Waving the Flag

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

So poor Giuliani has been gang jumped by the palace eunuchs mainstream media, for daring insinuate that perhaps Obama doesn’t love the US. This attack eunuchs thing is a new refinement. Most middle eastern potentates content themselves with having guarding eunuchs, but then we’re Americans and we’re nothing if not innovative.

You must understand the way the media is behaving is very familiar to me. It resembles nothing so much but a pack of village women, vaguely related by marriage and affinity, going into a flinging flutter over “what their Rudy said about our Barry.”

So the whole episode has assumed nostalgic overtones, reminded me of my childhood, and made me smile. Particularly because it resembles that time when it was revealed the pharmacist had a secret life, and we all pretended to be indignant along with his kin, but really, the entire village knew that he wasn’t… shall we say… in the petticoat line. His family were simply the last to know and their outrage at what had been obvious to the rest of us forever became the cherry on top of the farce.

Which brings us to the real point of this digression.

This is not whether a third generation red-diaper baby raised abroad, who by his own admission sought out communists and other America-hating communities loves his country or not, because well… for most of this country (over 50% according to a survey, and mind you these always skew left) the question is not a question and the fact that the man who can barely sit still through the pledge of allegiance, hates our founding documents and thinks we should grant people “positive rights” (like, oh, the USSR) is not overfond of us is not a surprise. I mean, he sat through “Goddamn America” and wrote in his premature autobiography (like a premature ejaculation but funnier) that if it came to a war between America and the Caliphate he’d side with the caliphate.

Love America? I wonder who the 47% are who thinks he does, and whether they’ve been out from under that rock for the last decade.

The matter is more… apropos, though, and it goes something like this “Why do leftists hate the very sight of the flag?”

They do, you know? It’s a very weird thing, to the point that if you put a flag out it serves as a crypto party identification.

I’m not saying democrats, mind. There is what I call a certain kitchen-table democrat, who listens only to the MSM and therefore thinks the democrats are the “reasonable” party. He’s perhaps not happy with them, but the MSM doesn’t label them “extremists” so they must be reasonable. So, week before the election, he hashes it out over the dinner table and decides to hold his nose and vote democrat again, because that Sarah Palin wants to establish a theocracy, and Paul Ryan flings grandmas off cliffs.

These people are mal-informed but not “real” leftists in the sense of “progressives” and they by and large love the country. (87% of them in fact, according to the same survey, which tells you the real size of the malignancy.)

But the real progressives can’t stand the sight of the flag. Some flew them the day their Barry was elected (I always wondered if it was a “don’t pound me, really.”) but never before and never again.

In fact, shortly after 9/11 when flags were everywhere my (I had some then) progressive friends were distinctly uncomfortable and a few went so far as to vent at being “revolted” by the flag-waving. The rest of us were comforted and vaguely cheered that our people still loved the nation and were reacting with unity and wound-binding.

And their Barry practically had to be held down and have a flag pinned on him when it was noticed he was the only candidate not wearing it.

Besides, don’t take my word for it. Wear a flag lapel pin to the next SF con fraught (always) with leftists and see the reactions you get, the wide-eyed stares, the frowns, the spittle-flecked rants (if you’re lucky.)

You’ll be informed that America is a nation of slave owners, exploiters, warmongers. The fact that in a real-world comparison we come out looking positively saintly in comparison to other nations doesn’t matter. Communism is preferable, if done right. (This time…) And they’re for peace. And Capitalism is as bad as communism if not worse because it fosters inequality and consumerism, and…

We don’t react that way to the sight of symbols of regimes we hate. TXRed admitted to having a USSR fur hat, and heck, I have considered one. And though I wouldn’t put it on my wall (I have a cold war injury. It really hurts when I think of communism) I can admire the “art” of the USSR from a kitchy pov.

We make fun, we get angry but we don’t RECOIL from the symbol like a vampire from a cross. (Usaian holy symbols, forever.)

Now there are various explanations for the vampire’s reaction. They range from the deeply theological, about vampires being possessed by a demon, and not human at all, to the more soft-pedaled, where they’re reminded they purchased death in life at the expense of eternal life, and can’t stand the symbol of the bargain they struck.

And there you have the heart of it, actually.

You see, the US constitution is one of liberty. Those “negative rights” that so incense their Barry are the recognition of “natural rights” every human being has, and which you can’t control without infringing. The “positive rights” Barry loves are actually a term for slavery. (No? How not?? “Universal healthcare” is lovely if it came down from the clouds fully formed. However, in this world we live in, it means the conscripting of doctors and nurses to work for money dictated by the government (or no money in some parts of the world) on pain of being killed or thrown in jail. The same with “universal housing” and all the other “Positive rights.” If they require a positive effort and work on another human beings part, they’re conscription and slavery.)

Negative, or natural rights require only the GOVERNMENT not violate them, and are consistent with a nation state that is free and minds its own business. (I’m not saying we have that, mind, only that it’s consistent.) Positive rights, like all slave regimes, require an empire and an ever widening net of conquests to provide slaves (by any other name) to provide those goodies.

BUT these poor people don’t understand liberty and they don’t understand minding your own business.

They bought, hook, line, sinker and tasty, tasty worm, the USSR propaganda that their was “universal” and “freedom” and that we were war mongers.

They’ve been told – indoctrinated, in their red, blood-tinted religion into – the idea that the choice is between Nazis and communists. And because we’re not communist, we must be Nazis. (This is like that East German creature who called me Fascist because I’m a libertarian. Surely you remember, from Hogan’s heroes: “Ve Haff vays to make you be free!”)

In this crazycakes spectrum and vision of the world, the only difference between the regimes is that the Nazis were nationalist and the Red Fascists were not.

This is a blatant lie, of course. The “internationalism” of the USSR always meant that the whole world would be one country, and that country would be Russia.

It is also accepted wisdom in most of the world, including Europe, where any display of affection for one’s homeland is viewed as a sign of impending fascism. (Which also causes them to dramatically misunderstand the US.)

So our poor progressives assume when we show any love for our country, we’re threatening to go on a conquest-rampage, throw minorities in camps and march in truly tasteless uniforms while goose-stepping.

The fact that both unnecessary wars and putting people in camps happened under their sainted co-religionist presidents escapes them totally. Probably because they know no real history.

Since we live in an age when the information IS available, and I’m a kind and caring person (coff) I propose we fly and wear the flag at every possible opportunity. When the rage-spittle ensues, we take the opportunity to lecture them back. And perhaps if they see enough flags, they’ll learn to use internet searches, who knows?

At any rate, their discomfort is not our fault. (Also, it’s funny!)

So fly the flag and enjoy it, and try not to smirk too loud at the would-be epileptic seizures of fury. If we’re all very lucky, maybe they’ll rage-quit the country. I volunteer to pay one non-return passage to Cuba for the first one who asks. It will hurt, but it’s for a good cause. They get to see what pseudo-non-nationalist socialism really is like.

And meanwhile, here in the land of the would-be free we have work to do.

In the end, we win, they lose. But liberty isn’t free.

We must rebuild a respect for our natural rights.  It will take time.  We’ve been marching the other way for 100 years.  (Goose-stepping too.)  We must write.  We must read.  We must educate.  We must turn this culture around.

Go to it.

357 thoughts on “Waving the Flag”

    1. Flag day at Worldcon. That would probably be enough to get me to go (I’ve been on the fence for a while). Alas, I will be back in San Diego working 12 hours shifts. Someone needs to go and show the flag.

        1. Sorry, but according to Tom Simon (who is an authority Authority) Canadians* aren’t welcome on this blog. This was news to most of us regular participants, but, well, what can we do after so strong and authoritative an edict? Perhaps if you simply keep quiet about your national preferences (We won’t ask if you don’t tell) and just participate as if the question isn’t relevant.

          As for Canadians being horrible, that has only really been apparent since y’all elected that horrid Stephen Harper as your chief politician and started rolling back the speech codes which made it a hate crime to honestly report what certain ethnic subgroups were saying. So long as you advocated an paternalistic national state with health insurance (as opposed to actual health care) and ruinously high taxation for all, the SJWs were mostly okay with you. They especially liked your peculiar locution of “First Nations” for the indigenous peoples of your provinces.

          *I am unsure if the proscription include Canadiens — still awaiting advisory opinions from Sr Simon.

                    2. In all fairness, Krispy Kreme’s are lousy doughnuts, too.

                      The hole is my favorite part of the doughnut, at least until they invent a low-carb, high-protein doughnut (maybe a bacon doughnut?)

                    4. Really, if we were to hold Canada responsible for something, it’d be the Calgary Flames. I mean, come on. Seriously? Why?

                      On the other hand, great ice wine, smuggled kindereggs, Great Big Sea, Corb Lund… they make up for the Flames. They do. Really.

                    5. I do like Great Big Sea. I also like La Bottine Souriante —

                      — and other Quebecois bands. But then my musical taste is notably idiosyncratic. One big plus for bands singing in (languages other than English) is that I am saved from knowing how jejune their lyrics are (that was my biggest complaint about South African band Johnny Clegg & Savuka; I liked their music but the lyrics made me want to eat a shotgun.)

                      BTW — my appreciation to Canucks for driving out the Acadiens, bequeathing Cajuns to the United States. We appreciate the donation, i guar-an-tee.

                    6. Personally, I like Krispy Kreme, but mostly when you get them right out of the frier/glazer, so they’re still warm and soft and you can practically slurp them up….

                      As for Canada, I am grateful for Rush and Barenaked Ladies.

                    7. On Johnny Clegg & Savuka: the first few albums, the english lyrics are intentionally harmless-on-the-surface. The more Zulu culture you know, the more sly, devious, and outright calling for revolution the lyrics become. (How to try to avoid being outright banned by the censor boards of the apartheid government.)

                      For example, in one song: “I see my cattle on the hills” – The line refers to the cattle-hide shields war impis used, painted in sub-tribe colors, moving in units as they go to war.

                    8. It’s 4:52 in the morning – I confuse later Savuka with earlier Juluka. I strongly recommend his earlier band, Juluka. It’s a lot, lot less pop-sounding, a lot more layered, a lot more viciously slip-the-knife-and-twist to the apartheid government.

                      For example, Peter has a love-hate relationship with the song “On the road to Mdansante.” It’s a bright, catchy tune… but the lyrics are referencing a burned-out taxi bus where everyone on board was killed, on the side of a major road. And he still tears up, because he didn’t see the bus Johnny Clegg was singing about – but he saw, and smelled, all too many of the same, and lost too many friends to “mud-colored dusty blood / broken teeth and a rifle butt.”

              2. I’ll take the hit for that one. I’m from Montreal, where the brewery is (now why they even bother with the Molson label recipes when the Rickard’s stuff is so much better, I’ll never know)

            3. Sorry — I didn’t know either until your fellow countryman, Tom Simon, told us all last week:

              You’ve made it perfectly clear to me that as a detested Non-American, I am not welcome here. My mistake for ever coming here in the first place. I didn’t know I was in a weird-arse topsy-turvy world where truth and falsehood were determined by citizenship.
              https://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/02/20/a-passion-for-cubbyholes/#comment-244411

              It was news to me — heck, I didn’t even know he was foreign until his outburst. Looking back, i don’t see him claiming to be Canadian, so it might be I mistook somebody else’s identification of him. Certainly he was impolite as all get out, so mebbe he was Australian. 😉

              He claimed to be an editor at Abyss and Apex magazine, and while identified as such at their site (abyssapexzine[DOT]com/about-us/ — BTW, his rudeness should not be held against the magazine; we rarely have much responsibility over who are our co-workers) my quick exploration did not reveal any identification of their locus. I notice a very nice review of a couple items by Brad Torgersen, so that ought earn them some benefit of the doubt.

              I also note that while he was apparently highly disturbed —

              I’m not going to teach you to read. That’s not my job, any more than it is my job to tell you the difference between Apex magazine and Abyss and Apex. (I’m on the staff of the latter. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that, since you all seem to think it’s OK to go into random rabid attack weasel mode against A&A over a story that we did not publish.)

              — over a minor confusion of Sarah’s memory even though the problem seems common enough for Wiki to note it in their opening:

              The magazine’s title frequently gets confused with Jason Sizemore’s Apex Magazine, even though the two magazines are very different. Apex will explore dark science fiction and horror; while Abyss & Apex publishes somewhat dark fiction, they will not publish horror.

              so perhaps it is best we abide by this blog’s policy of disliking people based upon their individual actions rather than resorting to the SJW* habit of disliking folks based upon presumed affiliation.

              *See what I did there?

          3. But … but … but …

            They do have:
            rocks and trees,
            and trees and rocks,
            and rocks and trees,
            and trees and rocks,
            and rocks and trees,
            and waaaa-ter.

            1. Granted, Canada is really big

              … we can still stand proudly cause Canada’s really big

              We’re the second largest country on this planet Earth
              And if Russia keeps on shrinking, then soon we’ll be first
              (as long as we keep Quebec)

              The USA has tanks
              And Switzerland has banks
              They can keep them thanks
              They just don’t amount
              Cause when you get down to it
              You’ll find out what the truth is
              It isn’t what you do with it
              It’s the size that counts!

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOM-TmZBzZo

              And without their contributions to American theatre, where would be? We’d be Shatner-less, that’s where! We’d have no Shania, no Bachman–Turner Overdrive, no Justin Bieber, no Leonard Cohen, no Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Pamela Anderson, Michael Cera, Tommy Chong (wha??!!!) nor Howie Mandel, Ryan Reynolds and Seth Rogen. Even Nathan Fillion is an import from the Great White North.

              1. You forgot Grace Park, which is a crime worth the hanging penalty. But I might forgive you this one time.

                1. Mmmm, Grace Park. Makes me wish I could get a Six Pack. 🙂

                  (What’s that popping sound? The veins in the foreheads of a thousand SJW lurkers….)

              3. Perhaps–perhaps! Fillion and Shatner make up for Seth Rogen and Mike Myers.
                Nothing can make up for the export of Justin Bieber to the United States–except, perhaps, putting Quebec in charge of Canada.

        2. Who ever thought Canadians were horrible? You’ve been great neighbors for years! The number of times Mounties have patiently started to explain to Alaskans that the speed limits are in kph, not mph.. only to realize we’re not tourists in rentals and say “Oh, you’re trying to make it back across the border with groceries before it closes for the night? BE CAREFUL!”

          Seriously, y’all have got the most relaxed border guards, ever. Who laugh when they see an Alaskan with groceries stuffed in every inch of the car hauling ass for the border three minutes before close. And tease us that any later and we’d have had to do an illegal border crossing, eh?

          1. My experience with Canadian Border guards is the opposite, but that was at the Blaine Washington crossing. A friend of mine teaches robotics to a middle-school class, and I happened to have a boatload of leftover C-sized NiCad batteries from my BattleBots days. The plan was to donate them for the use of his class.

            Now I had gotten them for free from a fellow who works for a medical device company. When one cell in a backup battery pack in a medical device goes bad, they’re all considered bad. Now they had been stacking up in a storeroom because they didn’t want to deal with the disposal fees, when one fellow thought of the bright idea of giving them away to Robot Builders, the shipping was FAR less than the disposal cost. Win/Win.

            So when the bitchy border guard asked me if I was bringing anything in, my natural inclination to someone with a badge and the authority to throw me in the pokey was to tell the truth. Well, the truth didn’t compute for her. She wanted to know what they were worth, and “Nothing, they were free” is not a valid entry into her computer. and the more I explained the above to her, the more skeptical she became. Finally, sick of being browbeaten (if I thought they were worth what they would cost new, I wouldn’t be giving them away.) I said “Fine, a Dollar each.”

            Then she had the nerve to say “There, that wasn’t so hard,” and then made an entry in her computer and told me that I’d used up my one time bringing something into the country without a receipt. If I’d known that I had a freebie, I would have made better use of it.

            The harassment cast a pall over my whole visit. And when Mike gave me some surplus stuff his school was getting rid of (Oscilloscope! Sweet!) he made sure to write me a receipt on the school letterhead.

            The US border guards didn’t care to see it and waved me through.

            I haven’t been back since.

            1. On entering Canada from Detroit I absolutely enjoyed the experience. This was pre-911 and the world was much more relaxed. I was driving when we crossed, The Spouse at my side, The Daughter in the back. The border guard looked in the cabin of the sedan, and asked me if I had anything to declare. I asked what kind of things needed to be declared. After reciting a pedestrian list of contraband items like guns and drugs, with a sparkle in his eye and an obvious sense of humor he added something like, and any dead bodies you just might have in the trunk. I assured him we had none of that and he waved us on.

          3. Why not, if it’s your home’s flag go for it. Nationalism from U.S. and Western nations peeve them. The U.S. flag nearly gets the most vitriolic reaction, the only one that gets it worse is Israel’s.

          1. Apparently the pattern used to be called “New Gunner Girls” but that supposedly has changed to “Matt Taylor Astronaut”. You can back order the shirts at Alohaland.com. Also, I found the fabric at J&O Fabrics as “All Fired Up: Brite”.

            The Google-fu is strong with me today. Now, if I got my html tags right…

            1. we are not happy with Alohaland we ordered shirts the first day. No shirts, we cannot get the fabric we requested no communications. We would not recommend them now

              1. I have the fabric. I also have a list of male friends and an adoptive grandson to make shirts for. That’s right, Wee Dave gets to cosplay a rocket scientist at LC.

                    1. We’ll be sure to get a picture. That way, when he outgrows it, we can frame it and the pic and hang it on his wall. Then, when he turns into a teenager and gets embarrassed of it, I can hang it up in my office.

            2. Or, if you’re really lucky, you can score one of the ones by Elly Prizeman, who made Matt Taylor’s shirt. She’s been busy making more, and has one in a woman’s cut as well. The Irony is overpowering.

              2. If I were in her shoes, I’d take a photo of myself wearing one of those shirts, with a computer screen in the background showing my backlog of shirt orders and an estimate of just how much money I’d make by the time I filled all those orders. Then I’d turn that photo into a postcard, and mail it to Rose Eveleth with a note, “Thank you for making all this possible. Your help in growing my business is greatly appreciated.”

                1. Based on this comment, I tweeted that very suggestion to her, well, actually suggesting sending Rose Eveleth one of her new lady’s shirts as a thank you for making it possible.

                  She faved the tweet, so I guess she likes the idea.

              3. The Elly Prizeman shirt I bought is of high quality. It costs GBP 99 for shirt + shipping to the US (=$150 ish) so it isn’;t cheap, but she didn’t screw up on the quality

    2. A few years ago at MileHiCon, I was in the dealer room as one of the dealers explained an art show acquisition to a friend. It was a small painting of a tiny island dominated by a single, massive tree. He was pointing to part of the tree and said, “… and this is the branch we’re going to hang Bush on after the revolution.”

      As I recall, I *did* wear my US flag lapel pin that year, so he may have seen it and been trolling me.

      I suspect not, though.

      1. At Lunacon 1981, people were wearing “Bush in ’81’ buttons. Good clean fun.

        Of course, these are the people who are constantly ginning up alleged “death threats”.

      2. always said by the same people who think guns are icky and evil so they’d never own them … going to be a short “revolution” (they keep using that word …)

                  1. Drinks no. If you give her a drink it is date rape, if you tell her no drink, it is a microagression of blaming the victim. Either way, simply by existing you create a hostile environment. And don’t dare mention gubs, the SJWs will swoon.

            2. You really are an Evil Queen of Evil.
              I demand equal time for gubs!
              Seriously, sweetie, that’s not a door I think you should have opened.
              Edit out your own gubs if you will, but best to let the rest of us (myself sadly included) be hoist upon our own petardy gubs.

            1. Umm, that’s “pedophile”. A pederast is…. well, if you don’t know, you don’t want to. And my comment would be neutered.

              1. No, I considered pedophile but wanted the stronger (if slightly less accurate) term to better express my view of a “parent-figure” who abuses the trust inherent in their position to exploit an innocent.

                OTOH, I frequently chortle on the many reminders of the trick Dashiell Hammett succeeded in, convincing a large portion of the world that “gunsel” was a term equivalent to gunman, such that even those most adamantly offended at deployment of the (rhymes with hag)-word don’t hesitate to deploy gunsel.

                  1. Briefly, courtesy of the late and greatly missed William Safire:

                    Carvilification

                    In his book ”Stickin’: The Case for Loyalty,” James Carville seemed pleased that he had been called ”Clinton’s gunsel” by the columnist Richard Cohen. ”I’m sure I am one,” the Clinton loyalist and henchman observed in a footnote. ”I just don’t know what it is.”

                    Filling those voids in vocabulary is the scholarly public service demanded by readers of this column.

                    American moviegoers first became familiar with the word when spoken by Humphrey Bogart, playing Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled private detective, Sam Spade, in ”The Maltese Falcon.” Bogie looked contemptuously at the young bodyguard played by Elisha Cook Jr. and told Sydney Greenstreet, ”Keep that gunsel away from me.”

                    Most readers of Black Mask magazine in 1929, where the story first appeared, and moviegoers in the 1940’s thought that gunsel was a variant of ”gunman.” It is not; in a 1965 article, the mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner revealed why Hammett used it.

                    The editor of Black Mask, Joseph Shaw, was on guard against the use of vulgarisms by his writers. Hammett, eager to slip one by, had a character describe his activity as ”on the gooseberry lay,” tramp lingo for ”stealing clothes from clotheslines,” its connotation larcenous but not vulgar.

                    ”Shaw wrote Hammett telling him that he was deleting the ‘gooseberry lay’ from the story,” Gardner recalled, ”and that Black Mask would never publish anything like that. But he left the word gunsel because Hammett had used it so casually that Shaw took it for granted that the word pertained to a hired gunman. Actually, gunsel, or gonzel, is a very naughty word with no relation whatever to a bodyguard.”

                    The term in tramp slang is derived from the Yiddish gendzl, or ”gosling”; the young goose symbolized a homosexual boy. An earlier use was defined in a 1933 American Speech as ”Gonzel, Catamite” (a corruption of the name of Jupiter’s cupbearer, Ganymede).

                    ”All the writers of the hard-boiled school of realism,” noted Gardner, ”started talking about a gunsel as the equivalent of a gunman. . . . The aftereffects of that joke are still seen in American murder stories.”

                    And in columns by pundits who mean no such thing. And in books by impervious loyalists.

                    1. That…is an awesome story. I must now find a way to sneak “gunsel” into my own work as a stealth pun/insult…

  2. On September 12th, I goggled at the spectacle of people who on September 10th were calling ME a “racist imperialist warmonger” cheering on the (literal) flag-waving, and yelling after Bush’s speech “Yay, we’re going after them!”
    It did not take them long, of course, to swap back into Bush Is the Devil mode. As More says in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, we can only hope that when their heads are finished turning, their faces are to the front again.

  3. One of the consequences of wealth is that you no longer know what has value, and tend to value the wrong things. And if you personally can afford something, there is the tendency to assume that everyone can–and should. So we have the logic of “America is rich enough to provide everyone free heathcare” without the understanding that there is nothing free, and spending money in one place means you can’t spend it somewhere else.

    But not to worry–their solution is to print more money, and borrow even more. For people who are such zero-sum economists, they don’t seem to understand that money doesn’t just appear when they wish for it.

    1. You may be on to something there. Most people in this country have no concept of “we ran out” for medical goods. “Can’t afford” or “insurance won’t cover”, yes, but the medicine is *there*. As opposed to third world countries where there IS NO MEDICINE even if you can pay for it.

    2. America is not rich because America doesn’t own anything.

      Leftists are fond of comparing the Leviathan’s debt to the GDP. I point out that means we are all slaves. What matters is the Leviathan’s assets, not the country’s. Just as if I went bankrupt, the GDP would not matter at all.

      Draws out some real crazies sometimes. The “move to Somalia” card is popular. Though one commenter lately argued that he had the right to everything another person owned as soon as he had the votes or guns to enforce it.

        1. Point out that Somalia has improved by most metrics since it lost its socialist state and they are not happy.

      2. “Though one commenter lately argued that he had the right to everything another person owned as soon as he had the votes or guns to enforce it.”

        The way the USA is set up right now, he does.

        Note that this is not the way it was supposed to be under the Constitution of 1787. It is, however, the way that the Universe works most of the time. You possess only those “rights” that you are willing and able to defend. Ask any deer: it has a “right” to life only as long as it can outrun or outfight the wolves.

          2. And I assume that the irony that the ultimate result of his position was that agents at his command would be shooting you completely escaped his notice.
            All taxation is theft at the point of a gun. Accepting a certain level of such as the price paid for living in a society makes the practice no less so.
            Think not? Fine, then just make all tax payments voluntary, and we’ll see how that works.

            1. There was a online who insisted that taxes could not be “coercion” because “Otherwise you could say that the grocery store coerces you into buying food.” He had no coherent response to my observations that C-Town does not REQUIRE me to buy from them, or decide on what “quota” I have to spend on their goods, or forbid me to shop at Fiesta Market down the street.

              1. Yeah, I’ve heard that argument before.

                What tickles me are the morons who still try to argue that paying income taxes are “voluntary”. I mean, if it’s voluntary, why do I end up in prison if I fail to pay them?

                1. Ever consider that the people who claim paying income tax is voluntary are comparably (albeit inversely) flexible in their definitions of rape? It is as if they have only the vaguest idea of what “involuntary” means and cut and shape it to fit their needs of the moment.

                  Of course, they do that with most words, don’t they? Look at the administration’s justification of vetoing the Keystone pipeline for not following the proper process; now look at the passage of Obamacare through parliamentary loopholes, the executive amnesty to millions of people who immigrated to America without regard to our laws, procedures or naturalization rituals, and a few hundred more such imperious diktats.

                  All this from the party that denounced George W Bush as imperial.

            2. “All taxation is theft at the point of a gun. Accepting a certain level of such as the price paid for living in a society makes the practice no less so.”

              That’s an awfully black-and-white view of the world, IMHO. Also, don’t forget that the USA once tried having a government that didn’t have the power to tax. It was called “the Articles of Confederation,” and it didn’t last very long. Taxes are a necessary evil – that is, I agree they’re evil and I’d prefer not to have to pay them, but I recognize that it’s necessary to do so.

              Now, how much we should be taxed, and how that money should be spent — those are entirely different subjects. 😉

              1. How is insisting on truth “black and white?” All taxation is theft at the point of a gun. The fact that we (generally) all agree that some level of such is necessary and probably even good, doesn’t make it something else.

                It’s sort of like a lot of the fascist left who publicly call for harassment of people for “bad think” and when you point out that this is fascist totalitarian behavior they insist that since they only target *bad* people that it can’t be. Words fail to have meaning at all anymore. If a certain word (like fascist) has a negative connotation (and it does) and if what they are doing is by definition “good” because they’re only sending the thought police after bad people… what they do can’t possibly be defined by a “bad” word like “fascism”.

                Taxes are theft at the point of a gun. They aren’t some sort of voluntary “passing the hat” about. The guy in the parking lot who tells a yarn about how his dad in hospice just needs a cigarette and his check doesn’t come until Thursday is more honest than taxes. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have taxes, but we should at least understand what they *are* so that we don’t start pretending (as we do) that the money comes from no where and is taken from no one.

                1. ‘How is insisting on truth “black and white?” ‘

                  You’re not insisting on truth. You’re making a statement of opinion and claiming it’s truth.

                  “Taxes are theft at the point of a gun.”

                  Theft is by definition the unlawful taking of property. Taxation isn’t unlawful. Claiming that two obviously-different concepts are “really” the same doesn’t help your position. At least, not in my eyes. I think the current system of taxation in the USA is grossly unfair in a lot of ways, and that the IRS has entirely too much power. Also that we’d be far better off if we drastically cut both taxes and the size of government. But when I hear “taxation equals theft,” the first thing I think is “this person doesn’t live in the real world.” No offense intended, and I hope none is taken, but that’s the impression I get.

                  Let me ask you directly: if you were dictator for a day, with the power to put your ideas on taxation into practice, what would you do?

                  1. Really?

                    The definition via dictionary.com is:

                    the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.

                    Note the word here isn’t “unlawful” but “wrongful”. Now, I’m sure there are legal dictionaries that define it the way you do, but that’s irrelevant. You see, we’re not attorneys. We’re regular citizens who define things in the manner of regular citizens.

                    Theft, in this instance, may be necessary. No one is arguing that here. There are regular commenters who might, but they haven’t put themselves into this conversation just yet. Those who have, agree that it’s necessary. However, the manner in which those taxes are collected, penalties for non-payment, and a number of other factors easily can be interpreted to be “wrongful” by individuals. A number of them, actually. Few would argue that if I approached you with a gun and demanded a portion of your money, I’m a thief. However, if I have a badge that declares me an agent of the IRS, it’s not somehow justified?

                    It is theft. It may be a necessary evil, but it does not negate the evil of the act.

                    1. Merriem-Webster defines “theft” as
                      a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
                      b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

                      “We’re regular citizens who define things in the manner of regular citizens.”

                      Most of the regular citizens I know define “taxes” the way I do, not the way you do.

                      “However, if I have a badge that declares me an agent of the IRS, it’s not somehow justified?”

                      If and only if you are acting within the scope of your legal duties, then yes, it’s justified.

                      “It is theft. It may be a necessary evil, but it does not negate the evil of the act.”

                      Maybe this is the heart of our disagreement: to me, “evil” and “illegal” are not synonymous, and never will be. There are a lot of things a government does that would be illegal if a private citizen did them. As one example, government can imprison you upon conviction of a crime. If a private citizen did that, it would be kidnapping. But the government has to be able to do it, because a government that can’t do it is not a viable government at all. Do you disagree with that? Do you believe a large human society could function without a government that had the power to enforce its laws?

                      I react the same way to someone who says “taxes = theft” as I do to someone who says “jail = kidnapping.”

                    2. No one has said that taxes are “illegal”, and it’s probably a good idea to go back and study what people have said. We have called them theft, but at no point illegal. In fact, prior to this post on the discussion, you were the only one to use the word “illegal” on this subject.

                      As for your argument regarding kidnapping, that’s nothing more than your attempt to change the topic of discussion to something I have no interest in delving into due to the idiocy of the topic.

                    3. George Harrison nailed it in the song Taxman. My favorite verse:
                      “My advice to those who die
                      Declare the pennies on your eyes
                      ‘Cause I’m the taxman. Yeah, I’m the taxman.”

                    4. T.L., your last comment has no ‘reply’ link in my browser, so I’m replying here instead.

                      “We have called them theft, but at no point illegal.”

                      Excuse me? You think you can use the word “theft” without necessarily implying “illegal?”

                      Wow. I thought only creationists and other moonbats could achieve that level of linguistic dissonance. I’m deeply surprised and troubled to find it here.

                    5. Wow. Really?

                      OK, I’ll explain this too you since apparently you’re unable to understand some basic concepts.

                      First, can theft be legal? An argument can be used to argue that it is. For example, the seizure of private property so it could be given to a private entity in New London, Conn several years ago. Yes, SCOTUS argued that the increased tax benefit justified the use of imminent domain, but it was the wrongful taking of private property. Even members of the court have said that if the case was presented to them today, they would have decided differently.

                      This illustrates that theft does not automatically mean illegal. In fact, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of examples of people using legal means to screw people over financially.

                      Now, let’s also take a look at an environment absent laws. Say, for example, Somalia. If a group of armed men arrive at your home and relieve you of your property, it is theft. This is despite the absence of any laws stating it is such. Why? Because it is the wrongful taking of your private property.

                      Honestly, I’m surprised I needed to specify it to such detail. Usually, people here don’t have a problem understanding concepts like this.

                  2. >>Theft is by definition the unlawful taking of property. Taxation isn’t unlawful.<<

                    Wanna play that, do you? I refer you to the definitions of taxes in the Constitution, the case United States v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution (not to mention the Ninth), and ask you to 'splain to me exactly how, the 16th Amendment notwithstanding, the Federal Income Tax — or ANY income tax, for that matter — is lawful?

                    M

                    1. “I … ask you to ‘splain to me exactly how, the 16th Amendment notwithstanding, the Federal Income Tax — or ANY income tax, for that matter — is lawful?”

                      I could give you a lawyer’s answer, but I won’t waste breath or time defending something I think was a mistake, whether it be the 16th Amendment, the 17th Amendment, or the atrocious decision Wickard v. Filburn. Personally, I’d love to see the 16th Amendment repealed and the income tax thrown out. I consider the 16th Amendment to be one of the largest steps toward destroying the superb system of government that the Founders created.

                2. IMO “All taxation is theft at the point of a gun” implies that “nobody should approve of it”.

                  While in the real world, many don’t like taxes they are still willing to pay taxes and don’t “think of taxation as theft”.

                  Especially when many are willing to pay taxes for a specific reason.

                  IE when they approve of what the tax is intended for.

                3. How is insisting on truth “black and white?” All taxation is theft at the point of a gun. The fact that we (generally) all agree that some level of such is necessary and probably even good, doesn’t make it something else.

                  When there’s quite a number of reasonable disagreements about categorization.

                  The phrase “all taxation is theft at the point of a gun” identifies your philosophical standpoint, but it’s not a basic truth.

                  It makes it very clear that you do not draw a distinction between “pay for the agreed on government or leave” and “give me your property or I will kill you,” but it is not actually Truth.

                  It’s, watchamacall it, a starting assumption. Axiom? You assume it’s true.

          3. “This commenter was very unhappy at the notion of our just shooting him.”

            Yeah, it’s a lot easier to hold positions like that when you believe you’ll be the one behind the gun, and never the one in front of it.

      3. …he had the right to everything another person owned as soon as he had the votes or guns to enforce it…

        I beg to differ. While one might well be able to take the items from any person through government agency or by force, but this does not mean he ever had the rights to them. The thief may well achieve possession of what he steals, but it that has nothing to do with rights.

          2. She can’t sit down while waving the flag — she’d fall right over!

            That thar is an almighty big flag she’s waving.

      4. Such folk clearly signal fundamental issues by mistaking “having the Right” to something as having the Power to take it.

        Such Might makes Right logic follows from Mao’s observation about power flowing from the barrel of a gun, but it does not convey Rights. Indeed, it is written in our Founding Documents that the only legitimate basis for government id protection of our Rights from those who would abuse Power.

        We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
        http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

        Emphasis added.

        Read the whole thing.

        1. There was a cartoon character on my FB page arguing that property ownership was a “social consctruct.” Very. As in even my cats get “this is mine” and enforce it (usually by pissing on it.) Every human “society” enforced it. But he thinks he’s making a point about a propriety-less society being more peaceful. he’s right in that too. The grave is a very peaceful place.

          1. Hey, if property is a social construct, then I’m curious what kind of car he drives. After all, he shouldn’t mind if I hotwire it and take it for a spin instead, right?

            1. Why bother? It’ll be a Volvo, (definitely not a P1800!) or something so small you need one for the other foot. Probably a Pius (spelling intended).

              1. Nah, it would be worth it just to make his brain explode when he complains that someone stole HIS car that since property is just a social construct, I merely shifted the construct for him.

                Yes, it would actually be worth the jail time. 😀

                1. I *heart* my Subaru. Room enough for lots and lots of gun cases and a cooler of food, roof rack that’ll hold a canoe or lumber, four-wheel drive and pretty high clearance that’ll get to “Really? This is the shoot location? Downrange will shift according to where the cows wander… You want the 150-yard range open, YOU go tango with the bull.”

                  That said, I actually lost it when I went to Whole Paycheck’s parking garage, and had to use the remote keyfob to figure out which Subie was mine. Scary. I now have an Operation Migration bumper sticker to prevent that (and I generally stay away from Whole Paycheck, but lo, its cheese counter, it does call to me.) If some other interesting Subie owner in Nashville decides to start supporting experimental aircraft teaching endangered whooping cranes how to migrate, then I’ll add the “I read Baen’d Books” bumper sticker, and worry mildly about getting keyed.

                  1. Hunh. My primary association with Subarus is due to a decade listening to Dr. Demento,

                    Funny how many conservatives worry about Progs keying cars, isn’t it? I don’t read many of their sites, but can’t ever recall hearing any of them express serious concern for such minor vandalism.

                    1. Of course not.

                      You see, they’re more worried about us flipping out and killing them. Not because of any actual threats, mind you. And not because of any history of such actions either.

                      No, it’s because they know what they would do if they had guns, and projection is a mother.

                  2. I have a ’92 Loyale that’s almost up to 300,000 miles. I love the car, and it’s still running strong, but I kinda have my eye on a red BRZ…..

                    1. the secret to the BRZ/Scion is they installed the Prius tires on it for gas mileage reasons. so it has little traction for being a “sports car” and having two wheel drive to the rear only, gets very entertaining when driven with enthusiasm.
                      I always kinda liked the right-hand drive post office special Legacy wagon and would feed it a WRX spec motor for fun and games

                  3. That would require the average Subaru driver reading enough for pleasure to know what Baen is.

                    (This isn’t because they’re dumb, it’s because they tend to just not read.)

                    Going to WF is kind of like having a Subaru– something a lot of folks do to make a statement, and something we do in spite of possible associations.
                    So far, the only reason I’ve won the “we’re not getting a subaru” arguments with my husband is because he’s noticed how some of the Seattle folks drive, and that they’re always in the subaru he’d like.

                    2. So you’re also not getting a BMW, and Audi, a Lexus, or a Mercedes C-Class? Just sayin’s all.

                      M

                    3. Perhaps you should make sure you understand what you are responding to before you “just say” something. From your response, you have no idea.

                    4. Foxfier wants to shut down the internetz!!!!

                      Such a standard as proposed would effectively eradicate nearly 90% of internet commentary/comments. More if we adopt a strict standard of “understand” as the metric.

            2. I’m wondering why I am looking at a significant tax bill for my “social constructs” and debating whether I should shovel the half foot of snow from the sidewalks in front of my largest “social construct” so that nobody slips, falls and sues my “social construct” away from me.

              1. Funny how that seems to be the way it always shakes out.

                These are the people who rarely understand that the rules they support will be applied to them as well.

                1. It seems to be related to the teen’s ‘it’ll never happen to me’ attitude regarding anything bad, or even inconvenient, in life.

          2. …for nothing did we bring into the world — it is manifest that we are able to carry nothing out;…
            (1 Timothy 6:7 – Young’s Literal Translation)

            1. I don’t like disputing Scripture, but I came into this world with an attitude and I expect to leave the same way.

          3. It has long been my observation that those most vociferously advocating for a community pot are also prone to taking more out that they put in.

            A few parasites can be tolerated, but when they argue for their right to suck your blood they become as intolerable as they are intolerant.

            1. And that in a nutshell sums up why communism at anything above a small family level must by its very nature fail, and has done so every time it’s been tried.
              Even at the family level it only works when there is a strong head of household who enforces fairness and castigates slackers. In other words, a benevolent dictatorship in practice if not name.

              1. Or, as I’ve said many times:
                “From Each according to his Abilities, To Each according to his Needs” is a pretty sweet deal, if you’re a needy incompetent, but it makes a slave of the capable and independent. Advocating such a position says an awful lot about the individual who does so, and which side of the equation he expects to be on.
                — Richard Chandler (10/15/04)

              2. Nonsense. Small groups have often managed it. When dedicated to a purpose. When small enough that everyone can see who’s slacking.

                  1. Exactamundo!
                    At the micro level communism is simply a method to assign roles and responsibilities. It may work well enough as long as there is a force present to see that everyone works and no one cheats. Whether by peer pressure or a strong parental unit makes no matter. Once a group becomes large enough that the slackers can slip through the cracks the system fails.
                    It fails at the macro level not only due to slackers and disenchanted workers, but also because those administering the system will tend to use it to reward themselves, usually explained away because they themselves work so hard and care so much they deserve a bit extra. Eventually the slackers tend to drift into middle management and the hard workers find a way to scam the system to keep a bit of their hard work for themselves.

          4. I wonder if he could provide any real world examples of such a “peaceful” property-less society?

            Of course, such idiocy can only be expressed in the security of FB (or its cyberquivalents) where nobody can say

            “The cogency and force of your argument has convinced me. Please take out your wallet and give me all the money in it as it is not “your” property but merely a social construct. While you’re at it, please hand over your watch, smart phone and car keys as those social constructs are not “yours” and should be donated to the poor. And as your outer garments are similarly needed by tthe poor and downtrodden, please remove them in order that I can deliver them to a suitable needy individual. Thank you for your persuasive arguments in support of a property-less society which have opened my eyes and enlightened my views.”

            2. Obviously many orders of nuns, monks, friars, and order priests take a vow of poverty and thus share all property. But entering and leaving such a community is voluntary, you have to prove yourself and train to stay in, you are subject to discipline, leadership is usually elected for limited terms, there are a lot of checks and balances, and the ultimate authorities are outside and can be appealed to. There are also a fair number of goods which are assigned to individuals and for which individuals are responsible. Factors like marriage, children, and heirs are not involved, either.

              But even with hand-picked memberships and simple rules drawn from experience, no monastery is a utopia, and there’s usually a fair amount of drama that has to be dealt with. If people expected them to be utopias instead of just a way of life that makes prayer easier, it would probably be a lot worse.

              1. Yes, tell them that the only people who have ever been able to make communism work are small groups of enterprising Christians.

                The head-splody-ness would be delightful to watch.

          5. *Squints*

            *tilts head*

            I think I can kind of see what he might mean…maybe….

            If you conflate the way we think about property, and the methods with which we enforce it, then yeah– it’s a social construct. Like how you’ve mentioned that stores have coin-machines for baskets, or people will take them, while the US doesn’t have that. (mostly)

            If I’m right, it’s sort of like how they confuse “home ownership” being associated with success and home ownership causing success.

          6. Re: Death and property… “Buying the farm” is a euphemism for dying, because (I suppose) you get a plot in the graveyard.

              2. Actually, there’s another theory that says that when a trainee crashed and burned on a farm, the farmer would use the money to clear the mortgage.

        3. I quoted/paraphrased that once, when I was in college, to a couple of Brits doing the “quasi-youth hostel” thing. As an intro to American political thought, y’know. The looks on their faces was priceless…

      5. “he had the right to everything another person owned as soon as he had the votes or guns to enforce it.”

        The counter argument being that, if that is true, then anyone who has the guns and force to do so has the right to enslave that commentator, and keep him in a deep basement, on a leash.

        Then you point out that the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive nits who tend to take this position are usually also in favor of gun control, and thus when push comes to shove, they are going to be bringing protest signs to a gunfight.

  4. I have a tiny American flag pin that I got after 9-11 … seems like a good idea to get it out and wear it again, although since I am in Texas there won’t be nearly the amount of lefty outrage I could expect in other venues …

    1. You’re more likely to start a pin-race — everybody scrambling to keep up with the Hayes-es…

    2. The neighbors on either side of me fly the US flag. I’ve been tempted to put up a Texas flag on a taller pole.

      1. There are a lot of them in Houston. El Paso, and San Antonio, witness the city officials they have elected in recent years.

  5. Well if I wore a flag lapel pin to Libertycon it would only cause the sort of comment that was inspired by jealousy. “Where did you get that?” Still we are expected to attend Millenicon so I think I will “Show the flag”

  6. It’s brutally simple; anyone who sports the flag is likely to want an objective examination of the facts on the ground. And the afcts on tje ground are that the Liberal Intellectual Radical Prodgressive Left supported Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and a dozen others as those monsters murdered 100,000,000 people in the 20th cemtury.

    Now, there have been LIRPs who could confront that reality and not break. David Horowitz springs to mind. But the vast majority of them are moral and intellectual flyweights. Confronting the litany of death and misery that they have facilotated would break them. And, on some level, they know this. So they strike out frantically to make the horrid threat GO AWAY.

  7. No, no. You don’t pay for the ticket. You just have to do the work of setting up a Kickstarter. Once you have done so, I will certainly put up $20 to send a traitor home. Heck, given the number of people who comment here, you should make a profit! (Which you can use to visit beautiful Cuba, to document how they are doing in the Workers Paradise…..)

  8. I have a USSR fur hat that I wear when it is cold and I am hard core right wing. I did remove the Red Army decal.

    1. I left the insignia on because 1) it was the late 1990s and 2) I considered it a bit of a trophy. Like I used to have a copy oaf the cartoon of the 1970s-80s Soviet leaders with parking meters behind them (because they were dying off so fast) posted on my door. Someone absconded with it. 😦

      1. Yep – just like all the imported ex-USSR war stock Mosin-Nagant and SKS rifles, to the imported AKs, to the Aero L-39 jet trainers, and then up to the MiG and Sukhoi fighters that folks operate here, I consider them war booty from the West’s victory in the Cold War.

        I’m just sorry I couldn’t go over with suitcases of cash and buy up everything that I heard was available in the ’90s. I always wanted my own T-72 tank.

        1. Still available for reasonable prices in…the Czech Republic I think. Along with BMPs, BRDMs, T-55s, -64s, and trucks out the wazoo.

            1. Of course there are. They have a military utility vehicle restoration convention every year. It was over at Wright State in the sports arena this year, and apparently it was awesome.

  9. Simple minds can’t comprehend that pride in one’s nation isn’t the same as believing that you should invade all other countries and force them to your way of life.

    But since these people often have never had any pride in their country, I shouldn’t be surprised they can’t understand.

    1. Nonsense. Of course you want to invade all other countries and force them to your way of life.

      Because THEY are your moral superiors and want to force you to their way of life, and since it’s not possible that you are capable of what they are not.

      1. If you want to see a leftist’s deepest desires, look at what he accuses his opponents of doing.

      2. That’s why libertarians are the real threat… they’d like nothing better than to take over so they can leave you alone.

        2. You know, to your garden variety Vile Prog, being left alone by gubbermint is probably roughly equivalent to being abandoned in the wilderness and a terrifying prospect. Which, now’t’Ithinkonit, explains why the react vampire-to-crucifix to libertarianism. (‘Cept those that lie and misapply the label to themselves, which is how they got “liberal,” you know.)

          M

    2. Simple minds can’t comprehend that pride in one’s nation isn’t the same as believing that you should invade all other countries and force them to your way of life.

      Ah. Shhh. They have been very carefully taught and trained; whatever they see or hear they will continue to believe. The harder their noses are rubbed in the truth the firmer they stick their fingers in their ears and go, ‘nyah,nyah, nyah.’

      An argument could be made that the opinion that pride in one’s nation is the same as believing that you should invade all other countries and force them to your way of life was carefully planted as a proactive to keep people from fighting the slow encroachment of the Progressive paradigm.

      1. Re: those who “stick their fingers in their ears and go, ‘nyah,nyah, nyah.’”

        I rarely stick my fingers in my ears, but I frequently murmur “nyah, nyah, nya nyah nyah.”

        1. Have you considered the Japanese variation, common in anime, of blowing a raspberry while pulling down the bottom lid of one eye?

          Or the traditional raspberry-and-thumb-on-nose-wigging-fingers option.

          1. Excuse, my bad … I had not meant the school yard taunt, but rather the noise one makes to cover any sound that might sneak around the fingers. I guess that I should have included the, ‘I caaan’t heeear yoouuu.”

            1. I believe the customary phrase for that purpose is either “Neener-neener” or “La-la-la-la” but perhaps fashions in such things have changed since last I noticed.

    3. Pride in one’s nation makes it easier to understand that others also have nations that mean something to them. If nations aren’t important, and a person doesn’t have pride and a feeling of identity connected to their own, they’re probably far more likely to think there is nothing wrong (or offensive) with poking their noses into the business of others. If you don’t believe in sovereignty for yourself… how do you understand the concept for anyone else?

  10. Since I look like a bouncer if I wear a suit, and have been confused with a bails bondsman, I doubt I’d collect much spittle. If they get that torqued over a US flag pin, what would they make over a Battle Flag of the Army of North Virginia pin?

    1. they probably wouldn’t react at all. First they would have to understand what it was. I know history better than the average American, let alone the average progressive, and cannot be sure I would recognize it

      1. You might not recognize it by ts proper name, but you (and the SJWs WOULD recognize it. That’s the “Stars and Bars”, commonly mischaracterised as the Confederate Flag.

          1. Sorry; I did a search on “Battle Flag of the Army of North Virginia” and got the Stars and Bars. Since I suspected that to be the case, and was in the dentist’s office and being called, I didn’t check.

            1. I’d be careful of sporting a connection to the Old South. These SJW morons are the modern descendents of the Plantation Owning swine who hornswoggled the less affluent Whites into fighting to maintain the Plantation way of life. The Democrat party hasn’t really changed all that much since the Civil War, they just disguise their contempt for the Blacks slightly better. They still believe in an Aristocracy, and that theyare the prime candidates.

              Guillotine bait, the lot of ’em.

              1. I usually put it this way. The Democrats are, and have always been, the party that supports group rights. The Republicans have been the party that supports individual rights. If groups have rights- individuals don’t. And vice-versa. It’s always fun to ask people where in the Constitution it says whites have rights. It isn’t there…

                1. Sadly, we have gone so far Left that the Republican establishment is leftwing, just nowhere near as leftwing as the Democrats who are so far left they can’t win an election if they campaign on what they want to do.

                  I believe that is will swing the other way. Briefly. Before some camel pestering Islamofool manages to really set tye country off, and we go hurtling down the pike towqrds Imperialism.

                  Oh, well. Imperialism is likely to be reasonably comfortable for me, as long as I’m likely to last, and as bad as it will get, it will get bad for the LIRPs and SJWs first.

                  1. And much of Europe has gone so far left they consider the Democrats a bunch of right-wingers.

  11. Probably because they know no real history.

    By the time we got up to WWII the camps in Hawaii and California were mentioned in high school. Surprisingly we did not dwell on the subject one way or another. We were flying through the material and skipping parts because we were facing the end of the second semester. I don’t believe that any class I took in all my schooling covered the internments during WWI.

    I had a peculiar history teacher in high school with several ticks. She would lecture us on never harboring prejudice. Still some things, having proved their disworth, were above and beyond. She spit into her trash can every time she said the name Hitler.

    But here I sit in the state that seriously proposed reducing the American History requirement in high school to one semester, covering post 1865 history. Thankfully this resulted in a resounding public outcry. It was asked how something as important as our founding documents could be skipped. The state seriously suggested that this period had been amply covered before High School — in grade school.

    And they wonder why people are moving to home education. The more the schools fail our children the easier it becomes to argue that the parents can’t do worse.

    1. Because some people in education think its favorable for people to not have an understanding of our founding documents?

  12. At first I was very surprised that people were all huffy about Giuliani’s comments. I thought that Obama’s disdain for America was obvious from the first campaign. I mean, Leftists have long regarded patriotism as unsophisticated drivel for simpletons, that they were too clever by half to ever fall for. Heck, I thought his “citizen of the world” shtick was a selling point for them – they ate it up when he was being serenaded for speechifying in Germany while still campaigning.

    Alas, I was thinking, and in understanding the Left, thought is sometimes an impediment, inasmuch as they didn’t reason themselves to where they are in the first place.

    And that opened my eyes. They think of themselves as our betters and are horribly offended when we think quite the reverse of our relationship. They aren’t shocked that we noticed so much as they’re outraged that we don’t appreciate how much more elevated they are, especially in the person of their Chosen Avatar the Boy Pharoah, President Triple Bogey. To them we’re little yappy dogs biting at their hands while they try to take the tin cans off our tails, ignorant of all that’s good for us, shivering under tables during rainstorms and happy only when we’re licking ourselves. They can’t possibly imagine that we notice this condescension and have every good reason not to trust them.

    1. They remind me powerfully of that idiot who was making a documentry on how gentle Alaskan bears were, when they ate him. They will continue to patronize and demean the Lower Orders right up to the moment when the Lower Orders decide to tear them into scraps.

    2. They are followers of Alinsky and Marx (Groucho), holding us accountable to our own standards of civility in debate, casting us as the Margaret Dumont of their world.

  13. “I’m not saying democrats, mind. There is what I call a certain kitchen-table democrat, who listens only to the MSM and therefore thinks the democrats are the “reasonable” party.”

    I know this wasn’t a main point of the article, but it reminded me of the most insane statement a friend of mine made to me recently. She said,”Well, I don’t really bother worrying about who the candidates are. I just vote democrat, because the republicans are trying to give amnesty to illegals and their welfare programs are destroying the country.” Frankly, I had no idea what to say.

    A large part of the reason democrats(specifically liberals) have so much power, is because there is a shockingly large portion of voters who, while perfectly intelligent people, have no capacity to sift through information. They just listen to what they are told, and believe it. Liberals are an extremely vocal group and consequently exert a disproportionate level of influence over these people.

    1. “I just vote democrat, because the republicans are trying to give amnesty to illegals and their welfare programs are destroying the country.”

      The proper reply to that is, You appear to be vastly misinformed, as it is the Democrats who are in favor of amnesty and welfare. And if she persists, point her at some informative site and tell her to remedy her ignorance or stop talking about politics at all.

      1. That would absolutely be the right response. I was just too shocked to even reply. My brain locked up for a good fifteen minutes.

  14. “Goostepping”. Is that what people do when they blunder into grey goo without realizing it?

        2. She’s been after that today, emasculating jokes hither and yon.

          What’d’ya think she’s doing with the meat of the joke, as it were? Stew?

          1. She’s been after that today, emasculating jokes hither and yon.

            So the jokes are now unmanned robotic?

  15. Sarah is not joking about Europeans and their tendency to fear flag waving. It’s been a few years now (I think their daughter is twelve or thirteen) but I know a couple that got married in Germany. He is German, she is American. They decided that they were going to have the groomsmen enter the reception waving American flags and the bridesmaids enter the reception waving German flags. (Apparently this caused a bit of a stir as well, since the German tradition is simply one on each side.) The store they bought the flags from almost refused to sell them. They had to explain to the manager what they wanted them for.The reason given was “Well, we all know what happened last time people here got all patriotic and started waving flags.”

    So yeah, I get the fact that they’re paranoid about their own patriotism, especially in Germany where the country was created by the Franco-Prussian War and then patriotism led to the beginning of World War I and World War II. The part that Europeans seem to miss is that it was flag waving Americans that came over and saved their tails from imperialism.

    1. I contend it wasn’t patriotism but SOCIALISM and eugenics. The two seem to go together like bread and butter. Our own socialist nuts think only the “best” should breed and also that “useless lives” should be put down. All for the state and all that.

      2. Socialism leads to eugenics as metaphor leads to analogy, because once you accept the argument that a person’s value is directly proportionate to their utility to The State it follows as the night follows dusk that The State will perceive a duty to breed people suited to its needs.

        1. I think it’s even more insidious; Once you accept the argument that there are people who can and should make decisions for all, it logically follows that they get to make ALL the decisions.

          Guillotine bait. All of ’em.

      3. I would certainly entertain the argument that socialism had more to do with it than nationalism did, but I wrote a term paper about the effects of nationalism on the war between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks and trust me, the effect was pretty massive. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until Stalin gave up the Communist rhetoric about fighting for the Revolution and changed tacks to “Fight for the Rodina” that his people started winning that war. There were lectures and newspapers aplenty on both sides as well. And, at the end of the day, it was a fight between socialist powers.

        I kind of wish I had picked a happier subject for that class but it was the same semester that I took my Holocaust class. This way I was able to do two papers with the same sources. It made life easier but OMG was that a depressing semester. You’re right about eugenics as a driving force though. The Germans hated Slavs and Asians almost as much as they hated Jews. (Yes, there were massacres by the way. Hitler murdered twelve million people. Only half were Jews.) The “Great Asiatic Hordes” of the Soviet Union were very much despised by the men fighting them.

        1. I vividly recall Manchester’s The Arms of Krupp describing the result of the Nazi conquest of the Ukraine (where they were initially hailed as liberators — and for good reason!) with the phrase “Slaven sind sklaven” — “Slavs are slaves.”

          1. I’ll see if I can find it. It might be on the computer that got left with my ex after the divorce.

        3. “And, at the end of the day, it was a fight between socialist powers.”

          Eh, the Russians tend to overplay their contribution. “Look at our pile of dead bodies! Overlook how many of them were caused by tactics of stupidity!”

          No, in fact, your contribution is measured by how much you did to defeat the enemy, not how stupidly you went about i

          1. Agreed. I’ve had that argument many times. The problem is that the idiots who believe that crap are too far indoctrinated to be persuaded.

            1. One fun thing about the Eastern front during WW2 is it demonstrated that the whole “warlord as head of state” thing really doesn’t work. Stalin came thaaaat close to purging himself into defeat (imagine if he had purged Zhukov), and Hitler’s fussy micromanagement did lead to his downfall.

          2. Axis casualties on the eastern front: ~10,000,000
            Axis casualties on the western front: ~1,000,000

            No matter how you slice it, the USSR defeated the Nazis. There is no way the Normandy or Salerno landings would have been successful if Germany didn’t have to keep three entire army groups in Poland and Romania.

            1. OTOH, had the Soviets and Nazis not agreed to divvy up Poland (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) the war might have been avoided or at least deferred while the West rearmed. (N.B.: I am confident that the Western leaders would NOT have rebuilt their militaries — quite the opposite — in the respite afforded; more probably the Nazis would have developed atomic bombs.)

            2. I’m more in the “The Soviets were a major factor in the defeat” of the Nazis camp than I’m in the “Soviets defeated the Nazis” camp.

              1. When one country is responsible for 91% of the casualties a defeated nation suffers I think you can safely say they did the defeating.

                Now, there’s no way the USSR could have managed the task without the support the US and Britain supplied, especially things like trucks and ammunition.

                1. To be blunt, the Soviets were also fighting “in their own territory” the Nazis longer than anybody else.

                  It could be argued that it wasn’t just a matter of “defeating the Nazis” but was also a matter of “not losing to the Nazis”.

                  Of course, one of Stalin’s biggest allies in “not losing to the Nazis” was Hitler. [Very Big Evil Grin]

                    4. My point was that when an army is sitting in an enemy’s capitol it doesn’t make much sense to say that they only avoided losing.

                    5. The Free French liberated Paris. That did not mean they were the ones responsible for winning the war in France.

                    6. Yes, the Free French both liberated Paris and were not responsible for retaking France.
                      However, considering the French only had nine divisions on the Western Front at the end of the war and the Russians made up almost the entirety of the anti-Axis forces on the Eastern, the situation is not analogous.

                2. Supplied a large part through the Murmansk run. http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html illustrates supplies delivered through the convoys- “Through the Murmansk Run, the United States supplied the Soviet Union with 15,000 aircraft, 7,000 tanks, 350,000 tons of explosives, and 15,000,000 pairs of boots.”

                  15 million pairs of boots. Stalin couldn’t put footwear on his soldiers without help.

                  1. GE/Westinghouse turbines and B&W boilers because all their main power plants were gone. Power for all those factories moved eastward had to come from somewhere.

                  2. For years after the war “Studebaker” was Russian slang for truck.

                    The great power of the US military isn’t so much in our tanks, planes, bombs, or infantrymen. It’s in a logistics system that can place and sustain those tanks, planes, and men anywhere in the world. The C-17 and HSV are as much symbols of military might as the F-22 and CVN.

                    1. This. Without the western aid, the Red Army would have been as much a horse-drawn military as the Germans were right through to the end of the war, struggling to somehow keep the infantry up with the tanks in every battle.

                      If the Wehrmacht had been able to fall back and disengage when they ran into Too Many Communists, they would never have been surrounded and pounded into the ground as often as they were, and those casualty figures would have not been nearly so lopsided. It was the Studebaker trucks pulling the masses of artillery, positioning the hordes of antitank guns, and carrying forward the troops and supplies that made those casualty figures possible..

                  4. So there’s an argument to be made that the Soviets were either sepoys or mercenaries in American pay. ((chuckle))

                    Now why does that remind me of the EU in Libya?

                3. And most importantly – FOOD! All the prime farming areas of the USSR were either under Nazi occupation or devastated by war. I remember some articles in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s about old Russians talking fondly about Spam and bread made from American flour and how for 2-3 years that was all they had to eat.

                4. Nope, you can’t. They were indeed responsible for them — they caused them by their own stupidity.

                  Indeed, suffering more casualties is the hallmark of the losing side. The British suffered 97% of the casualties in the Battle of New Orleans, and the American did the defeating — the British lost.

                  1. Does that figure include troops shot by their kommisars* to prevent their abandoning their positions?

                    *Was kommisar the proper title? Memory fades.

                5. Well in a sense you are right, but the statement paints a picture that isn’t realistic. The Russian army was a caricature of a military force propped upright by United States resources and powered by oceans of serf blood. The Russian army used tactics which would have made Attila himself wince. It would be more accurate to state that Germany was defeated by a single Russian general. This man has been responsible for nearly every Russian victory throughout history. His name is General Winter.

                  I know this topic has been beat into the ground since the 1940’s, but it never fails to draw out my inner arm-chair general.

                6. No, actually, you can’t. It’s far more complex than that, even if your numbers are correct, which they aren’t. How much of a country’s total military effort was involved in facing any given enemy and how much of that was lost?

                  With World War 2, the only country (of the winners) that can come close to saying “WE beat the other guy” is the United States relative to Japan, and that’s only because Japan is an island nation which had projected a great deal of her land power to Asia, power that the US mostly avoided confronting. The relative inability to translate the substantial Japanese land forces in Asia (fighting the Chinese and Commonwealth, as well as staring at the Russians) into naval power meant that, as bloody as the China and Burma theaters were, they were less essential to defeating Japan. (They were essential to keeping Japan from winning though.. if that makes any sense.)

                  The Soviet Union WOULD have lost against the Germans without American and British material support, as well as the deployment of significant Axis powers men and material to fight the Western Allies. More than 1/3 of Germany’s army strength was deployed in the West, while 90% of her naval efforts and more than half of her aerial capacity was engaged with the Western Allies. Conversely, it is very unlikely that the Western Allies would have been able to invade the Continent had the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe not been heavily engaged in the East.

                  Let’s not forget that while the Soviets were busy “singlehandedly” defeating Nazi Germany, the United States was whomping on the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic, North Africa (okay, more like a mutual snot-kicked there), then Italy, then France and France again. At the same time, the United States was thrashing the Japanese across 1/4 of the Earth’s surface. The British/Commonwealth were doing the heavy lifting in the Mediterranean and North Africa, then went into Italy alongside the US (together knocking Italy out of the war), and into France. All while fighting the Battle of the Atlantic and doing the heavy lifting in Burma, while the ANZAC pitching in right alongside the Americans in the Southwest Pacific.

                  The Soviets suffered horribly during World War Two, but they were NEVER “the good guys”, and they did not defeat Nazi Germany. They participated in the defeat, as did the Brits, US, Canada, and the rest of the Commonwealth. Yes, others made minor contributions, even the French, but 98% of the work was done by those above.

                  Alternate History Idea #1: Japan, rather than turning to take on the US, abrogates their Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviets. After the Soviets strip forces out of the Far Eastern and Siberian Military Districts in response to Operation Barbarossa, the Japanese attack them.

                  Alternate History Idea #2: Hitler, in a fit of uncharacterstic strategic wisdom, DOES NOT declare war on the United States on December 11th.

                  Alternate History Idea #3: #2+#1.

            3. No matter how you slice it, the USSR can not claim to have won the war on the grounds it threw away its soldiers stupidly. And how long would the USSR have lasted if the Second Front had NOT been opened?

              2. The threw away their soldiers, but they had the soldiers to spare. After Stalingrad the Russians made steady progress toward Berlin. Maybe if the Third Reich had the strategic depth provided by France they might have survived long enough to negotiate an end to the war, but it would be a loser’s peace. By your logic, Grant could not be said to have won the Civil War. The Victor is determined by who controls the field, not how much he paid for it. A phyrric victory is still a victory.

                1. And the Americans and British controlled the field just as much as the Russians did. Notice that West Germany was three times the size of East Germany.

                  And that’s not MY logic, that’s my pointing out a hole in YOUR illogic. Which you yourself admit to by shifting to controlling the field.

                  1. And the only reason we had any presence in the field was because the USSR killed 10 million German troops, far more than enough to shut down any landings in France or Italy.

                    You’re the one claiming that the USSR cannot claim victory despite destroying almost all of the Wehrmacht because their kill ratio was too low.

                    1. You keep throwing that 10 million figure out there. It is WRONG. Total German killed and missing, civilian and military, for the entire war isn’t even that high, much less on the Eastern Front. Heck, the RUSSIANS don’t even claim 10 million.

                    2. Sorry, I allowed my terminology to become sloppy. The 10 million is Axis casualties, which include killed and wounded. Nevertheless, the Russians chewed up the Axis military, making amphibious invasion of Europe possible.

            4. No matter how you slice it, pointing to USSR stupidity doesn’t prove they won the war.

              Not to mention that American supplies and the Second Front were crucial to their surviving at all.

        4. “The Germans hated Slavs”

          Oh, yes. English Teutonists hated the “dreamy” Celtics, but the German ones the Slavs. There may be a reason for this.

          1. *Sings*
            The whole world is festering/
            with unhappy souls/
            The French hate the Germans/
            The Germans hate the Poles/
            Austrians (?) hate Yugoslavs/
            South Africans hate the Dutch/
            And I don’t like anybody very much!

            *bows*

            And for an encore, “National Brotherhood Week” by Tom Lehrer

            1. It’s “Italians hate the Yugoslavs”, at least that’s the version I know. The Kingston Trio may of course have updated their Merry Little Minuet over the years.

            1. That is exactly the impression we produce on the people of the United States when we say, as we do say in substance, something like this: ‘We mean no harm to the poor dear Irish, so dreamy, so irresponsible, so incapable of order or organisation. If we were to withdraw from their country they would only fight among themselves; they have no notion of how to rule themselves. There is something charming about their unpracticability, about their very incapacity for the coarse business of politics. But for their own sakes it is impossible to leave these emotional visionaries to ruin themselves in the attempt to rule themselves. They are like children; but they are our own children, and we understand them. We accept full responsibility for acting as their parents and guardians.’

              Now the point is not only that this view of the Irish is false, but that it is the particular view that the Americans know to be false. While we are saying that the Irish could not organise, the Americans are complaining, often very bitterly, of the power of Irish organisation. While we say that the Irishman could not rule himself, the Americans are saying, more or less humorously, that the Irishman rules them. A highly intelligent professor said to me in Boston, ‘We have solved the Irish problem here; we have an entirely independent Irish Government.’ While we are complaining, in an almost passionate manner, of the impotence of mere cliques of idealists and dreamers, they are complaining, often in a very indignant manner, of the power of great gangs of bosses and bullies. There are a great many Americans who pity the Irish, very naturally and very rightly, for the historic martyrdom which their patriotism has endured. But there are a great many Americans who do not pity the Irish in the least. They would be much more likely to pity the English; only this particular way of talking tends rather to make them despise the English. — G. K. Chesterton

      4. I’ve been fascinated to read how during the early stages of WWI, the Russians “purified” Galicia (now part of Ukraine and Poland) by evicting Jews, Poles, and Germans, and then beating up on Ruthenes (Ukranians) who insisted on staying with the Uniate Church rather than accepting the Orthodox without complaint. And then they dragged over three million Poles back with them when they evacuated Russian Poland in 1915. This does not excuse the Germans, WWI and WWII from their actions (although in WWI it was cultural shifting rather than any hint of genocide), but it seems it was in the air over there.

        1. Not to mention what the Hungarians and presumably other governments did to the VOLKSDEUTSCHE who had lived there for generations after World War II. They were Germans, so they were all guilty.

          Oh, and as an “African-American”, I can not pass up noting that it was the British who invented “concentration camps” when they invaded South Africa. Couldn’t let those disaffected Afrikaaner civilians run around loose.

          1. Yeah, the population movement after WWII was . . . staggering. And Bog help you if you mention the Germans who got relocated around members of certain other language and ethnic groups. The Czechs may be the most mellow, but once you get south and east of there? Yow. Some of the reviews of family histories by Germans-from-Romania or Germans-from-Croatia are absolutely nasty. “How dare you even write about this you vile Hun? This tripe is an insult to the memory of all [other ethnic group]” was one of the milder ones.

            1. Then there were the 1920s “population exchanges” between Greece and Turkey… which in practice kept using religion as the criterion of “ethnic group”. A particularly bizarre case was that of the Donmeh, Jewish sectarians in Salonika (Sabbatayans, for those who care). Since Sabbatai and someone his disciples were pressured into “conversion” to Islam…. this meant the whole group were abruptly classed as “Turks” and “repatriated” to Smyrna, which they had never seen.

            2. It’s sadly too late to get details, but part of the reason that my grandmother hated the English so much is that her (Scottish) father’s family was mass-moved at some point.

              They came to the US a century ago, and that was only after his mother put down her foot about her baby boy going to the mines, so it was sometime before 120 years ago. (and it’s entirely possible that it was his great grandfather; what can I say, Scottish)

                1. No idea, I’d have to look through my notes to know what port they left. I believe the last straw prior to the mines was someone figuring out sheep were more profitable than having families on the land.

                  1. Ah, the clearances. Good times, good times.
                    Not.
                    Fortunately, nearly everyone in my family left Europe before the AWI.
                    Unfortunately, that means I can’t drop the “none of my ancestors even lived in America during slavery” on SJWs.
                    Which makes me sad inside.

                    1. One of my great-to-the-n uncles died fighting for the Union side, and another one was crippled for life.

                      Since I’m part Acadian, probably had relatives fighting on the other side, but no ancestors, because my branch got shipped to New England and then a boy vanished to reappear ten years later in Quebec.

                  2. The land clearances: The landowners realized that they could get more from grazing sheep in the Highlands than renting it to small subsistence farmers … and so they basically refused to lease and rent to those small farmers. John Prebble had a very readable book about it. Ironically, in British popular culture, the Highland Scots way of life was viewed with much romantic favor … just as the real-life Highland Scots were being evicted wholesale.

          3. You might enjoy Margot Benary-Isbert’s The Ark. It’s about one of the families evicted from the German territory that the USSR seize from Poland.

        2. A lot of ethnic Germans voluntarily left the regions taken over by the Soviet Union because Germany was recruiting them, and Stalin was coming. Although some refrained because those who left earlier sent back coded messages to warn them.

          Caught between Stalin and Hitler — what fun!

          (Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web by Lynn H. Nicholas is good on this.)

  16. I would argue that natural rights aren’t necessarily universal, but rather the rights of all _free_ people. Serfs, slaves, and nobles, by being owned or by owing fealty, are not free.

    Universal rights are those that can’t be taken away. Your existence(although that can be truncated, at least in the mortal sphere), your agency(although the leverage to do anything with that agency can be diminished), and your integrity(although other peoples’ reckoning of your integrity may be wildly incorrect).

    -Albert

  18. If we’re all very lucky, maybe they’ll rage-quit the country.

    Don’t hold your breath. I don’t recall a mass exodus of those celebrities that supposedly threatened to leave the country if then Governor George W. Bush were elected President.

    Mind you, on Googling the subject I discovered that not all to whom the threat is attributed actually made said threat, and a few who had retracted the threat before the election.

    It seems that many who are good at indignation and spittle, ultimately prove to be filled with hot air.

    1. It’s an “us and them” thing. Our patriotism is a threat to everything they worship and believe in, while Their patriotism is representative of the desire to make us more worthy of Them. Patriotism of the aristocracy differs from that of the rabble.

      1. Shucks, Barry is a sure enough dyed-in-the-wool patriot. We just don’t know the country.

        Obama to ban bullets by executive action, threatens top-selling AR-15 rifle
        By Paul Bedard | February 26, 2015

        It’s starting.

        As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters.

        The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56 mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

        [SNIP]

        BATFE says that since the bullets can be used in semi-automatic handguns they pose a threat to police and must be banned from production, sale and use. But, as Goodlatte noted, the agency offered no proof. Federal agencies will still be allowed to buy the ammo.

        “This round is amongst the most commonly used in the most popular rifle design in America, the AR-15. Millions upon millions of M855 rounds have been sold and used in the U.S., yet ATF has not even alleged — much less offered evidence — that even one such round has ever been fired from a handgun at a police officer,” said Goodlatte’s letter.

        Even some police don’t buy the administration’s claim. “Criminals aren’t going to go out and buy a $1,000 AR pistol,” Brent Ball, owner of 417 Guns in Springfield, Mo., and a 17-year veteran police officer told the Springfield News-Leader. “As a police officer I’m not worried about AR pistols because you can see them. It’s the small gun in a guy’s hand you can’t see that kills you.

        [SNIP]

        Groups like the National Shooting Sports Foundation suggest that under BATFE’s new rule, other calibers like popular deer hunting .308 bullets could be banned because they also are used in AR-15s, some of which can be turned into pistol-style guns. “This will have a detrimental effect on hunting nationwide,” said the group.
        [MORE: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-to-ban-bullets-by-executive-action-threatens-top-selling-ar-15-rifle/article/2560750 ]

        1. Think about this the next time you say the pledge. When you get to the part “. . .And to the republic for which it stands . . .” ask if it includes this.

          Though we have three full-sized modern US flags, I fly a “Betsy Ross”: flag now, the closest descent one I could find to the Cowpens Flag, which was likely the same pattern as our nation’s first. That flag stands for the ideals that we associate with America, and though that republic was not perfect, either, it was headed in the right direction. That flag I can say the pledge to, with no qualms at all.

          1. My mother once made a whole bunch of flags by hand because she was involved in something doing the history, and you could get a Betsy Ross and a current but no others.

  20. Don’t forget, Hitler was a progressive (socialist, anti-Christian, anti-Semetic, anti-capitalist, anti-middle class, etc.) and a disciple of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. I believe Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Sanger are disciples as well.

  21. Having keyboard problems.
    I believe Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are Sanger disciples as well.

    1. That makes more sense….

      Part of the same movement, sure; the only question is if they know it, or if it’s simply “the thing to say.”

  22. Of course St Rudyard was against flag waving – or, as he called it, being a jelly bellied flag flapper. But I think he would have understood the difference between showing your love of country with a tasteful pin and wrapping yourself in the flag.

    Must see if I can find a nice tasteful union jack somewhere.

    As it happens I have 2 Chinese Mao hats, a Soviet army belt and an extremely tattered Soviet army jacket as worn in Afghanistan. I should probably wear the hats more often. I do frequently wear the belt at times when I think it will amuse. I use the jacket for gardening and the like. It is very well suited to that

  23. I don’t have any communist memorabilia per se, but I did used to own a piece of concrete from a novelty store that was alleged to be a fragment of the Berlin Wall.

    Of course, it could just as easily have been a chunk of a sidewalk from New Jersey. It’s very hard to tell.

    1. Heh – faster turnaround.

      Last jury duty I had we were asked what web sites and news channels we watched, and when a guy up front listed “Fox News” I wanted to look for the mechanism that launched defense counsel so rapidly to her feet so she could ask the judge to “thank and excuse” that fellow, who smirked back at us as he walked out.

          1. Tell them you’re a huge fan of Radley Balko, and the prosecution will bounce you. Couple it with Fox News, and it’ll be unanimously sent home.

            Don’t ask me how I know.

          3. Heck, just mention being either a technical writer or hardware engineer during a Silicon Valley jury selection.

        2. I told them I read The Volohk Conspiracy, and ended up empaneled for the trial. In talking to the Prosecutor after we were done he told me that’s why he decided to try and keep me on, in spite of teh fact that I had been on a jury that couldn’t reach a verdict in the past. He thought defense counsel might not know what that web site was about (the judge clearly didn’t), and the Prosecutor thought it might be a way to stack the deck a little bit his way.

      2. To be fair, I did a week of Jury duty once and would honestly recommend anyone who can do a stint themselves, just to see a) how the system actually works and b) what people are capable of, your fellow jurors as well as the lawyers, plaintiffs, and/or defendants.

        It’s an eye-opener.

        1. I’m in a one-and-done state, one case or one trial, so I haven’t made it into a trial yet. (Most of my calls were during college, so I had to decline as I was out-of-state.) My husband got bounced from one jury by the prosecution for no stated cause—he thinks it’s because he looks like a big bearded guy who might be sympathetic to a brute (which is very much not the case.) He sat a domestic violence case that ended when the woman retracted; we both shook our heads over that one, because that’s both typical and sad.

      3. Tell ’em you are an engineer. Criminal defense lawyer friend of mine told me he and others including DA’s do not like having us on juries. We are much less likely to be swayed by an emotional argument.

      4. Closest I’ve been to sitting on a jury was for a drunk driving case. I wasn’t one of the 24 selected for questioning, but we all sat and listened in case they winnowed out too many.First question was- Do you know anyone who has been convicted of DUI? Wonder what they would have thought when I said my brother-in-law, 16 times….

        1. Was in a pool for a DUI case where they asked that. One fellow raised his hand and said he was a multiple violator. He was picked for the jury.

    2. Ohhh … they’ll drop you as if you were made of plutonium.
      Me, I always dress in my best office drag, perfect makeup, and carry a small briefcase, and affect an attitude of impatient decisiveness.
      Works like a charm – I might make it to a jury selection, but I’ve always been dismissed. The PTB appear to prefer juries to be made up of the dim, indecisive and easily buffaloed citizens.

      1. I’d be interested in sitting through a trial. I’ve been called and pushed it back to April (baby’s not on solid food yet, and “breastfeeding” is one of the few pre-selected options you can choose for a delay.) We’ll see what happens.

        What would be odd would be if I were to end up in the court of the superior judge I know. One of the questions they ask is if you know any of the officers of the court; it’s not an automatic disqualification and it would be interesting to see how the lawyers would react to that revelation.

            1. They let you know if the trial is likely to go long and you can be excused from the longer trials (in order to sit in the jury pool for a different trial.) Being the principle caretaker of young children is one reason they give that you can ask to be on a different trial.

              California is messed up in a number of ways, but they’ve got the jury selection process relatively painless.

      2. Huge YMMV. I remember when men were required to wear suit and tie – may still be required for Federal juries – and so dutifully showed up for duty wearing a suit and tie. And I got picked several times. Since most others were more casually dressed without reprimand, I started leaving the suit and tie at home. I haven’t been picked since.

        I think what got me off the last one was when we were asked if we’d ever served on a jury before, and was it a criminal or civil trial. I answered that the last criminal trial I’d sat on was so-and-so years ago. None of us who’d been on a criminal trial before got picked.

  26. “In fact, shortly after 9/11 when flags were everywhere”

    The next day, the MSM news reported that there was a run on flags everywhere and the stores were running out. My son – about 8 at the time – remarked “Why didn’t they already have one?” But then he and I were (and I still am) active in that fascist group known as the Boy Scouts so the left probably figures his soul is lost anyway.

  27. “Love America? I wonder who the 47% are who thinks he does, and whether they’ve been out from under that rock for the last decade.”

    These would be the same morons that are all telling me blacks can’t be racist over at that idiotic KT Bradford thing. I swear I’ve never seen so many people so utterly clueless in my life. Holy farking crap.

    1. I’ve been hearing that for years.

      Their argument is that blacks lack the institutional power in which to exercise discriminatory authority against whites, and therefore are not “racist”.

      Which is a load of horse manure, because all that is required is for the contents of one’s heart to be filled with so much hatred for a group or groups of people based on nothing more than the color of their skin.

      Plus, this doesn’t address areas like Albany, Georgia where blacks make up a significant majority and actually DO have the “institutional power” to exercise discriminatory authority. I guess they can be racist here, but in nearby Leesburg, Georgia, they can’t?

      1. Anybody who lives near a large enough community of black people knows that not only can blacks be racist, but that there is often considerable discrimination of lighter-skinned blacks against darker-skinned ones. (And vice versa.) I think this is easing a bit these days, since there are so many multi-racial people around and since people are now getting aware that skintones vary so much within families, but it still happens.

    2. It’s a standard academic exercise. If your argument is bunk, redefine your terms to make it true.

      1. Oh, they are moving goalposts all OVER the place. I’m the biggest idiot in the wrold, because I just don’t SEE what they are TRYING to TELL me about the POWER and the INJUSTICE and omg what a pack of fools.

        If my sadistic streak was just a little wider I’d take up teaching a course on logic in a New York university. I would be -merciless-.

        “BEEEP!!! Non-sequitur, you fail!” “BEEEEEP!!! Conclusion not in evidence, you fail!”

        Merciless. Oh. Yeah.

        1. Use a refs whistle.

          TWEEEEET Fallacy in the argument. Begging the question. 15 yard penalty, repeat argument.

      1. Oh no, Mr. Chupik, you just don’t understand the nuances of the socioeconomic reality under which these things take place. You see, no attack by any non-White against a White is ever racist because White PrivilegeZ, uh huh!

        I’m scunnered.

        1. The thing is, if you aren’t embarrassed by their lecturing, that scares them. I lost any inhibition about telling them they were full of it YEARS ago. They tell me things like “Blacks can’t be racist. because they lack power” and I answer “You do realize that that is unmitigated hogwash. Or if you don’t, I’m amazed you remember to breathe.”

          And they back away slowly, being careful to not make any sudden moves.

          1. What scares them is that, if they had the balls, they know how they would physically attack you. The fact that you stood up to them illustrates you already have the balls they wish they had, so they back away because they’re terrified you will murder them with your bare hands at the insult of daring to disagree with you.

            Not that you would, obviously. It’s their own projections that lead to the fear, nothing that you’re actually responsible for.

  28. I don’t wear flag stuff very often– other than the one of a WWII guy passing a modern soldier a flag, got it in Pensacola at A-school– but every Friday I either wear a military themed outfit, or red. (Remember Everyone Deployed– RED Friday.)

    It probably wouldn’t make them feel any better that I don’t eat any carne on those days, either, because I’m a slightly lazy Catholic. (It’s easier to remember “no meat on Friday” than to remember to do some other little sacrifice.)

    I don’t think I’ll ever forget what the mall looked like when we got out of bootcamp in October, ’01. It was like something out of an Animaniacs 4th of July special.
    …my throat is tight just thinking about it.

    1. You should have been at the CAF Airsho that October. It was . . . amazing. And then they stopped the show to broadcast Pres. Bush’s announcement about Afghanistan and my heavens, the noise that followed rocked Midland airport. Even the Kiwis and Aussies were on their feet cheering. I’ve never felt anything like that weekend before or since.

  29. While we’re at it, let’s wave the flag for one of our British friends:

    For Valour
    by Mark Steyn
    Steyn on Britain
    February 26, 2015
    The Victoria Cross is the Commonwealth’s highest decoration for valour on the battlefield. Yesterday it was awarded to the first living Briton for action in the Afghan war (if memory serves, three living Aussies have been so honoured). Lance-Corporal Joshua Leakey was with the 1st Battalion the Paratroop Regiment on a joint UK/US operation in Helmand when it all went pear-shaped, and he found himself having to rescue a fallen American Marine captain while fending off 20 Taliban single-handed:

    L/Cpl Leakey, a member of the elite Paratrooper regiment first broke cover to give first aid to a fallen United States Marine, and continued to expose himself to fire as he recovered and fired from two machine guns, running up and down a hill in the high heat of the Afghan summer. Although he ran through machine gun fire and exploding grenades three times, he survived and was able to engage 20 Taliban fighters and save the life of the American officer.

    Despite his selfless heroism and exceptional rarity of the award, Leakey modestly brushed off the ceremony, remarking that it was “just another day in the office”.

    L/Cpl Leakey is the second member of his family to win the Victoria Cross. His second cousin twice removed, Sergeant Nigel Leakey of the King’s African Rifles, won his in 1941 in a fierce battle in Abyssinia, leaping on an Italian tank that was firing on them, wrenching open the turret, and killing the crew. It cost him his life. Sgt Leakey has no grave, only a name on the East African War Memorial on the outskirts of Nairobi.

    His kinsman was more fortunate but no less brave. As I wrote last year, when Australia honoured its 100th Victoria Cross recipient, Corporal Cameron Baird:

    Reading tales of heroism in the unforgiving sod of the Hindu Kush, I am always amazed the western world is still capable of producing such men.

    L/Cpl Leakey pooh-poohed that kind of talk at yesterday’s ceremony:

    I am just a normal bloke. I happen to be in the Parachute Regiment and on that particular day at that particular time I was in that place

    I would like to think he was “a normal bloke”. But I worry these days that your “normal bloke” is fretting about micro-agressions in the safe space at Wesleyan University. The gulf between those who fight and those they fight for has never seemed wider.
    http://www.steynonline.com/6829/for-valour

    Embedded links in the article at Steyn On Line.

    1. This is why the SJWs are doomed to fail. Their side has all the Queer Studies majors and Furrowed Brow Worriers about Micro-bushwa. Our side has the people who do things.

        1. They either broke or were cured in a hurry. We had a few, one was cured, another washed out, a third decided to start a war with the drill sergeants (which ended predictably.)

  30. On crossing into Canada and returning to the US.

    Years ago (pre 1972), my family crossed on foot to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

    Upon returning to the US side we were asked by the US border people where in the US we were born.

    My father, born & raised in Vincennes Indiana, answered “Danville Illinois” without thinking (which is where we were living).

    Obviously, he corrected himself and we had no problems re-entering the US.

    What was funny was that Dad, at that time, sometimes talked about moving the family to Vincennes (or at least Indiana).

    So my sister and I laughed at him for saying that he was born in Danville Illinois. [Very Big Grin]

    1. We did a trip with a set of four red-headed cousins, all boys, youngest 9 eldest some pre-driving teen age, when we were all young teens.

      So two women and seven kids packed in a pickup.

      The US guard was throwing his weight around about having “proper documents” (in the mid-90s) until my aunt finally lost her temper and said “Well, alright– you keep them, but their birth certificates are in California so it will take a couple of days of driving to get them up here!”

      Went through, no trouble. Uncle and dad in the car behind us said the guy was still sweating bullets when they went through, and hardly even glanced at their ID……

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