Fred Read: To the Barricades

I like to read Fred Reed as he writes about seeming everything.  Fred has led a misspent life, which gives him an excellent, if cynical, perspective.  His take on the current civil war is contained in his post To The Barricades: We Will At Least Be Less Bored. Fred writes:

Half the country, led by New York, wants to control, and does control, everything of importance to the other half. Everything is decided remotely: what your children learn in school, what you can’t say to them because they might tell their teachers; who you have to hire, with whom you have to associate, what religious practices are permitted, whether you can have a Christmas tree in the town square or sing carols on the public streets, whether you can defend yourself and your family. New York versus the Deplorables. The city holds the high cards.

Bitter conflicts force the taking of sides, often with people one does not like. For example, I think Trump is a horse’s ass, dangerous, naive, uninformed, and a thoroughgoing damned fool. I detest the KKK (which barely exists, but never mind) and disagree with the Alt-Right on many things. Yet when I look at the other side, the armed bands, the censorship, thought control, indoctrination, the re-writing of history, their media arm, the identity politics, the push for control, control, control—I think,“I’ll take Trump—gack–and certainly the Deplorables.” And of course if violence comes, it’s one or the other. You can’t reason with a mob armed with lengths of rebar.

Precisely so. In the real world, where you are unlikely to find a true conservative candidate, much less find a republican with a spine, one has to take what one can get. Given a choice of, as Fred says, New York, or Trump, I'll take Trump. If I have to pick sides, I guess the Deplorables are closer to my thinking than the control freaks of the Left.

The Left Forgets Its Own History

Why does the Left keep doubling down on gun control despite the fact that clubs, bats, and other weapons were used in Charlottesville, and an automobile was used to kill one person.  Indeed, vehicles have been used in Charlottesville and elsewhere, yet the Left seems to focus only on guns.  Today, Jeffrey T. Brown asks Does the Left Know Something's Coming Involving Guns? Although the Left keeps hinting that they are worried about the right, there has been no right wing gunmen so far. Indeed, it was a Bernie Sanders supporter that opened fire on Republican Whip Steve Scalise. With that history, and with the constant Left wing violence, it seems the people on the Right have been remarkably restrained.

 Brown asks further though:

What if they know something we don't? This sounds a little "out there," but we live in a time when what is going on beneath the surface dwarfs what we see as the end result of someone's planning. So what if the discordant calls for gun control are because those politicians, anarchists, and activists (though I repeat myself) have foreknowledge of some kind of planned escalation of their brand of "protest" and are setting the stage for disingenuous "I told you sos'? What if they have something of a timeline along which they either believe that things will happen or will make things happen, to escalate the blitzkrieg of media and hysteria by which they effect "change" – meaning a coup?

What if they and the media are in bed together on this, too, and have prepared their stories and narratives ahead of time? In Charlottesville, Trump was caught flat-footed but still gave an accurate response regarding hate on many sides, but Terry McAuliffe had a complete speech ready to go, condemning the left's shadowy enemies while omitting any mention of the Marxist combatants who came to do actual, physical harm. No one in the media batted an eye.

Brown further points out that:

The left, it seems, has orchestrated these fights. Their surrogates are not there to protest; they are there to provoke. They come armed, masked, and emboldened by the political support of the left. It's the Marxist left's goon squad, there to ensure that one side speaks, one side controls, and the other side stays quiet or is punished. Liberal mayors and governors seem disinterested in preventing the violence, even ahead of time. Police officers report, as in Baltimore and Charlottesville, that they were told to "stand down," though they knew that harm could have been prevented if they'd been allowed to do their jobs.

The Left, it seems is building toward an event, possibly one manufactured, as in Charlottesville, where someone will shoot and then all hell breaks loose. Just as at Kent State in 1968, a provocateur will shoot off a pistol, or a long gun, and turn what is a "peaceful" riot into a full blown deadly event with at least one person killed. As at Kent State, the "peaceful" protesters will have weapons staged to come out when the riot inevitably turns deadly, to do as much damage as they can. As at Charlottesville, the subsequent drum beat will turn a single death of someone who shouldn't have been there into a massacre.

So why is the Left doing this?  What do they gain from destroying the rule of law, from destroying the history of the Democrat party by destroying the statues of various Confederates?  Brown again has the answer:  

On the other hand, what if the crises don't happen? Well, then the left fabricates them. We saw this clearly in the days and weeks following the election, as dozens of leftists utterly made up hoaxes about being assaulted, or insulted, or seeing churches burn, none of which turned out to be true. What if, as we saw with the fake "Trump supporters are racist" meme, the left gets tired of waiting for an event that doesn't come and makes it happen? In this day and age, with the malice and insanity of the left on full display, who thinks this is not within the realm of possibility?

I hope I'm wrong, but the left is determined to continue the philosophical movements of the Obama years despite its loss. Leftists don't care about elections. They care about raw power, intimidation, disinformation, and corruption. The wealth of America is a goal well worth lying and cheating for if you're on the left. What's another constitutional right sacrificed? It's not as though they'll be around much longer anyway if they win.

This has all played out before. In those days, the "direct action" gang was called the Weathermen. Their decade of rioting and mayhem resulted in the election of Richard Nixon. As with Trump, the Left was gunning for Nixon from day one, which helped Nixon by making him look like the underdog. The Left eventually got rid of Nixon, because of his own fatal flaws, but history would be much different had the Left played by the rules. They wouldn't be playing out this replay if they remembered their own history.

On National Carry Reciprocity

Again, I am running up against a deadline, so there won't be an extended discussion.  I urge you to read Salena Zito's article at Townhall.com entitled Thank God He Was Carrying. Of course judges and prosecutors have special dispensation, as do police officers. Such people often make enemies by the very jobs they do, even if they are absolutely fair, honest, never make a mistake. But a lot of normal people make enemies who are unreasonable as well. We also deserve to carry and not just in our home states. National Carry Reciprocity is another important item the Congress is not passing because they are too focused on hating Trump. I urge them to get over Trump, and embrace the opportunity to begin returning the nation to its people.

Republicans Unmasked

I've got to run today, but please read Trump's Unintended Consequence: The Republican Party Reveals Itself, and it ain't pretty.

I've been a Republican since I first voted for Richard Nixon (sorry about that.)  I admit I have not often liked my choices, and this election was no different.  The problem has been that the Democrats keep moving Leftward, while I am staying put.  But if the Republicans can not see fit to repeal Obamacare, or give us meaningful tax reform, what good are they?  I intend to sit the next election out.  Or, as David Prentiss put it:

What is a nation who has been lied to by both parties supposed to do? What is the base of the GOP going to do?

I don’t know, but I do know I’ve never seen the center right base so disgusted and angry at its own. GOP: Trust me, the base hasn’t left Trump, but it has left you. It’s not official yet, but the avalanche is about to begin. The anger is going to boil over. Upon you. GOP: you’re not going to like it, but you have no one to blame but yourselves.

To the very small list of conservatives that fought the good fight: I apologize. But to the rest: You have become like the salt in the parable. Good for nothing.

I'm From the Government and I'm Here to Kill You

David Hardy of the blog Of Arms and the Law has a new book coming out entitle I'm From the Government, and I'm Here to Kill You, about horrible disasters visited on the American people by an often indifferent and incompetent government with no legal consequences whatsoever. You can pre-order the book at Amazon.

More on Charlottesville

Yesterday I was watching an HLN news babe excoriating President Trump for saying both sides were in the wrong, and then extolling the supposed Antifa "heroes."  I really had a hard time, as I saw the dust up as being a replay of the Nazis vs the Communists in 1930s Germany.  Neither side is in the right, and neither side is on the Right.  I yelled at my TV, but that really does no good, does it.

Derek Hunter has a post today at Townhall.com entitled  The Gathering Mob which makes the same point, and several others as well. Really, you should read the whole thing. My first thought was that if I took the most salient points and quoted them here, I would have to quote the entire article. None the less, let me quote just one piece, the then let you read the rest at Town Hall:

The term “alt-right” is used by those idiots to give themselves something to cling to and to seem larger than they are, and for the media to paint their political opponents as part of these monsters’ circle. It has no basis in logic.

The proper place for these creatures is on the far-left. They, like their kindred spirits who call themselves “Antifa,” seek complete government power to impose their will. Just as with the Bolshevik vs. Menshevik, totalitarians always will break into factions and fight each other for power. That’s what Charlottesville was.

Left-wing “journalists” have been tweeting a meme comparing Allied troops in World War II to the antifa in Charlottesville in an attempt to misdirect the public, to make them think people responsible for violence across the country are somehow heroes. An appropriate comparison would be to compare them to the Soviet troops. Show up to an antifa rally with an Israeli flag and see how that goes over.

Out of it, radical leftists, as always, were emboldened and took to the streets across the country, and violence and anti-police words and actions soon followed.

Indeed. Charlottesville was a false flag operation from beginning to end. The media had to move on from the "Russia, Russia, Russia" meme, and Charlottesville was its next thing. Did whoever funded it expect someone to drive a car into a crowd and kill someone? No, I don't think so. But at the same time, they knew if they could get these two groups together, surely something newsworthy would happen.  The media has been pushing this notion that Trump was somehow responsible, then running polls and reporting on the polls.  Its an old technique for creating news.  You can't believe what you hear or see anymore.

Keep your powder dry.

Charlottesville and the Bearing of False Witness

I was torn whether to say something about the firing by Google of Mr. Damore, or cover instead the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Google's firing of James Damore, a software engineer, and form all accounts, a brilliant analyst, is to be condemned.  If Google were any ordinary company, they could be as Leftist, Progressive, Communist, and Marxist as they please, with no consequence to anyone else.  But Google as a large monopoly, with access to everybody's search engine history.  Indeed. Google attempts to control what you find with its search algorithms, which try to "nudge" you toward their preferred outcome.  This is dangerous, as it suppresses free inquiry and free speech. I suspect that as Kurt Schlichter suggested here, Google should probably be broken up as a monopoly enterprise for the good of society. Go read Schlichter's article. Enuff said.

The other item, however, is more disturbing, as people were injured and one killed.  It is disturbing because conservatives and classical liberals are being wrapped up in the same group as the KKK, white supremacists, white nationalists, and the so-called alt right, The first time I even had heard of the alt right was during a Hillary Clinton speech. I had to look it up. I consider myself a classical liberal, who believes the Founders were inspired, and who works to return the governance of this nation to its Constitutional roots. As such I abhor both the white supremacists and Antifa equally. Indeed, I abhor identity politics in general, as it is a cheap attempt to gain votes for illegitimate causes that can not stand up to scrutiny. So, upon reading John Hawkins' article at Townhall.com entitled How the Liberal Media Created Charlottesville, I found the correct place to lay the blame. Of course, the immediate blame lies with both the White Nationalists (who at least were protesting with a permit), and with the Antifa movement, but they would not have felt emboldened to show their hatred and evil ideologies in public had it not been for the mainstream media.

Hawkins writes:

To begin with, the liberal media is almost entirely responsible for growing the Alt-Right merger of hate groups and internet trolls. Most people are well aware of the stifling political correctness that reached an apex under Barack Obama. People are sick and tired of being attacked and scolded by the humorless left-wing thought police every time they stray from the latest liberal doctrine. That created a large group of people who enjoyed tweaking social justice warriors and some of them realized the easiest way to do that was with racial slurs. Every time some doofus leaves a noose on a college campus or says the N-word, it’s treated like a national crisis. If you’re an anonymous troll who enjoys getting people to react to everything you say, that’s a FEATURE, not a bug. All you have to do is say something racially offensive and all these people who studiously try to ignore you will go out of their minds.

That racial element gave the Nazis, white supremacists and KKK mouth-breathers a way to connect with the more socially adept trolls making the Pepe the Frog memes. Of course, the media liberals fueled them as well with their hypocrisy. They painted EVERY white supporter of Donald Trump or the Republican Party as a racist even as they ignored and defended the vicious anti-white rhetoric that has become commonplace on the Left. Just to give you a quick example of that, there was a hashtag that trended on Twitter after the attack called #ThisIsNotUS. It started out as a way for white liberals to virtue signal, but it quickly turned into an all too typical attack on white people, America and Trump voters...

The mainstream media has used the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a source for the grouping of all these disparate groups as members of the alt right. That is like using your crazy uncle, who never had anything to do with them, as a source for your conspiracy theories about the Bilderbergers and the Tri Lateral Commission. The fact is that the White Nationalists and the Antifa movement are both leftists groups. After all, NAZI stands for National Socialist and the full name of the group was the National Socialist German Workers Party. They have nothing to do with conservatism or classical liberalism, as John Hawkins makes clear:

On the other hand, white supremacists are nothing on the Right. David Duke is a joke. Richard Spencer? Let me tell you a little story about Richard Spencer. I was walking around CPAC and noticed an enormous gaggle of media surrounding someone I didn’t recognize, who didn’t seem to be drawing a crowd of regular attendees. As it turns out, the massive group of media people weren’t following a big name. They were following Richard Spencer, who was later kicked out of the conference, presumably because the organizers never wanted him there in the first place.

Yet Richard Spencer, like David Duke before him, is treated like some kind of rock star by the media liberals even though he’s a nobody in the conservative movement. Why? Because they don’t care about conservative opinion. They don’t care about conservative views. They care about creating propaganda that paints the Right as a bunch of hood-wearing, Nazi-saluting scumbags. So, they treat Richard Spencer like a rock star.

This creates a sort of Kim Kardashian effect. Ninety five percent of any influence Spencer has comes from the fact that anything he does is a big deal to the media. Why were Spencer and Duke able to gather even 500 Tiki torch-waving idiots in Charlottesville? Because the media would cover everything they did with bated breath. It gave them a chance to feel important, to feel like they were making an impact. In fact, white supremacists have started to believe their own BS because they keep hearing it from the media. After fighting with Richard Spencer on Twitter, I still remember one of his fans claiming that white supremacists were an essential part of Trump getting elected. My response was….

“Yeah, you guys made a bunch of Holocaust memes & called people cucks and then you're all....’I'm helping.’”

But of course, they weren't helping at all. Many people, not knowing any better, probably viewed the endorsements of Trump by various white supremacists groups as reason to vote instead for Hillary. Trump's victory might have been a landslide except for the outsized media presence these groups have. Indeed, the whole media presence, and the emphasis on the alt right during the election may have been a false flag operation designed to drive votes toward Hillary, as I have noted already the fact that these groups are also Leftist. Trump may have been as surprised and appalled by these groups endorsement as everyone else was.

On the Left, perhaps, lying about people is considered acceptable behavior as long as it achieves your ends, but among conservatives it is called Bearing False Witness, and is a violation of God's commandments.  In a court room, it would be called perjury, and it must stop.