it.
Civil disobedience and official lawlessness is a game that everyone can play, and at some point the people who have been acting like adults will recognize they only stand to lose by following the rule of law while their opponents exploit their fidelity, and only by fighting fire with fire will they make it clear that everyone must follow and implement the law, no matter what their personal views are, or everyone loses.
Or, people can do it the old fashioned way, and work to get the law changed one vote at a time.