"I suppose we'll just have to abort Jason and Theresa, won't we?"

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The whitsun bride; a procession of children in a village street during Whitsun

Scene
Upscale house on Hamptons estate.
Players: Attractive middle-aged mother and father, parents of six children, having a glass of wine in the solarium.  She dressed in a gossamer silk dressing gown, he in casual dress, with cravat and smoking jacket.
About 8 PM, late spring with light, cool breeze ruffling the curtains.
Resuming an earlier conversation.

President Donald Trump, Heretic, Faces the Star Chamber

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Deplorable Men

I refer to his August 15 press conference where he had the unmitigated temerity to commit a heresy that cannot be forgiven.  He told the truth.  Worse, he spoke it directly to the high priests of the PC Marxist Church.  It took great courage, to be sure, but he must not go unpunished.

His Party brethren, including some closest to him, showed more discretion.  Not desiring to burn in Hell, they were quick to distance themselves from any deviation regarding church orthodoxy.  It was not lost on them that truth -- whether spoken of past or present -- is verboten.

While political correctness is cowardice masquerading as comity, it must be preserved.  How else to restore the good name of communism.  Shame on you, President Trump!

Deliver Us from Strange Children

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More and more I find myself taking a decidedly biblical view of the world.  A view informed by Old Testament wisdom, law and the Covenant.  That is especially true when I think of the Adolescent Rebellion of the 60's and 70's and the evils that followed (and continue to follow) in its wake.
I dwell also on the societal consequences of the interruption of generational continuity.  For America the break was, in the main, brought about WWII; for Europe (and broadly, Western social, literary, economic, academic and religious foundations) dissolutions were brought by the combination of World Wars.  Disillusion and cynicism, following great breakdowns of confidence in institutions, secular and divine.

Thank You, Donald Trump

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Mr. Obama, uncritically supported by the Democrat ship of fools who share his beliefs, regularly trots out some sanctimonious meme of Cultural Marxism, such as, "Americans are a [mindlessly, suicidally] tolerant people; it's WHO WE ARE!"  Despite his assertions, it is rapidly becoming apparent that opposing beliefs articulated by Donald Trump more accurately reflect WHO WE ARE.

Donald Trump: More Balls Than Sense. And That Ain't All Bad

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Trump's critics tell us a lot more about themselves than the man they criticize.  John McCain and his love child, Lindsay Graham head a long list of pussified Republicrats who see a threat in anyone who dares to commit the heresy of truth-telling in public.  Donald Trump has joined Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and (too few) others.  At least for the moment.

Is It Time, Yet, to Inquire Whether Our President is an Islamist?

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When I say "is it time,yet..." I mean, has the mountain of evidence from which we can infer the President's affinity for the Muslim enemies of the West achieved sufficient mass that we now dare to violate the canon of political correctness and broach the question.  Too harsh?  How about 'Fellow Traveler'?

Looking back on the foreign policy decisions taken by this administration (a.k.a. Mr. Obama), I cannot discover one that has not favored Islamists at the expense of America and the free world; not one.  

Federal Government Lurches Toward End-State Dysfunction

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Bloat and Mission Creep

End-state bureaucracies eventually crumble when four conditions obtain: 1. confusion about or deliberate perversion of mission (purpose, policy); 2. alienation of markets or constituents; 3. ever-expanding maintenance costs; and 4. institutional arrogance that forecloses adaptive change from within.
But even in a clearly moribund and declining state, inertia of scale may prolong their existence for long periods. In these times they are deceptively fragile and unable to survive crises of their own making.  That would seem to be the condition of several agencies of the federal government -- State, EPA, Justice, BATFE, Agriculture, Education, DHS and, most recently brought to public attention, CDC.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Glocks

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The Left seems to have convinced themselves that firearms have somehow acquired their own agency.  That they have the power to act independently of human beings.  Or, as Bob Owens says, in his entertaining article they are believed to have cargo cult properties that -- via magic -- take possession of persons who touch guns and cause them to make murder and mayhem.  But I find myself wondering if, instead, gun haters don't bring the "possession" to the gun and not the other way round.  Breaking that down, what people often bring to the gun is a combination of fear, hostility and the illusion of superiority.  I'll get to that later, but now I want to discuss the simple fear of guns.

There is no Serious Problem -- Social, Political or Economic -- that is not Either Caused by or Made Worse by Big Government

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The Course of Empire Destruction (Thos. Cole, 1836)

For a number of years now I have been posing the title statement as a question.  In print and in conversation.  Crickets and bullfrogs; the query might just as well have been rhetorical.  Few have responded, and no one has ever offered an apposite answer. Big-government types occasionally make an attempt, but only after they've changed the question to suit a prepared answer. The most common response, for example, is to reply that government does some things right, which I've never denied and which is entirely outside the scope of the question.

He's a Lying Son-of-a Bitch: Rotting the Soul of a Nation

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Pinocchio

The casual reader, seeing the title of this essay, will probably (and in short order) supply one or more names to fit the specification.  He may also expect the writer to name the best-known offender and his acolytes; he'd be wrong. In this essay I set out illustrate the general and alarming erosion of American civil society's moral and ethical standards.  Particularly in regard to the virtue of honesty in civil society, and by extension, government..

Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the Rule of Law (Part II)

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The Hydra Myth: a Fitting Metaphor for Comprehensive Reform

 A law that is not enforced is no law at all.

Immigration reform has become the enormous problem that it is today for a simple, obvious reason that generally escapes mention by media and lawmakers alike.  The failure of the rule of law.  If immigration laws had been rigorously enforced from, say, 1986, our current difficulties would not exist.  As in so many other areas (summarize the current government scandals as examples) enforcing existing law has become optional; the rule of law is largely subjected to the rule of men – the rule of power.  The inability of Republicans, in general, and conservatives in particular to understand this elemental fact goes a long way towards explaining the naivete of a Marco Rubio and his compatriots.  They understand the idea of conservatism, know the lyrics and the melody, and they consistently sing on key.  But it is one thing to understand an idea, and quite another to perceive the world as it is and apply conservative principles.  Consummate naivete presumes that progressives reciprocate in good faith.  A dangerous assumption.

The American Project Is Undone

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Humpty Dumpty

For many reasons I have not looked forward to writing this essay.   Some readers will surely view it as a pessimistic and panicky jeremiad; all Henny-Penny.  And I'd love to be wrong; I hope that my arguments will be found wanting and, if not rebutted definitively, at least convincingly.  My thesis is this: America has passed the tipping point in its long journey toward Marxist solipcism; that, barring the miraculous or the sudden emergence of a black swan, we cannot return to being a free society.

Fiscal Cliff: Let's Test Obama

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How Steep the Cliff; How Hard the Fall?

It comes to a choice, I think, between acute and chronic pain.

"Fiscal cliff" [1] ranks right up there with "shovel-ready jobs, reset button and pivoting..." as another simplistic and vacuous metaphor.  Nevertheless, the consequences of great tax increases paired with sharply reduced government spending should not be underestimated.  Another recession, bankruptcies, defense vulnerabilities and a probable downgrading of US credit seem all but certain.  But what if Republicans compromise with the administration in raising revenue through "taxing the rich"? [2]
What if they don't?

How Progressives Won

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Adding to the general confusion to be expected in a political rout is how questions are framed.  Establishment Republicans tend to put it this way: How did we lose?  Contrast the question with this essay's title.  I hope the reader will see what I see.

Mr. Obama: A Competent President

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Rope and Chains

If many people have styled President Obama as incompetent, they can be forgiven for their error; they are thinking that a robust economy and a position of strength in foreign policy are his objectives.  They are traditional Americans.  But seen from a Marxist point of view (the President's and that of his ardent Jacobin cohort) he has been extremely -- perhaps, spectacularly -- successful.  He has further divided America along  lines of race and class, hardened the ideology and dogma of the Left, increasingly marginalized capitalism in the public mind, and, by straining the economy to the point of collapse, he has set the stage for socialist revolution.  The uprising of the masses against the bourgeoisie that historicism demands.  He has succeeded beyond the dreams, so long unrealized, of Marxists planners who have so often been disappointed. [1]

Tea Party Terrorism

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Che Guevara

I was recently dismayed to learn that, as a Tea Party member, I am, per se, a terrorist.  Well, a potential terrorist anyway.  And that revelation on no less authority than the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). [1]

A report commissioned by DHS called Hot Spots of US Terrorism tells us exactly who the terrorists are:

Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.

Voter ID is Clearly Discriminatory

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Karl Marx

Laws that require careful verification of a voter's identity discriminate not so much against blacks, Hispanics or other ethnic groups and the poor as against an entire political class -- cheaters.  Known also as Democrats. [1]  Polls indicate that as many as 80% of the American public (including many of those said to be injured) favor stringent voter ID laws.  The Marxist-Progressive Left, however, behind lamentations and crocodile tears, stands in utter contempt of the righteous public will.  Citing a litany of imagined (and therefore real) abuses of helpless 'victims', they howl with feigned outrage.  If strawmen, in company with the dead, could vote, Marxists would never lose another election.

2012: Testing the American Narrative (Part II)

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As I said in Part I, this election -- more than most because of unusually clear contrasts -- will test the the American ethos, the narrative, the vision that tells us who we are.  For those of us who, contrary to a century of Marxist/progressive indoctrination, have managed somehow to maintain a reverence of founding principles, this is a make-or-break affair.  Many will say that ideas of the American Founders were but temporal signs of time and place and that we have evolved and matured in matters social, political and economic.  We have put away old ideologies.  And they may be correct in their assessment.

2012: Testing the American Narrative (Part I)

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Who are we and what were we as Americans?  Today, there are competing narratives.  Two, though divergent, are organic, in that they grew out of the American Revolution and the founding principles. A more recent narrative that emerged out of European Marxist philosophy is being grafted onto one of the native strains.

Human Nature

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Utopia

Human nature is imperfect, and it is unchangeable.  The failure of the naive to acknowledge and accept those two simple, yet elemental facts leads inevitably to grief.

But grief does not discourage idealists; when their schemes fail they see only error in planning and execution, never questioning the possibility of -- nor their own faith in -- achieving a perfect end-state.
 
Utopian Dreams
The belief that men are capable of creating a perfect society is an old one, attested in Biblical writings and in Plato's vision, articulated in his Republic.
That vision echoed through the Middle Ages and persisted, with growing momentum, into the current era.  Along the way it found expression in Thomas Moore's Utopia (most famously), in the writings of Rousseau and in the early codification of communist socialism by Marx and Engels in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism. [1]