Twenty ears ago, my mother and nephew visited us for a month, from mid-June to mid-July. As you know this is the time of flags out everywhere, even in neighborhoods you’d not expect a lot of them. This amazed the Portuguese contingent, filling them with culture shock.
Portugal flies its flag like most European countries, at various governmental institutions, maybe some large companies. Unless, of course, there is a soccer championship going on, and then you see it everywhere, but as a team symbol, not as a country symbol.
In Europe, love of country is … complicated… as it is in most places where the obvious fraud — let’s call it what it is. They might have less visible fraud than here, but they have more controlled information, and their elites surely behave like they can’t be unseated — and lies from above have long — long — ago convinced the people they stand no chance of controlling their destiny.
There’s a love of the people that almost amounts to chauvinistic pride of “race” if you believe — and they do — that nationalities are “races” or “breeds.” So they are nationality-supremacists, believing their genetic breed (a largely imaginary construct) is superior to all others. But the country itself is viewed as a sort of imposition. And the flag pretending thereto is part of the nationality thing, which is so gauche, so embarrassing to be devoted to. The government is known as “Those bastards” or “Those idiots” by and large, by most people. (Okay, that’s not so different from us.) Unless comparing them to other governments, in which case theirs is the best of a bad lot.
If there is need of the military, draft is instituted. In fact most of the countries still have a nominal draft, though they draft very few people. But the possibility is there.
So– why did I title this “What comes after?”
It’s not what comes after America. My gut feeling is that what comes after America is more America, and harder and more seriously than before. I could be wrong. Making predictions is difficult, particularly about the future. But that’s the movement I’ve seen in the much maligned grass roots. I think there’s a revival of culture and nationality in our future, and what comes after will make people look at the century from the mid twentieth to the mid twenty first and scratch their heads and ask what they were thinking. (Though the revival will have to reach far further than that, but that’s something else.)
It’s the time in the middle, that’s a worry. The next 20 to 50 years, as clown world waxes and wanes, or if you prefer waxes on and waxes off.
Say Biden gets frauded in in November, and between thinking their compatriots are idiots, or knowing there was fraud, people lose hope for a while. Will our flag too become a symbol of shame? Our military recruitment has not yet reached European levels, but it’s headed there.
I don’t know.
I think the military recruitment is a reflection of the lack of trust in the clowns in charge, more than disillusionment with the country. I could be wrong, but that’s my feeling. After the withdrawal from Afghanistan the last thing I’d expect is for anyone to give themselves over to the stellar decisions of the FICUS and his Junta.
I think by and large Americans still are proud of being Americans. Will that change?
Having grown up in Europe — and mind you, I left almost forty years ago, so not only is my information dated, it is dimmed by time and the fact I was a kid for most of the time I lived there — my feeling is that what causes the disillusionment, the giving up, the “I’m done with this” is the feeling that the rest of the country continues voting for “those bastards over there” or at least supports them.
They forget, if they ever knew, that their information is highly controlled and that their news are mostly pravda. There is a belief in reporters that I haven’t (fortunately) seen here in decades. Their disillusionment with and mental divorce from their homeland is partly because they believe their countrymen have inexplicably all chosen this deranged path.
Now I’ve seen glimmers of it here at times. Idiots — many who purport to be on our side — who swallowed the 81 million votes for basement Joe and who beat their chests and ask like everything was fair and above board.
And most people, to be fair, don’t realize how extensive the fraud is. When it comes to frauding themselves in, the left aren’t leaving anything to chance. It’s belt plus suspenders used for destruction. It’s ax and chainsaw, I suppose. Everything from the easy false registrations of Motor Voter to software shenanigans, to the ever-green letting illegals vote, to the vote harvesting that makes grandma in the nursing home vote the way the pink haired nurse’s aid says, to vote-ahead or vote-by-mail that as well as massive opportunity for fraud also allows them to know exactly how much fraud is needed ahead of time.
How slick and sewn up an operation is is became obvious in 2020 where they didn’t even feel the need to campaign because they had it in the bag thanks to the fraud.
It is because of this that it’s amazing to see how panicked they are. But since they drink their own ink, it’s possible the peons have no idea how extensive the fraud is and believe they won fair and square.
However it’s also why I don’t hold much hope for the elections. Yes, I think we should vote. All of us. Because I think the more of us vote, the more the fraud will have to be open and in your face.
I personally am hoping for 400 million votes for the nearly dead pedophile-mummy.
Why? Why vote at all if it won’t carry the will of the people?
Other than my twisted sense of humor in seeing them trying to sell that the population is now 700 million, overnight?
Well…. Because it matters. It might not carry our will, but it will do several things.
It will serve them notice of how many people oppose them. They will lie about it, and have fake polls and heaven knows how many propaganda operations, but they will know. In the dark of night, in the privacy of their diseased brains, they will know and fear. To the extent they haven’t tried to start gulags and haven’t attempted to carry their commie agenda by force of arms it is because they know the size of the opposition, and what they’ll meet with anywhere outside the easily cowed cities.
It will also let those of us in opposition know how many of us there are. This too is important. The big cities are a great illustration of this.
I’m utterly convinced that most of the big cities have been frauded for the left since the beginning of the twentieth century. Machine politics is and has been a thing forever. Now BGE doesn’t think they’re that frauded. And maybe he’s right. Or maybe not. The idea that they’re solid dem is so implanted that people will falsify their preference in speech and normal life, because they think they’re surrounded by the left.
It’s hard to say once it gets to a certain level of fraud. Because if people think they’re surrounded by one kind of thing, they try to fit in. This is how you see sudden, overnight reversals, when people realize they’re not alone.
But in any case, things like Ante-fa and Buy Large Mansions and the nascent nazis of Hamass do what they want and inflict depredations on large cities and often minority neighborhoods because people in those cities and neighborhoods who are in opposition to the left think they’re alone. And therefore instead of standing defiantly and telling the rat bastards to quit their shit show and get out of town, they stay quiet and hunker down and try to go unnoticed.
You don’t want the country to become like that. Even if the control of our own polity gets frauded away from us, it is important for people to know they’re not alone, not surrounded by idiots who support the left and their outrageously damaging project.
Because I think that is ultimately the problem in Europe. Each one thinks they are the only one who sees the horror and the bad things. And so they hunker down, and they despise their polity. They don’t fly the flag. The don’t sing the anthem. They hide and seethe.
Let’s not be like that. Vote. Vote as hard as you can. And speak out. Denounce the fraud. All of it. And when and opportunity to make something like “Let’s go Brandon” viral do so. Don’t be intimidated by whispers of how uncouth it is or shouts that we’re bigger than that. Tokyo Rose — left Rose just sounds weird — comes in many forms, and are always followed by useful idiots who think they’re being delicate or kind or whatever the heck. Ignore them.
Tell the truth whenever you can. Or at least don’t lie. And given half a chance, make a noise to let others know that they’re not alone. I’ll note that if you are embedded and can’t decloak, you can use the “isn’t it a shame” to propagate something like “Let’s go Brandon.” “Isn’t it a shame that those uncouth people didn’t let the reporter — who was just trying to save them from their folly — cover up their nonsense with ‘Let’s go Brandon”? Imagine children hearing them shout F*ck Joe Biden! What a shame, how uncouth. And they are supposedly pro family.” (For more helpful techniques, I refer you to Comrade Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi.) This is likely to fly under the radar of the true believers, who maybe wish you wouldn’t mention it, but you’re just being a little enthusiastic after all! However, anyone who like you is embedded and in the dark and who hasn’t HEARD of FJB (you wouldn’t believe it, but yes, there are people who haven’t) will be cheered and know they’re not alone.
This blog will stay on as long as humanly possible, and yes, there are plans for different hosting/blogsite should it become needed. At some point there will a non-live secondary site built, hopefully this summer so the switch if needed is seamless. Not yet, because we’re still living through the after shocks of moving. But THIS light will stay on as long as I can remotely keep it on. I’ll try to be more timely, too. As soon as book that kidnapped my brain is finished.
You too, do what you need to do to let others know they’re not alone.
Sometimes, a light, seen in a great distance is all you need to not lose hope. And to keep the faith in our miraculous country.
Be not afraid.
You’re not alone.
According To Hoyt 
Watching AOC thoughtlessly blurt out the truth that the Trump show trials are designed to keep him from campaigning, then seeing him campaign in her district to huge crowds, and seeing her try and do the same thing and get even less attention than the walking pedo-corpse has been very funny and heartening.
The Dem powers-that-be may very well regret telling Trump that he had to stay in NYC. Looking at him turning that into opportunities to stage humongous rallies right in the very heart of a big red city … they must be grinding their teeth to powder.
Unintended consequences aren’t really something the Left thinks about. “Hey, let’s tie him up in court so he can’t campaign. What could go wrong?” A year later, it’s looking like the mugshots, and court restrictions are hurting Biden worse than Trump because now nearly EVERYONE can sympathize with him. Ooopsie.
is Yes. Agree. AOC did multiple things: 1) Proof she is an idiot, 2) Prove President Trump is correct about a conspiracy against him, 3) boosted President Trump’s popularity.
What the democrats lawfair has done is given President Trump a very expensive campaign gift. So has the very illegal court gag order. Not worried about anyone on the DEM side finding out what is said here because not something they have the ability to comprehend. Don’t care what their nominal IQ is.
The media gave Trump a heck of a lot of free publicity the last two cycles. They’re apparently going to continue doing that this time around as well.
They don’t seem to realize that they’re making a very generous campaign contribution. Not that I’m going to tell them.
Refills popcorn cart. Would you like kettle corn, plain, extra butter, white cheddar, caramel?
Extra butter, like my grandfather
It is time for Scouting America spring product sale … Popcorn orders. Helps scouts pay for summer camp, and even sometimes gear. (Who am I kidding. Takes a lot more than product sales.) At least the youth get their commissions into their own account. The other, not so much, anymore. That is one change I disagree with. But not Scouting America’s fault on that one. That is all at the feet of the courts.
Yes Trump has been living rent free in their brain since 2015 or so when he started the run against Hillary.
The Powers that be and the MSM (bit I repeat myself) are so stupid. With their zombie turnip on the throne and their brainless cheer leader wannabe in the #2 spot all they had to do is just leave Trump alone mercilessly. Don’t pooh pooh him, don’t ridicule him and for heavens sake don’t make a martyr of him. in 2 or 3 news cycles it would just be Trump whining from Mar A Lago and they would have won.
But no, having pulled off their rather transparent bit of dubious electoral thaumaturgy they started to (as our Hostess says) drink their own ink. They had immanentized the eschaton and the revolution was finally here. The purge of the deplorables could now begin. Start by humiliating them showing how little power they had by forcing indoctrination about the QT side of LGBQT onto their (disgusting) spawn (darn breeders don’t they know the world is overpopulated). Make Feudal Governance Great again!!! In your place you vile serfs, eat your bugs and don’t want to travel or defend yourself.
Needless to say the Hoi Polloi noticed and were not going to lay back and thingk of England (The Peasants are Revolting!!!). School boards were taken back, some states decided that enough was enough, a Few rotten DA’s were tossed. On top of that their turnip was a bit more rotten than even they knew, and their #2 has at most one talent (And for details on if even that is true you’ll have to check with Willie Brown) and even less charisma than average of Hillary Clinton, Gretchen Whitmer and Elizabeth Warren. So now the brahmandarins are faced with cobbling together a far more robust vote enhancment for a duo most of them hate and where much of their dependable base is utterly unenthused and experiencing (admittedly minor) defections. The tricks last time were just an enhancement of good old voting techniques to push certain large cities far enough over so they then dominate purple states and win the electoral votes. It will be much harder this time and even more obvious. And for a result they don’t even really want as neither candidate is their ideal and both are showing themselves to be harder and harder to keep under control/wraps.
If it weren’t for the fact that reelecting the current doofuses is going to make recovery almost impossible and make the world stage more chaotic than its been in 70+ years this would be amusing.
Eye rolling worthy. Clip from CNN/MSN from Libertarian rally Trump was at quote “Trump was suppose to clean out the deep state. He failed. Why give him a chance again.” Sigh. Wrong attitude. Yes. Trump failed his first 4 years. Trump’s history is learning from his mistakes. He’ll make different ones. Not the same ones.
Indeed Dep729 I think last time he didn’t know how vociferous the opposition would be. Being a decent kind of guy and a businessman he expected some rot but that overall folks would do their job. I hope this time he knows he must let go EVERY appointee that he is permitted to let go AND set up the rule he was setting up before 2021 that would give wider latitude to the appointed managers. It also means he needs to have folks selected who WILL obey and who are easily confirmable. The big question is will he have 50 votes in the Senate he can trust? The Democrats foolishly got rid of the cloture rules on appointments so a trustworthy majority (not a given with the RINO types) would let the appointment process get steamrollered. If Trump wins but doesn’t get a majority we go into a deadlock for at least 2 years. Similarly if the Executive Order he had last time that Biden dumped is deemed unconstitutional by a lower court it has to be moved to fast track and someone somewhere seems to have the goods on Roberts (or he is an evil squishy RINO, the result is indistinguishable) such that that might take at least a year or more to sort it out.
Yes. And Trump knows this.
The 2020 campaign shone a light onto the degree of fraud in our elections. Chicago and Maryland were known for crooked elections and rigged voting machines when I was a boy (when men walked on the Moon), but most people didn’t recognize the scale.
Now, they do. And there’s a hell of a lot of anger. Especially with 20+ million criminal invaders – at least a quarter of whom are voting illegally.
The election thieves are our enemies – if they were our friends, they would not NEED to steal elections. Never forget it.
It’s been splendiferously glorious, hasn’t it. They thought they were going to really keep Orange Man down by tying him up in the courthouse, and he keeps getting more popular in NYC. I give him even odds of carrying New York in the election.
New York City loved him for years, and a lot of New Yorkers never stopped loving him. So it’s really not surprising … to anyone who understands human beings… which wouldn’t be the DNC.
Right thus we come to one of our hostess’ jibes which seems to be true. The DNC are actually lizard aliens, Essentially what we have is a crappy 1980’s TV show come to life. Except the aliens don’t want water. It’s not actually clear WHAT they want even to them. Maybe somewhere a group of lizard type aliens took all their morons and shipped them to Earth just to get rid of them. Come on prove me wrong…
“give him even odds to beat the fraud in NY to carry New York in the election.”
FIFY, you are welcome.
The fraud in Chicago certainly was ingrained before the early 1960s. As I recall, one of the reasons why Richard J. Daley figured he was owed something by JFK was because enough mysterious votes for him showed up in Chicago to flip the state.
In the early ’60s, I recall reading about one of the ways the voting machines could generate votes for the candidates of choice. (They allowed “demonstrations” for supposedly confused voters that purely by accident counted as a real vote. I assume voter turnout in some precincts was considerably better than 100%. They set a goal for the 2020 fraudsters.
(Then there was Daley’s famous quote exhorting people to “Vote early and often”.)
It took fraud in Illinois and Texas to install Kennedy. In Texas the drill was the voter voted in the front on real voting machines where the vote wouldn’t count, and if they voted the right way, they were invited to step to the back and vote on the machines that would actually record and count the vote. If they voted the ‘wrong’ way, they were thanked, and would go home feeling full of civic spirit, while a hack voted the correct way for them in the back.
“who are in opposition to the left think they’re alone.”
And also because if a pack of them attack you, and you so much as lift a pinky to protect yourself, you’ll be immediately brought up on felony charges.
Even in Texas, though I’m guessing that’s going to change with a quickness if they keep trying it here.
It depends on the county. If it’s a blue county, expect the book to be thrown at the the person by the local DA. If it’s a red county, then it will be ruled self-defense by the prosecutor or grand jury, and nothing will happen.
Yeah, but those red counties can get contagious…
Soros prosecutors and judges can be found in far too many places.
Damn, I miss strike-through.
When WP(DE) deigns to give the comment box without the Oh-So-Handy “enhancement” features, things like strike-through
(It worked!)actually work. I don’t have a WP account, and as far as I know, it’s random as to which kind of box I get. Actually, all the html enhancements work.I’ve noticed. I do have an account (gave in). But while it looks like I’m logged in, commenting makes it seems like I’m not. Also toss up when I get the enhanced box. Sigh. I too miss the strike through. How can I be obviously sarcastic (sure have to tag regardless but still)?
The Trump Rally in the Bronx had a greater attendance that they planned on and it’s driving the Demos even more insane. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Dozens of the brainwashed are now posting a photo of the rally site at 11 am, claiming that’s the crowd at 630 pm.
My fingers are getting tired of muting them on X/Twitter.
I hope the voter fraud fails, badly.
That said, there are a lot of salty people out there. And I would rather we all just learn to live together, expel the traitors and foreign agitprop, and start spreading goodness and light.
But I am afraid I won’t be allowed to enjoy my very proximate retirement.
May God defend the right. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechmrsminiver.html
Miracles do happen.
c4c
Those at the levers of power are panicking because, even while high on their own supply, they can see that they’re in trouble deep. The kind of trouble that is going to cost them, even if they end up retaining some form of power.
While I personally think the panic is because they know they can’t cheat on the scale that will be necessary, particularly as they are losing their lockstep ethnic voting blocks in numbers that are apocalyptic for the left, consider the possibilities if they do manage to “win” the election.
Nobody, but nobody, will respect those in power.
The exodus from blue states will grow geometrically, and compliance will become malicious compliance, passive-aggressive non-compliance, and outright monkey-wrenching.
The next Big Fake Panic will, maybe, affect New York City, Los Angeles, and DC. Maybe. Everybody else is just going to laugh at the supposed alien invasion, or the plague that isn’t, or whatever they try to force through.
The panicky need for censorship will grow, possibly to the point where they pick some select Bad Thinkers and simply execute them, to try to instill some fear in the populace. (If that happens, it will become intensely unhealthy to be a federal employee anywhere outside of coastal blue urban areas.)
And if World War III happens — given current international conditions, a possibility so real that current recruits into the US armed forces are being told to expect to serve in a war against China by 2027, and boot camp training is going to a war tempo this summer; and Ukraine-Russia could conceivably create an entire European theater — fly-over country could refuse to take part to such an extent that either the nation’s military does not get involved at all, or they’ll try, and lose.
Hell, even without WWIII, the debt bomb could take out the powers that be all by itself, world wide.
The structures of civilization may well collapse. Putative governments, universities, the media. But civilization itself, real civilization, will almost certainly carry on. Though we may need to switch to Bitcoin for currency, or some other crypto. (No, gold won’t work with the internet. No, being “based on nothing” is not invalidating, since you are using US dollars right now. Spare me the midwit objections.)
Articles that seem to be pushing a “bird flu,” panic are turning up, including, “bird flu in milk,” stories. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a, “We need to cull the cows,” push to go with, “You should quit eating meat anyway, so say goodbye, beef!”
Are these wannabes that stupid? I dunno, but I’m afraid we could find out.
The “new pandemic” stuff won’t work directly, but it might give them a justification to screw with the food supply. And if they can get that through, lamp posts will end up decorated a whole lot of places in this great nation. After a horrible butcher’s bill, alas.
If it’s in milk, shouldn’t the scare be Cow Flu? 😀
Looks like they didn’t learn anything from the failed Monkey Pox Panic.
Just saw some yammerhead on Lame Stream News claiming that Trump’s ‘mishandling’ had caused 8,000 black people in the Bronx to die from COVID. Really? What orifice did you pull that number out of?
Trump didn’t ‘handle’ the panic-demic at all. He sent U.S. Navy hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles (which the Democrats refused to allow anybody to board) and otherwise listened to ‘experts’ like Fauxi and supported what the various governors decided to do.
The data on monkey pox made it clear it overwhelmingly affected only promiscuous gay men, and those few who weren’t gay men who got it brought up awkward questions the left did not want asked, let alone answered. So if got dropped like a burning plate.
So, like AIDS. A sexually transmitted disease that originated in monkeys. And nobody wanted to ask the obvious question, much less answer it.
Well, AIDS PROBABLY spread to humans by African hunters butchering chimpanzees as “bush meat”, which is only slightly less icky than the alternative. But after the news broke that a few kids got monkeypox people like Marjorie Taylor Greene asked the obvious question: “If Monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it?” at which point the MFM decided monkeypox wasn’t such a big deal and wasn’t worth time in the news cycle.
Fortunately, pasturization removes bird flu from the milk. Insty had a link up about that the other day.
What? No induced panic over medical treatment resistant anthrax? That is how PTB managed to cull whole herds of cattle and sheep, as well as condemn usage of the pastures and range land the animals had grazed on. Mad Cow? Worked in England and Continent.
Wags paw. Anthrax has a looooong history of causing problems, and as far as I know, no one has found a way to treat the ground and plants to get rid of the spores, yet. So I’ll give TPTB a leeeeeeetle benefit of the doubt if proven anthrax cases appear and they find spores in the soil. Otherwise? Nope.
If “they” are the same “they” who in this scenario could produce “verified” anthrax diagnoses and who would want to find spores, the spores will be found. And of course, it would be too dangerous to allow “unofficial” independent checks. Remember all the “Died with COVID” recorded as “Died from COVID”? They almost certainly won’t get away with it for long, but I’m confident that they will try.
Anthrax has been tried. It squibbed.
Remember? You might recall that woman with the bandaged middle finger, holding it up so the responsible dip(HONK!)its got the message.
The phrase, “Just how stupid can a person be?” was not INTENDED to be a challenge.
God help them. The Left, and their collaborators, will have to live with the knowledge that they were serving the wrong master.
I think If the leftoids were smart they would do whatever they can do wreck the economy and destroy what they can in order to leave a newly reelected Trump holding the bag. But I don’t think they’re that smart, they don’t see how Trump being elected could act as a crucial safety valve to a growing pressure that could get them under a guillotine or on a lamp post.
What haven’t the Democrats done to wreck the economy since 2020? Along with burning down cities in their ‘mostly peaceful protests’? Oh, and letting criminals run wild with ‘bail reform’ and defunding the police?
Honest question: What more could they do to wreck the economy right now, without abandoning the pretense that they are not? (And even now, that pretense is a fig leaf, at best.)
Oh -lots- more.
Not offering suggestions, but they can do -very- much more damage.
-very-
Yeah this is just the result of standard left-wing stupidity, I’d hate to see them get deliberate.
As of Tuesday’s elections, it’s now 13 red counties in Oregon that have voted to try to leave Greater Portland-Salem and join Idaho. I figure we have a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling it off, but TPTB are noticing. The Unfortunately Named Tina Kotek is less in your face, unlike Despicable Kate Brown, but her anti-rural actions (big farm water regulations for tiny dairy farms? Really?) are managing to piss off more and more people in the flyover counties.
Things are getting more interesting here.
The interesting thing is that the Constitution is mute on the subject. It covers forming a new state from part of an existing state (i.e., forming West Virginia from part of Virginia, which was not approved by Virginia and thus violated the Constitution, Article IV, Section 3. And no, even “in rebellion” the requirement would seem to hold since there is no such disqualification stated), but not redistribution of land (counties) between existing states.
What I saw pretty much agrees. The article I read implied that Oregon and Idaho would have to approve, and the assumption was that Congress would have to get involved. Idaho approval seems to have occurred, though I don’t know how far it’s been done. (I read that their house agreed. No idea on the rest.) Approval from TPTB in Oregon would be dubious; they’d want the electoral college votes, and they’ve been trying to nibble at red county votes. Doesn’t help that the GOPe here has too many squishes. OTOH, we have some (not enough) good people.
At the federal level, I suspect we’re stuck until/unless we get control of House/Senate and POTUS, and a usable majority in SCOTUS. Maybe in my lifetime; Mom made it to 99…
I’d be interested to know what authority that source relied on, since the Constitution, as I noted, is mute on the subject.
As best as I can tell, there was no authority specified. I suspect the writer was trying a non-Scientific WAG. I don’t know US history in enough detail to cite anything, but I do faintly recall small (1-2 miles maximum) shifts in borders, so there’s a minuscule amount of precedence for this. I believe this was likely due to the quirks of river movements, perhaps the Mississippi.
Beyond that, it’s probably fresh territory. West Virginia wouldn’t be a good example, barring a civil war.
FWIW, current California takes seem to be inland counties trying to separate from the coastal ones. They were interested in the State of Jefferson, but AFAIK, it’s considered a lost cause in all Left Coast states.
The Supreme Court has, in the past, weighed in on border disputes between states. They are the only entity that has that power.
When I lived in SC, there was a huge fight between NC and SC about land along the border. Most people fought tooth and nail to avoid being put into NC (partly because taxes were lower, and partly because corruption is such a big issue). There were a couple of gas stations that were on the formerly SC side (the side with lower taxes on gas), and, with a snap of the court’s finger, had their former very profitable businesses made virtually worthless, because EVERYONE waits until they get to the SC side to gas up.
“They are the only entity that has that power.”
Actually, it could be achieved by an agreement directly between the states in question, or even by a vote taken by the citizens of the counties, per Amendment X. There is nothing in the Constitution (specifically including the notorious “commerce clause”) giving any part of the Federal government the authority to decree such things. I realize that the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, is rather a moot point these days, but that’s how I read it.
We get comments from TPTB in NW Oregon that the flyover counties are Such A Pain to deal with, but I suspect they’ll try to keep their grubby paws on us because 1) Powah! and 2) tax money, though they love to complain about having to do more road repairs here. No shit, Sherlock. We’re the ones with ice on the roads all winter, and studded snow tires are a survival tool…
I think the way to pull off a county exchange (hmm, visions of Red Curtain era prisoner exchanges….) would be for us to make ourselves ungovernable. We were heading that way in Month 20+ of 15 days to flatten the curve. We’ll see. The small-farm water regulations (apparently crafted to suit huge corporate operations) are yet another straw.
State of Jefferson has been tried. Both Oregon and California vetoed that. N. California want separation from SF south. Part of Jefferson and Jackson counties would be not happy (Ashand, Grants Pass), but essentially east of the Cascades, Cottage Grove and south, and good portion of the coast want to exit Oregon to State of Jefferson.
OK, unlike the issue of counties moving between two existing states, that is covered by Article IV, Section 3, since it involves creation of a new state.
“Basing” a currency on something is a hack on the transaction and coordination costs of convincing people to use it, and a partial assurance that something is preventing monetary inflation from being to bad, so long as no one finds a large deposit of the material it is based on.
That’s it. There is far less there than meets the eye.
Which is why Bitcoin’s limitation to 23 million ever being produced makes it more stable than, well, virtually anything else, in the long run.
Is there a foolproof way to prevent coins beyond that limit? I’m not familiar with the details of BC.
Yes: everyone in the network has to agree to changing the rules.
I’m not enough of a coder to tell for certain, but my understanding of how the entire thing works is that, yes, it is impossible. Has to do with how the “mining” of coins is tied into the validation of transactions in each block, and the fact that every copy of the blockchain has the limit and timing of the limit coded into it. You can corrupt one copy of the blockchain, but not ALL of them, nor even a sizeable minority of them.
Assumes unbreakable code.
Bad assumption.
um….. you’re gonna have to explain that one
Incorrect. Assumes that de-centralized blockchain cannot be corrupted more than 51% planet-wide, which is a much safer (though not perfect) assumption. And it would have to be corrupted planet-wide inside of ten minutes or so.
I think you need to go back further than the mid-20th. The evil really took off with the progressives. To me it seems that Woodrow Wilson reached a height of monstrosity that even Obama and Biden have not surpassed. And Oliver Wendell Holmes aided and abetted him, with his clever one-liners in Supreme Court verdicts that justified evil (did you know that “shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater” was his comparison for publishing opinion pieces critical of U.S. involvement in the Great War?).
This was also the start of progressive education, which has been dumbing Americans down for more than a century.
Considering the various fire tragedies in US theaters, that’s really evil.
The one progressive I give some leeway is Teddy Roosevelt, not because I think he did a lot of good as a politician (most was bad, and the rest is up for debate), but because as far as I have ever been able to tell, he was sincere right down to his bones.
When the Spanish-American War started, he resigned a Cabinet post to serve. When he found out he couldn’t just join the Army and see action (possibly because someone behind the scenes was trying to keep him safe without him knowing), he formed his own unit, the Rough Riders, to ensure he would. No politician today would ever consider such a thing, except as a carefully-orchestrated stunt.
And it’s like that with just about everything in his record. Yes, he broke rules and set awful precedents, but it was not because he could, and wanted to rub people’s noses in the power he held. It was because he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing.
Wilson, on the other hand, was a craven tyrant.
I don’t consider that TR has much of an excuse, though I’ll grant he was less vicious than Wilson. But I think that Wilson honestly believed in the glory of the ante-bellum South, and the need to keep black people down, and the merits of the Klan, and the need to run the American economy like a huge plantation, and thought that all his crimes were “the right thing.” See, for example, his sanctimonious approach to post-Great War Europe, which gave us the bastard state of Jugoslavia, basically handing the Serbs the power over the Croats, Slovenes, and Bosnia-Herzegovinans that they could never have gotten by honest warfare. Genuine belief in one’s cause doesn’t protect against that cause being evil.
Well, to begin with, TR is distinct from Wilson in that he was as not racist as it was possible to be at that time, and was for the integration of the military (though I don’t recall if that happened under his Presidency or not), and Wilson undid it.
In fact, his main problem was that he was unable (or unwilling) to think in principle. His actual aims were, to my mind, unobjectionable when phrased in the abstract. “Nature’s beauty should be preserved for later generations” would be one. Whether that justified his declaring Muir Woods to be a National Monument (because he could do that by Executive Order) when Congress dithered about making it a National Park is a different matter. But his goal was hardly evil.
I also have quite a lot of respect for TR as a person. My wife likes to read biographies, and she shared some of the more colorful incidents from his life with me. He was the sort of man that I would have really liked to be able to meet.
Yeah, but absent TR’s “I’ll run again! I’ll start my own party!!” and thus splitting the non-Wilson vote I contend we would not have got Wilson, and that’s a tall hill to climb for net historical redemption in my book.
Me too.
Come to think, Trump is a lot like TR. A populist blowhard, anathema to the elitists. Just, without the military aspects.
And TR was of the elite, while Trump is not.
Not so much a blowhard. He has real business experience.
And careful with the “populist”. As far as I can tell these days it means “People who are liked, who aren’t leftists.”
Populist: Someone who believes that people in a democracy should actually have a say in things.
No wonder the self-proclaimed “defenders of our democracy (i.e. Democratic Party power) hate such people;l the last thing they want is people to have a say in anything.
A reminder of their hating people actually having a say is this:
https://pjmedia.com/lincolnbrown/2024/05/24/diplomas-as-voter-id-elites-believe-only-college-grads-should-vote-n4929311
Yeah, I saw that; I had difficulty believing that even those miserable excuses for humans would say it out loud. 😒 They’re the same jerks as those who want to eliminate the Electoral College, and they ignore the fact that either one would require a Constitutional Amendment.
But they actually want to dump the Constitution in its entirety, and they don’t really care who knows it.
They fail to realize that 1. the Constitution is the only thing which gives anyone any reason to listen to them in the first place, no Constitution, no power.
And 2. that it is a peace treaty, and one ought not to abrogate such things lightly.
As for the first, I’ve noted in the past that they apparently are too stupid (or arrogant, or both) to realize that their only legitimacy stems from the Constitution; as you said, no Constitution, no (legal) power. (As an aside, this is why a Constitutional Convention must not be allowed; it would be the perfect opportunity for them to handcraft a new Constitution written their way and ram it through.)
Regarding the second, I concur; a pact between parties to settle disputes in a civilized manner can be a fragile thing, and no one with any sense wants to see what happens when the pact is broken.
This is my big concern about the “convention of states” advocates. They think that it would be limited to an amendment or two and seem to forget that the original Constitutional Convention was originally intended to provide some amendments to the Articles of Confederation. What they ended up doing was throwing out the Articles entirely and putting a new Constitution in their place. I can see a new convention doing the same thing and the same fraud that gives us our existing “representation” could well provide the same “representation” to such a convention.
No thank you.
We’d have to have a new Constitution already written, and limit the convention’s authority to approving it exactly as-is, or not.
Possible improvements:
Remove all language allowing slavery, making the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments unnecessary.
Permanently prohibit the federal government from directly taxing citizens. The 16th Amendment and the IRS are abominations.
Explicitly fix the Supreme Court at 9 Justices.
Eliminate the Commerce Clause, or at least put in restrictions to prevent it from being stretched to cover an infinite number of misdeeds.
Expand the 4th Amendment to prohibit the government from quartering ‘soldiers or other persons’ in private property.
Add an 8th Article stating that if the government exceeds its Constitutional authority, violates the Peoples’ civil rights and becomes tyrannical, the People have the right, and the duty, to overthrow that government and institute a new one that does conform to the Constitution.
Those all sound good (or at least reasonable) as a concept, and I could probably come up with a few others. But the sticking point is, exactly how do you enforce the requirement for all-or-nothing other than by force, since the Constitution has a well-defined procedure for self-modification but none for replacement? I suppose an amendment could be crafted to do exactly what you suggest (“This amendment makes the entire Constitution null and void, and substitutes this in its place…”), but good luck on getting that past the ratification requirements.
The political class disregards the Constitution we already have; what makes people think they will abide by any amendments of the “really mean this” sort or a rewrite that adds the “we really mean this” language.
As long as there is a political class that think Constitutions are an inconvenience and that it doesn’t give government enough power, and are willing to rewrite the parts that are clear to achieve their ends when they aren’t calling to ditch it altogether, there is nothing that can be done in the way of amending the Constitution that will solve the problem,. When state court leftists declare that provisions in their state constitutions regarding education that expressly apply to those between 5 and 18 years of age are applicable to those under 5 (and change the words “thorough and efficient SYSTEM of education” to “thorough and efficient education”), it makes clear the problem is the people who are disregarding constitutional limits and not the Constitution itself.
What is needed is a culture of respect for the Constitution, rule of law, and the individual liberty that they are intended to protect.
Given the state of colleges these days, a diploma might be seen as a disqualification for voting. 😛
Roosevelt did write the first navy history of the War of 1812.
And, you gotta admire a man who was shot in the chest in the middle of a speech, and held off getting medical attention until he was finished.
A minor point. What Justice Holmes said was that the First Amendment did not give anyone the right to “falsely cry fire in a crowded theater.” (I have to teach the case every year, so I get a little irked when people misquote it.) You can vehemently disagree with the comparison, but the idea that the First Amendment doesn’t protect speech intended to harm is sort of important.
Now, where the argument arises is “what do you mean ‘intended to harm’?” As you point out, there’s a lot of difference between handing out flyers opposing war and the draft, and immediate incitement to riot, or deliberately causing a panic just to watch people get hurt.
Still not the point. You can’t be prosecuted for the speech, for yelling ‘Fire!’. You can be prosecuted for the harm done by that lie. More so if your action can be shown to have been malicious.
But there was a fire in those theaters. A real fire.
People panicked and got trampled when other people cried out, “Fire!”, but that was honest, unmalicious reporting.
Anyway… that’s why there’s all the elaborate play about theater evacuation announcements not saying what the problem is, keeping the music going, etc., because actually saying there’s a fire can start a stampede. But the fires were real.
I don’t remember ever seeing any prank yelling of “Fire!” having been the problem in a theater.
I don’t know. I have not done any archival research in that time period that included places that had theaters. Someone causing panic for their own reasons wouldn’t have had to be in the US, either, as much as the Progressives had contacts and communications with their fellows on the other side of the Atlantic. I just don’t know.
(Interesting trivia: One reason why the University Church in Vienna has a very tall window beside the altar area is that it is also a fire escape. There had been a horrible theater fire in Vienna not long before the church was remodeled, and one source that I read said that the architect and Jesuits found a way to add a second exit from the nave that way.)
In the age of open flame gas footlights along the front edge of the stage, and well before anything like fabric treatments to reduce flammability existed, all it took was a slight extra swish of a costume dress or long coat to quickly ignite the actors and subsequently sets, so theater fires were a very real and relatively common thing. Justice Holmes was using a common-knowledge-to-era reference to make his point.
Also important to note that aside from the misquote, the case has also been essentially if not outright overruled by subsequent Supreme Court decisions.
Just think of Garland, Colangelo, Bragg, James and the kangaroo court judges as being the ObamaBiden regimes version of Beria and Stalin’s show trials and you won’t be wrong. People willing to do this will do ANYTHING to gain and retain power.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/ready-to-celebrate.php
And this was supposed to go at the bottom as a new comment and got put into the thread as a reply-because WordPress.
The point, to me, is that Holmes thought that was a fair analogy for writing an opinion piece that criticized the involvement of the United States in the Great War. As I understand it, people were sent to prison for stating their opposition to Wilson’s policies, and Holmes thought that was just fine and came up with that specious analogy for it. I find that as contemptible as his justifying forced sterilization with the line that “Three generations of idiots is enough.”
Fair enough. Wilson went over the top with censorship and anti-sedition stuff during WWI, I completely agree. I just wanted to get the correct quote out there, and to nod to how Schenck v. US is used in modern case law.
People tend to forget that democracy didn’t come about because the elites decided it would be nice to give the peasants a voice. Democracy came about because losing an election is a lot better than losing a civil war.
The American left is doing to learn that the hard way.
The real deciding factor in this election may very well be Trump’s selection for VP, but not in the way that usually applies.
If he picks someone who scares the piss out of the Deep State as much as (or even more than) he does, he’ll win (probably). (Think Vivek, Tulsi, or the like.)
If he picks an inside-the-Beltway RINO (coughTim Scottcough), he’ll get assassinated or have an “accident” before the election. Then it won’t matter who wins.
I’d say Tulsi Gabbard is more RINO than Scott, but YMMV. But if he really wants his Veep to keep the EDs awake all night, go for Lindell, the MyPillow guy.
Of course, the guy may well be as worthless in politics as back-up lights on a space shuttle, but given recent track records, I think GHW Bush was perhaps the last Veep to clear that bar, and with Al Bore, ff. on the Left, the hurdle has become a limbo stick.
EDs = Enemies Domestic. And ostensible allies with male potency issues. And the Venn intersection of the two sets.
Tulsi Gabbard does not pretend to be Republican, and therefore cannot be a RINO. She absolutely terrifies the Deep State, though, because she would not bend the knee.
No, she wouldn’t, and from everything I’ve seen I could live with her as VP just fine. Like Sinema, she became so disillusioned with the “modern” Dems that she couldn’t continue to support them. Dunno how it works if the VP candidate isn’t “officially” a member of the Presidential candidate’s party, though.
I mean, for the first few Presidential elections, the Veep was the first runner-up in the election, so there shouldn’t be a problem there.
True, but that was changed by Amendment XII. However, since there is no mention of party affiliation in either the original or the Twelfth I suspect you’re correct.
OMG Perfect!
IDK Lindell might be a pleasant surprise. Couldn’t be worse than Kamala, let alone Biden.
Few VPs could be worse than Kamel Hubris is or Brandon was, but half of Congress would jump at the chance to prove me wrong.
I’d be more inclined to say, “*cough*Nikki Haley*cough*”, but I know what you mean.
I don’t think she has a chance, having betrayed Trump directly.
Scott, on the other hand, lives an inside-the-beltway lifestyle on inside-the-beltway money, and Trump has teased him as a possibility.
“Snake”
Hopefully, Trump has taken that riff to heart, personally.
Because in term one, he got repeatedly snakebit.
I kind of wonder if the political rot is part of why Helldivers 2 has managed to resonate so much, especially in Europe?
For context, it’s a team horde shooter, but the backstory is you’re super soldiers for Super Earth spreading it’s Managed Democracy to the galaxy. And it’s blatantly obvious that its pretty much the furthest possible thing from a democracy or representative government.
ehh….
It’s riffing pretty hard off the Starship Troopers movie. Which itself is a culture war touchstone.
Plus the simple fact of having fictional characters not hating themselves and their polity is a fresh new take.
Well, it looks like it started there, but the lore has revolved to the point that it now looks like the entire Super Earth government is run by insane AI bureaucracy.
If you read the text on the ship upgrades a ridiculous number of them are really just having the requisite forms partly filled out before they are needed. So when your on the ground dealing with armies of doomsday bots, at least part of the time you’re waiting is actually time you crew is spending filling out various forms and paperwork, as opposed to actually reloading the main cannon.
The whole thing is just completely bonkers in that way.
Bonkers? Sounds to me like A Touch Of Realism.
Which is to say, yes. Bonkers and batshyte, but reflective of actual bonkers batshyte.
In Alexis Gilleland’s Rosinante series, the North American Union lost its space colonies partly because the EPA wouldn’t allow enough launches for the Space Force to loft adequate combat supplies.
The EPA thing was hilarious at the time, but entirely believable now, considering their bureaucratic overreach since the 1980s.
I’m still hoping to see a bureaucrat as a video game boss:
“This is not even my final form!”
I agree with you and have been warning people the cheating will be massive. There will be more votes for POTATUS than there are voters. What will the establishment republicans do? What they always do. Invite the cheaters to go out for drinks, a steak, and an after dinner slap and tickle.
I’ve moved to a red state. Made it! When taking a drive yesterday, each small town we drove through had white crosses adorned with American flags lined up by the road. Each cross had a name, birth and death date. Each American who gave their life to keep us free was honored. Some towns had five or six crosses. Some had what looked like dozens.
During the farm report on the radio, the host asked everyone listening to find a service for Memorial Day, to remember and honor those who gave all.
There’s a reason the left hates the flag, and those who honor it. They know what we feel about our country. Today I’m going to hang the flagpole on our new place and unfurl Old Glory. Might weep a bit, but that’s okay too.
Run into that in Oregon. Just go for a drive outside urban area. Don’t even have to get out of the valley. Thanks to Portland (even with pockets there) Oregon won’t give Trump any electoral votes.
“We will cut power to your light.”
“I have rechargeable batteries and a solar panel. And wood. And propane. And butane. And kerosene. And candles. And… I ain’t done yet.”
Oh, and Ox stubbornness. And I am NOT ALONE. Folks I know, some of them even friend, out-stubborn mules – for fun. But don’t worry. They only do that on days ending in ‘y’.
“The flames from you and your henchmen will ligh up my life.”
build a man a fire and he isnwarm for a day.
light a man on fire and he is warm for the rest of his life
The regime is planning to have Professor John Gill, a/k/a Joe Biden, give a White House campaign speech after the Democrats’ Team Biden kangaroo court convicts Trump without any crime or evidence of wrongdoing:
https://nypost.com/2024/05/25/us-news/biden-to-address-trump-hush-money-verdict-from-wh/
As if any more proof were needed to show that the persecution of Trump and the effort to destroy him and his presidential campaign is being orchestrated by the highest levels of the regime.
What is the over/under on
Biden declares Trump ineligible due to felon (or similar mumblesomething)
and on
Biden withdraws Secret Service protection from Trump.
It’s illegal to campaign from the White House like that.
Since the post was from Friday, what comes after is memes!
There is no chance, zero, that Americans as such quit and give up on being Americans. Some few deluded individuals may withdraw for a time, but a mass quit is not going to happen.
The risk, the real potential calamity, is that Americans, by and large, will stop thinking of their opponents and tormentors as misguided Americans, and instead deem them the enemy Other.
For -that- is the precipice, the breach. Then the plunge to “not really human” follows.
Then flows the river of blood and sorrow.
That risk is already becoming reality, at least partly because those opponents have stopped thinking of themselves as Americans, and have made that plain to see.
And they’ve never thought their opponents were human.
The Marxists don’t hold a candle to the potential genocidal rage of Americans.
Russia, and adjacent Marxists, liked to imply they could wreck the planet.
We built the practical means to actually do it. Ours was bigger, big enough really, and it actually worked.
Remember -that-.
I like to point out that the Feds didn’t do anything to Tokyo or Dresden that they hadn’t already done to New Orleans, Atlanta, or Richmond.
}}} Tokyo Rose — left Rose just sounds weird
Sarah:
“LA Rosa”? 😀
Seems like a very good pun.
Remember on Memorial Day, not all of those who fight for America wear military uniforms…
All too many have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, Vin Suprynowicz:
MEMORIAL DAY
——————-
This first weekend of summer has long been a time of picnics and barbecues and trips to the beach. To their credit, Americans never actually forgot the sacrifices of those who gave the final measure to protect the freedoms we now hold so casually. But their sacrifices were safely pigeonholed in a brief ceremony at the cemetery, a few moments of young kids scrambling to pass out flags in the sun — even that, these days, usually observed on TV.
Not so distressing, that way. The corpses of the frozen dead at Choisin Reservoir, or massacred at Malmedy? Another world. Heroes distantly remembered, symbols conveniently abstract, words of some historic speech memorized and recited by the best student in the class.
That was the way it was supposed to be, the way we expected it to remain, up through Sept. 10, 2001.
Of course, America’s independence was won because the French threw in on our side those many years ago. Franklin couldn’t convince King Louis’ ministers to do that till the colonials proved they could win a real pitched battle against British regulars — not just some skirmish against a sleepy mercenary garrison, such as Trenton or Princeton. A real battle to prove our revolution could succeed.
Washington couldn’t produce that victory — he was busy fighting a brilliant but doomed withdrawal from Philadelphia before Lord Howe’s superior advancing army, in that late summer and fall of 1777.
No, the one vital, necessary victory was won by New Haven shopkeeper Benedict Arnold, not even officially in command, grievously wounded but rising again and again, rallying the troops from the front as one horse after another was shot from beneath him, marshaling his forces to defeat an army of stunned British regulars emerging from the northern New York forest at Saratoga under the command of Gen. “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne.
“What forces?” both Ambassador Franklin and King Louis of France wanted to know. Washington had the entire regular Continental Army with him at Philadelphia. What army had won the great battle at Saratoga? No army, came the answer. Men without uniforms. American farmers in homespun, answering their country’s call.
Plenty of America’s heroes do wear uniforms. But as in all our wars, not all do.
Todd Beamer, 32, was an Oracle Inc. executive from Hightstown, N.J. Jeremy Glick, 31, was a sales manager for an Internet service provider. Thomas Burnett Jr., 38, was a California businessman. Mark Bingham, 31, a former college rugby player from California. All four were on United Airlines Flight 93 when it left Newark bound for San Francisco at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.
The plane never arrived. Terrorists armed with knives seized the flight, turned it around somewhere near Cleveland and headed for Washington, D.C.
After making her promise to call his wife and their two young boys, Mr. Beamer told the GTE supervisor, Lisa Jefferson, that he and the others — now aware thanks to their cell phones of what had happened to three other hijacked flights that day — had decided they were not going to stand by and remain mere pawns in the hijackers’ plot.
Without uniforms, without orders.
After Mr. Beamer extracted his promise that Ms. Jefferson would call his family, he dropped the phone, leaving the line open so the phone company supervisor could hear his final words, as he headed for the front of the plane to force it down in a remote strip mine area, 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Mr. Beamer spoke for a nation.
He said, “Let’s roll.”
And then there was silence.
Lisa Jefferson hung up the phone at 10 a.m. Eastern time, realizing no more would be heard from Flight 93.
Now, again, it’s Memorial Day. The bugles blow, laughing children place flags on the graves of the fallen, the surviving comrades of the silent dead squeeze into too-tight uniforms to march a block or two beneath the flag.
But these days, the dead are no longer so distant. In that one brief moment, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett Jr. and Mark Bingham ceased to be “civilians.”
They remembered what they were. They were the militia, our militia, though this time deprived of arms by their own government, despite the solemn guarantee — the firm, written guarantee a number of the states demanded before they’d ratify the Constitution — that “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
They went forward, anyway.
Surely they’ve earned their medals and their flags, as well, don’t you think?
“What kind of government have you given us?” Mrs. Powel asked Mr. Franklin as he emerged, at last, from the sweltering hall in Philadelphia.
“A republic,” he said … “if you can keep it.”
=====
A version of this column first appeared in 2002
Where did the column appear? Link?
https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Opinion/013330-2007-01-01-memorial-day.htm
There are other of his posts. He was very much a hard-line libertarian, if you are unfamiliar to him. Less of a total pit-bull than Lew Rockwell, but very strong on gun rights and limitations to government. He had one column about Independence Day, and another about the former limits to government — it used to be illegal to serve in two branches of government, for example — you could not hold a position in the judicial branch while also in the executive branch, even if they were not even vaguely related — e.g., you could not be a dog catcher (executive branch) and a law clerk (judicial branch) at the same time. Even part time, and even in different levels, e.g., DC is county level, and you can’t be a law clerk for the SCotUS, at the federal level…
This principle, along with the (unrelated to Vin) Mutual Aid Societies have been, unfortunately, utterly forgotten to the point where even someone in their 60s does not know about them, generally.
😉
This is a great piece about Mutual Aid Societies — which are the answer to the common liberal whine, “If government doesn’t do charity, who will?”
I’m now in my 60s, and was in my 40s when this came out and I first read it.
Despite being widely read and highly intelligent, I don’t believe I’d ever even heard of Mutual Aid Societies in 2000. Even more forgotten are they, today. And worth being aware of.
From Mutual Aid to Welfare State: How Fraternal Societies Fought Poverty and Taught Character
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/mutual-aid-welfare-state-how-fraternal-societies-fought-poverty-and-taught
Obviously no connection to Vin, but I think he would approve of them as the first-responder for charity situations.
One obvious lesson MAS’s taught, that has been largely forgotten, is:
“The world doesn’t owe you a living. It was here first, long before you, and it’ll be here long after you and everyone who knows you is disparate atoms spread across interstellar space.“
If more people realized they had to contribute to be rewarded — or even to hope for rewards — the world would be a better place. 😀
I’m going to make another point, here, that is very much of concern, to me — it’ll be relevant by 2028 even if it’s not relevant this year, and, personally, yes, it should be understood far and wide HERE:
AI Generated Videos Just Changed Forever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXpdyAWLDas
Trust me, watch it.
OK, now, that is a couple months old, but it shows the progress made in the previous year. Now consider a few months from now, say, late October, the month of surprises. What might be fakeable by then?
What if someone makes a faked video of Donald Trump, say, using the “N” word in some seriously derogatory way, spouting some kind of racist screed… not a long one, and it could be as little as 15 seconds or so… like some candid camera phone vid shot surreptitiously…
…And then releases it in the last week of October?
YOU will know it’s fake, but if the general public — the wafflers — don’t know that it quite EASILY could be a fake, what, then, might be their response? Yeah, by mid-November, there would no doubt be obvious proof it was a fake, but there will be no “recall” of the election results.
THIS is actually my biggest concern at the moment… IF we don’t CALL ATTENTION to the current state of “video fakery” so the general public is open to the very idea of it… well, this could readily be exactly the kind of crap they could be planning on to rig THIS election. You can bet they’ll get rid of Harris, so they can push in some more suitably candidate to replace Brandon, who will have a “heart attack” or a “stroke” at a very opportune time to make them the Defacto PotUS virtually from the start.
Peeps need to spread this idea around, that it is possible to make short fakes, now, that look fairly real. Especially if you add effects to it that make excuses for any minor flaws, by making it look like a surreptitiously taken camera phone vid… slightly out of focus, odd movements (able to crop it so that you can’t see visible flaws in the original), and so forth.
Jack Posobiec has done some fair,y convincing videos of Biden; one showed him re-institutung the draft. Personally I thought it wa a bad idea to show conservatives faking video, but making it clear it can be done is worthwhile. (I quit following Posobiec after he went, “Vladimir Putin, Defender of the Church, ” and did some fairly anti-Jewish commentary after Oct. 7th).
And we’ll worth reminding people of the faked audio a black athletic director put out to get his (white) coach fired a month or so ago.
}}} Personally I thought it was a bad idea to show conservatives faking video
I think it’s ok if you have it clearly watermarked in such a way that it can’t be removed, “This is a faked video” — so no one can take it and claim it was done by the right with an intent to decieve.
It’s obvious that the dishonest left (Yeah: “is there any other kind?”) can either fake one which makes Trump look bad OR they can fake one with an obvious flaw and claim it’s been faked by the Right**, so “don’t trust any videos from the Right!” (because libtards will never ever ever figure out that that means “Hey, that means WE could fake shit, too!!”)
So showing it can be done by doing it is hardly going to give them any ideas that don’t occur to them.
======
** “But, of course, the Right were WAAAAAY too stupid to figure out that it was easily detectable, because, after all, we’re soooo much smarter than they are!!”
Yes, ignore the fact that people on the left, named Rather, for example, have unquestionably faked shit with an intention to deceive the electorate and shift the results of an election…
“Pay NO attention to that fakery going on behind the curtain!! Trust us, we’re honest people, who would never ever do that. At least, not unless it was ‘in support of Democracy‘, I mean…”
“Fake News”
That man thinks -way- ahead.
Link them Ice Ice Matrix.
If they had anything, they would have used it in 2020.
2020 may as well be the paleolithic as far as the technology in question is concerned.
Also there is an answer to the deployment of these memetic weapons: hitting the other side with the same stuff.
This has happened before: Lincoln, a Republican, chose Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, as his VP in 1864.
Point taken; they ran on the National Union Party ticket. As I noted later than the comment you quoted, the Constitution is mute on the subject, so probably no issue.