Category Archives: Politics

Trade-Offs

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Political systems are about problem solving. Inherited rule, for example, solves the problem of selecting the next ruler. Blood also provides legitimacy, which is an essential element for any ruler. One of the problems a political system must solve is the problem of trade-offs. Public policy, regardless of the system, is about trade-offs. A political system has to have a mechanism for selecting between competing options, by weighing the trade-offs and determining the best choice.

A great story from the ancient world about trade-offs is the story of the emperor Tiberius and flexible glass. A craftsman was presented to the emperor claiming that he could make flexible glass. That is, a substance that looked and functioned like glass, but did not break like glass. He produced a bowl that the emperor tried to smash, but it only suffered some dents. The craftsman then repaired it with a small hammer, knocking out the dents made by the emperor.

Once the emperor was assured that no one else knew how to make this new material, he had the craftsman beheaded. The reason was that Tiberius saw right away that this material was revolutionary. Innovation always comes with trade-offs, as the new thing replaces an old thing. In the case of flexible glass, the trade-offs were incalculable, so the proper course was to make sure this new material never got loose. Tiberius chose the well understood over the completely unknown.

This story is useful to us today, because we have lived through what could be described as a series of flexible bowl incidents. The technological revolution that was set in motion by the microprocessor has swept through the West. As Tiberius anticipated with flexible glass, the silicon chip has set off changes that no one anticipated. In the material sense, our world is quite different from 70 years ago. In a cultural and political sense, we now live at the other end of a perpetual revolution.

In theory, democratic systems of government are about solving the problem of the general will. Through the ballot, the people tell the office holders what they want from their government. In turn, the people in office try to guide the general will through public debate and public advocacy for their ideas. The trade-offs involved in the options being debated are fleshed out and the public, directly, or indirectly, makes their choice and that becomes public policy.

The trouble is the system always selects for innovation over continuity. When the microprocessor came along, there could be no debate about whether this was a dangerous new innovation or how best to prevent this radical new thing from overthrowing the old rules. Democracy always comes down on the side of the new thing over the old thing. Every innovation, no matter how pointless, is celebrated as another step in human progress. Democracy is a perpetual revolution.

As a result, there could be no Tiberius moment with the microchip. There was not one to examine the new thing and contemplate its ramifications. Instead, it was quickly adopted setting off the technological age. Not only did no one think about the trade-offs before unleashing this new thing, not one thought about them afterwards. New is always good in a democratic society. The only thing better than innovation is more and faster innovation. Constant change is the ethos of liberal democracy.

The technological revolution was expected to solve lots of problems that plagued the industrial age. Society was supposed to become more democratic, for example, as improvements in communication made it easier for people to express their preferences in the public square. The distribution of goods would become more equitable, as innovation would smash the old bottlenecks. The technological revolution would make the world flatter, more egalitarian and more peaceful.

Some of the promised benefits have happened, but the trade-offs have been enormous and could very well be the end of us. For example, the cost of being able to call anyone anywhere from a device that fits in your pocket is having millions of people experiencing the lives through their phone. All the benefits of the mobile phone were realized with the first car phone. Everything that has came after that point has been the trade-off that no one could imagine. Most of them negative.

Similarly, the cost of instant communication across time and place is millions of people standing in front of a firehose of information. Humans are not made to experience the world this way. One result is everyone is dumber and less informed. Another result is the number of rage heads screaming in the face of their fellow citizens is growing exponentially. The cost of knowing what is on everyone’s mind is knowing what is on everyone’s mind whether you like it or not.

Again, this is not to say the technological revolution is a mistake. E-mail is better than the postal service. Modern automobiles are better and safer than their analog variants from the old days. Having the sum of human information at your fingertips is an amazing leap forward for humanity. There has been great material progress that has come with the technological revolution, but it came with a price. The question the West is slamming into is whether that price is warranted.

The trouble is democracy is incapable of evaluating trade-offs. This may be why our systems are becoming increasingly authoritarian. The only way to tone down the rhetoric in public forums is for the heavy hand of the ruling class to limit what can be said in public forums. The only way to break people from being constantly on-line is to make on-line less rewarding. There is no democratic way to get rid of Twitter and Facebook, so we get an authoritarian approach.

The trouble, of course, is that the current ruling class is the product of the democratic system that created this mess. These are people bred to overturn the tried and true in favor of the novel. That instinct is seen in their fetish for men in dresses. They are attracted to it because it is disruptive. Our ruling class is was selected by a system that rewards pointless novelty over sober mindedness. A ruling class of such people means we are ruled by a class of powerful toddlers.

That may be the next turn of the wheel. Democratic dictatorship gives way to some form of personal rule, where stability and continuity are prized over innovation. The ruling class is symbolically and physically walling itself off from us, but what comes next is a culling inside those walls. The feckless and stupid will be pushed out as a matter of survival, by those actually capable of wielding power. That will be a trade-off that everyone can accept, because it brings stability.

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The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

The Road Ahead

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Up until this moment in time, the vast majority of right-wing people operated from the assumption that they were in the majority. They were part of the silent majority that did not make a racket in the streets. The Left and their associated riffraff went out into the street and bellowed like lunatics because they never had the numbers. They had to be loud and intimidating in order to get their way. When they went too far, then the great silent majority would awaken and put them in their place.

They also operated under the assumption that numbers still mattered. If the majority got motivated and turned up to vote, they would win the election and that would make a difference to the politicians. Right-wing politics was all about mobilizing the voters and winning a majority. They did not have to worry about changing minds. They had to focus on getting the word out so the majority would turnout. It was the Left that focused on convincing people into going along with their schemes.

This not only applied to elections, but to all areas of politics. The expression “go woke and go broke” is rooted in the assumption that business has to respect the customer or face the wrath of the marketplace. If management takes to Twitter pushing left-wing nonsense, it was assumed they would pay for it. A television program that decided to offend its viewers would see its ratings decline. Right-wingers were the majority, and they were operating in a political marketplace.

Whether this was ever true does not matter, as it is not true now. That silent majority is now a permanent minority. Further, the political marketplace no longer exists. You are not allowed to speak your mind to your fellow citizens, unless your opinions are approved by the managerial class. They are also making sure that your choices at the ballot box will be limited to their approved options. Even if you find a way around it, the magic of mail-in ballots will guarantee the outcome in advance.

What this means is the new age of managerial authoritarianism will require a new brand of politics that fits the age. All of the avenues of the old system have been closed off or corrupted, so they serve the ends of the regime. Mass censorship monopolizes the public space by the organs of the ruling class. Systematic ballot stuffing closes off the electoral route. Even the courts are a dead end. A court that claims the Founders wanted special rights for men in drag is no friend of the people.

From the perspective of white populism, all politics must now be irregular politics as conventional politics has been closed off to us. The Right has to move away from the mindset of the majority to the mindset of the put-upon minority. That means engaging in unconventional tactics. When you cannot participate in conventional politics in order to advance your interests, your choices are clear. You either submit and live the lie that is conventional politics, or you rebel and live outside the lie.

This is why boycotting elections and threatening the Republican Party from the Right must be part of the new political toolkit. In the old politics, it was always about the people running the system, not the system itself. The focus was on getting the right people elected. In the new politics, this is reversed. It is about the system, not the people running the system. The GOP is part of that system. Attacking them is part of weakening a system that makes war on us.

This has a strategic value, as well. The Left has always looked at the Republicans, along with their enablers from Conservative Inc., as an electric fence that keeps the white majority inside the system. Attacking the GOP forces them to choose their friends on the Left over their former constituents. It reframes politics as insiders versus outsiders, rather than one group of insiders versus another, with the white majority looking on like spectators, hoping for a good result.

The hardest part of this new mindset will be the idea of being ungovernable. This is the opposite of what most right-wing people have been conditioned to think. In the old way, the good citizen plays by the rules. In the new age, the good citizen is always looking for the chance to throw sand in the gears and undermine the rules. The dissident is always looking to drive up the costs to the managerial class by making them expend resources to compel compliance with their rules.

A simple example of this is the “It’s OK To Be White” flyers that create havoc from time to time. A few dollars’ worth of material and an hour of time results in a week of left-wing handwringing and the cops wasting resources on it. Someone adding “And neither do black people” to a yard sign that reads, “Hate Has No Home Here” does real psychological damage to the managerial class. It mocks their morality and their control over public attitudes. It is activism with a very high ROI.

The main point of politics for dissidents in any sort of authoritarian society is to develop and maintain an atmosphere of pressure on the regime. As ugly as it looks, those troops, barricades and razor wire fencing in Washington are a great result. A ruling class living inside an armed camp is one that will eventually burn through its emotional capital and begin to make mistakes. Ideally, the ruling class stays behind those barriers, fearing that the people on the other side are ungovernable.

Another thing we must do is abandon solution-based politics. For generations, the white majority has been conditioned to think in terms of solutions. In this new politics, there are no solutions. There are tactics that advance the interest of dissidents, which are primarily the weakening of the regime. The solutions in the demographic age can only come after the collapse the liberal democratic order. All politics now are about creating conditions in which rational politics can return.

This raises the thorniest of problems. The late Robert Novak used to say he loved his country but hated his government. In a post-national world ruled by a dictatorship of the managerial class, there is no country to love. Patriotism, like civic nationalism and clean elections, is a museum piece. Instead, you love your cause, you love your people, and you are willing to work with anyone that helps you fight the tyrants. In a world of “us versus them”, abstract concepts like patriotism have no place..

As a practical matter politics now must be a daily rebellion. Like Havel’s green grocer, being a dissident means living in the truth and every day is a war to pull a brother out of the lie that is modern America. It is defacing signs that say we are all in this together and littering managerial areas with reminders that they are surrounded. It means denying them your virtues by refusing to cooperate and only going along with their edicts after they have expended resources to compel you.

It is to live and let them know you live in a constant state of insurrection and that as long as you do, they can never rest. The people on the other side of those barriers live in fear of the people on this side of those barriers. They can no longer trust the men guarding them, as most of those men live on this side of those barriers. They are paranoid and afraid of the noises on the other side. The politics of this age are all about turning those institutions they control into prisons.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

Lesson Of Trump #3

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Note: I have a post up behind the green door on the 1997 movie The Devil’s Own, starting Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford.

Perhaps in the future, this day will be called day zero of year zero, signifying the official closing of one era and the start of a new one. The installation of Joe Biden as president marks the end of the old civic nationalist America and the beginning of the new managerial state. Competitive elections and open debate of the old era have been swept away in favor of ceremonial elections and speech codes. The managerial class has formally seized control of the country.

No one can look at what is going on in the country and think any of it is normal or that returning to normal is possible. Even if Washington wanted to return to normalcy, the last few months cannot be unseen. Joe Biden will take the oath of office behind layers of razor wire, guarded more than a full army division. The imperial capital looks like it is under occupation and it very well may remain this way. The new regime is extremely paranoid, convulsed by increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories.

This is the big lesson of the Trump years. The nature and psychology of the managerial class began to transform after the end of the Cold War. Little by little it was becoming a closed and insulated culture sitting atop of the general culture. The system looked the same from the outside, two parties competing for votes and the right to dispense the benefits of power, but inside it was changing. It was becoming a distinct culture and the people in that culture were becoming class aware.

Viewed in this context, the 2016 election of Donald Trump was the catalyst for the final phase of this process, the end of which is unfolding now.  The political system in America is now a closed shop, like a sports league. Just as you cannot buy a sports team without first being approved by the other owners, you can no longer win a federal election without first being vetted by the managerial class. The razor wire barriers are the manifestation of this closing of the managerial elite.

It is not just the political marketplace that has been closed off. America is no longer a market economy. This is another thing that has accelerated into plain sight during the Trump years. The shuttering of the social media site Parler is a great example of how the marketplace no longer exists in a conventional sense. All of its vendors gave up their business with the company, because the people running those firms are loyal to their class, not the abstract principles of the marketplace.

This will become increasingly clear as the new regime takes control. The big economic players like the banks or the tech giants are no longer subject to the marketplace in any meaningful way. For example, if angry consumers swore off Amazon, not much would change for Amazon as they control the logistics for the companies those angry consumers would use in place of Amazon. Mastercard can black list anyone because they are a part of a cartel that has no competition.

This will be the hardest lesson for people to accept. Every generation of Americans walking the earth right now has been conditioned to believe the marketplace is the final arbiter of all disputes. Despite all that has gone on, most people cannot accept that there is no marketplace in large swaths of the economy. They still respond to the bogeyman of socialism, despite the fact America has been a socialist country for close to a century now. We are now a command-and-control economy.

Of course, all of this is coming with something even more ominous. For example, the tech giants volunteered to work with the FBI to get the protestors they have now labeled insurrectionists, which is an important change in tone. This public-private partnership comes naturally, as the people involved see one another as members of the same class, at war with the same enemy. Silicon Valley is officially the signal intelligence arm of the surveillance state.

This year the regime will roll out the Covid passports, which will be required to get on public transport. Soon, they will be required to do anything. This is the beginning of the social credit system, where your internal passport is essentially a report card that is constantly updated based on your behavior. It starts with public health but will quickly moves to public safety. Surveillance capitalism will come into full bloom tarted up with the language of public safety and defending democracy.

In total, what the Trump phenomenon has revealed is the America most people thought was their country is gone. Politically, economically, demographically, and culturally, the old American has been replaced with this new society. The great reset, as the new regime bills it, is a dictatorship of the managerial class. That class is now largely closed off to the rest of us. Just as the nomenklatura had the house on the embankment, the managerial class has the walled institutions.

This is why the new regime is willing to bust up many of the institutions that had been instrumental in creating. Public distrust of the media is no longer important, as the new class is no longer subject to the voters. The media companies no longer worry about the audience, because what are you going to do, start your own Amazon? Create your own Hollywood? Mitch McConnell supports another impeachment, because he knows the party system is a farce. His loyalty to his class is what matters.

Michael Anton was right that Donald Trump was the Flight 93 president. Like that flight, the story was motivated by hope, but it was doomed from the start. Like that flight, it crashed and now can only serve as a warning and a rally point. For the new regime, it is a warning that their subjects will fight back if given the chance. For the rest of us, it is reminder that we can fight back, but success is not guaranteed. Resistance only works when no one has any illusions about what is being resisted.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

Lesson Of Trump #2

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One of the ironies of the Trump phenomenon is that his most ardent supporters and his many opponents focused on the man, when it was never about the man. Ten years ago, no rational person would have picked Donald Trump as the face of populist discontent, much less the most consequential political figure in generations. When he ran, it was assumed it was a publicity stunt, as he had spent his life as an entertainment gadfly, finding ways to draw public attention to his real estate schemes.

Yet, as the Trump era draws to a close, both his supporters and his enemies have developed a political cult around the man. His supporters are sure he has some last trick up his sleeve to do something to save the country. His opponents are sure he has some trick up his sleeve to steal their democracy from them. So much so, in fact, they have turned the tiny internet fad called QAnon into a subversive conspiracy. There are more anti-Q fanatics now than genuine followers of it.

The thing is, Trump was always an opportunist. In fact, he is the extreme expression of the opportunist, which is how he went from Queens landlord to one of the most famous and successful real estate developers in the world. Real estate, especially the business of high-profile resort properties, is about opportunity. You find a deal before everyone else and cash in before the next big thing. Trump got rich finding the next big thing before everyone else realized that it was the next big thing.

Trump got into politics for all the same reasons everyone else runs for office in a modern liberal democracy. He wanted affirmation. Unlike the narcissistic robots that fill up both parties, Trump saw an opportunity outside the system. The swelling ranks of disaffected whites, unhappy with both parties, looked a lot like a neglected property with tremendous promise, if the right investor came along. Most important from Trump’s perspective, they were a motivated seller.

The first eager seller was Ann Coulter, who was one of the most prominent celebrities to get on the Trump train. Well before anyone thought Trump was a serious threat to the Republican nomination, she was saying he would not only win the nomination but win the general election. Queen Ann completely bought into Trump being the daddy she had been waiting for her whole political life. She went to war for Trump the man, believing he was the answer.

She was not alone in thinking Trump was the savior. The alt-right that had been forming up on-line in the Obama years also went all in on Trump. They convinced themselves he was the American Pinochet. Mike Enoch of The Right Stuff jumped on the Trump train with the same enthusiasm as Ann Coulter. Richard Spencer was a full-blown MAGA man. The alt-right went to war for Trump in the 2016 election, so much so that even Hillary Clinton felt the need to notice them.

The trouble is, Trump was never that man. He could never be that man. He could never have won the nomination and the general election if he was that man. Only an opportunist with no regard for what he was saying could have gamed the system the way he did in 2016. Unlike Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot who came before him, Donald Trump won because he was not constrained by the truth. Like every opportunist, he was only focused on exploiting the opportunity.

Of course, when this reality became too obvious to ignore, many people jumped off the Trump train and became droning critics. Like jilted lovers they could not stop talking about how the mean old orange man did them wrong. They were not wrong to point out Trump’s faults. Their error was in thinking he was their savior or that any man can be the savior in this political system. They were sure and remain sure that you can vote your way out of the defects of liberal democracy.

There are three lessons here. One is that Trump could never have existed without the realty of the masses that supported him. He was just a front runner, a guy who jumped to the head of a wave of people coming to terms with the fact that we are entering a new era of politics. With or without Trump, those people exist and will continue to exist with the same grievances and concerns. Just because the dull knight vanquished their champion, does not mean they cease to exist.

Another lesson is there is no way to reform this system. The sort of person who can win an election is either a careerist sellout like every member of the GOP or an outlandish outsider with no ability to govern. The only way forward for dissidents is to focus on building outside the system. A third of all adults and close to half of white people no longer think the system is legitimate. Every day the people in charge convert more people to this view with their authoritarian actions.

The final lesson here is that the old political labels are no longer relevant. That is what the Trump era demonstrated. It is no longer about conservative versus liberal or red team versus blue team. It is not socialism versus capitalism. It is about those who live in the lie of liberal democracy and those who live in the truth. If you live in the truth, you not only oppose the people running the system, but you also oppose the system that allows these criminal aliens to rule over us.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

Lesson Of Trump #1

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Note: The Monday post is up on Taki. The general theme this week will naturally be about the installation of The Pretender onto the throne. I also have a movie post up behind the green door. If you are not a subscriber, you need to be.

As the military begins the process of installing The Pretender as the figurative leader of the American Empire, it is a good time to take stock of what has happened over the last five years. From the perspective of political psychology, the world all of us inhabit today is a vastly different one from the world of 2015. This includes the dissident right, which has been transformed by the Trump experience. In the before times, politics was all shades of gray, while today it is in black and white.

An obvious example is Conservative Inc. The Obama years were tough for those rackets, as it became clear to many conservative people that these guys cared more about how the Left thought of them than in advancing their issues. Compounding it was the refusal to address the failures of the Bush years. Even so, they really thought they could keep peddling hyper-violent Progressivism to conservatives, as long as they decorated it with pictures of Reagan.

That racket smashed onto the rocks of the Trump experience. Traffic for the old school neocon sites collapsed. The Weekly Standard folded. These people revealed themselves to be a blend of old school confidence men and petulant, nasty liars who hate the people they claim to represent. They still have an audience of chumps unable to smarten up, but otherwise Conservative Inc. has no audience. They exist because the Left thinks they are useful for now.

Further to that point, Libertarian Inc., a subsidiary of Conservative Inc., has also been exposed as a long con. The stripping of our ancient liberties by global enterprise should have been a great cause for libertarians. After all, systematically stripping people of their ability to exist is pretty much what libertarians claim to oppose, but the major organs were silent. A combination of graft and perfidy kept them focused on echoing Progressive talking points about the evil Donald Trump.

This has revealed something else. The dissident right is not ready to be the Dissident Right, despite the growing numbers. This is a problem that dates to the 1980’s when Conservative Inc. started to purge dissenters from their ranks. Instead of working to build new structures outside of and opposed to official structures, dissidents kept trying to get back inside the official tent. The result has been a ragtag army living on the land outside the walls of the city. It remains so.

Probably the biggest change, one we see evolving in front of our eyes as the military is called in to install The Pretender, is that the parties are a fiction. Until very recent, most dissidents thought the way forward was to work through the two-party system and get “our guys” into office. Again, this dates to the 1980’s. Buchanan tried and failed to unseat the neocon Bush. Perot tried and failed with his third-party to cleanse the land of the neocons. Trump tried and failed to reform the Republican Party.

The reason all these efforts failed is the party system is a fiction. The core of each party holds the same opinions on the important issues. They are bankrolled by the same collection of billionaires and international interests. The parties have tentacles that reach into various camps, but the main body of the system serves the people who bankroll American politics. A politician with close ties to the CCP can maintain his seat because the Chinese are a major backer of both parties.

This is the big change for dissidents. Trump was the last opportunity to keep dissidents engaged in the fiction of democracy. His own perfidy and his treatment by the political class has disabused dissidents of their faith in the system. The people in the streets at the Epiphany Uprising were not there because they still believe in the Republican Party, Donald Trump, or the system itself. They were there, being cheered by tens of millions from home, because dissidents lost their faith in the system.

Further to that, it is finally dawning on dissidents that what motivates the Cloud People is not what motivates the Dirt People. For generations, the Right insisted that the Left is driven by the same logic as everyone else. This was always false, and part of the long con played on the public. This is, in part, why conservatives lost every battle in the culture war. The people on the other side of the barricades, celebrating their victory over us, are not us and they do not think like us.

This is probably the most important lesson of the last five years that is finally sinking into the thick skulls of the dissident right. The Cloud People are not motivated by greed or a lust for power. They have those things. They are motivated by a sense of identity that starts with a hatred of the Dirt People. Their sense of self begins with not being anything like the people over whom they rule. This is why they hated Trump. He was an intruder from the other side injected into their world.

While many are disappointed with the Trump years and Donald Trump the man, the last five years have been a clarifying experience. The anger, emotion, disappointment, frustration, even the violence, are the result of a fog lifting. Five years ago, most people were sure about politics. Now that the fog has lifted, people are looking around and seeing it was always a big lie. The people who perpetrated these lies are on the other side of those barricades, giving the rest of us the finger.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

It’s Not All Bad News

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There are several remarkable things happening in response to the massive push back from Americans to the oligarchic coup we are seeing unfold. The one getting the most attention, of course, is the hysterical reaction by the political class. Their rhetoric is so out of sync with reality it suggests mental illness. One thing not getting noticed is how Conservative Inc. appears to collapsing right in front of us. Look at the flagship of that racket, National Review, and it should have tumbleweeds on it.

Their first big think piece in response to the epiphany protests was something so bizarre that it could have been from the Babylon Bee. Put aside for a second that most people in America have no memory of Reagan. These are people endlessly howling about the need to court nonwhites and that nonwhites are their future. The typical black is 27 years old and the typical Hispanic is 11 years old. Talking about Reagan to these people is like talking about Frederick the Great or Napoleon.

Look into that piece and the writer’s cure for what ails the country is the exact thing 75 million people voted against twice. Being the party of global enterprise at the expense of the culture and spiritual welfare of the people is why the Republican Party is headed to the dustbin of history. Tone? The GOP has been obsessed with tone policing everyone for generations now. The reason people voted for the loudmouth is they are sick of being told they cannot speak out against what is happening.

Of course, the slovenly Kevin Williamson has been pounding away at Trump and Trump voters in service to his paymasters in the uniparty. What you have to admire about Williamson is that he is loyal to his paymasters. Most pens-for-hire show a little reluctance, as their conscience tends to gnaw at them. Not old Kev. He was bought to be a foaming-at-the-mouth Trump-hater back in 2015 and he stays bought. The Iranians use guys like this to clear mine fields.

His most amusing post of the bunch thus far is this one, where he lays out his big strategy for the collection of rent boys and house slaves called the conservative movement. Down in the middle he writes, “The big technology companies are the most successful thing going economically in the United States; the Europeans, who have nothing to compare to a Facebook or a Google, resent them and fear them; Democrats hate them, blaming Facebook for the election of Trump in 2016.”

This is what most people used to call a bald-faced lie. The Democrats love the tech oligarchs every bit as much as National Review and for the same reason. They both get gobs of cash from the Silicon Valley oligarchs. The tech companies are systematically erasing anything resembling dissent to the official orthodoxy. They are even erasing people Williamson would call allies. For old Kev, the only allies are those who can keep his refrigerators stocked. He’s happy to be an organ grinder’s monkey.

Of course, you see nothing on National Review concerning the most relevant issue of the day, which is tech censorship. For a collection of people who amusingly insist they are a movement, you would think they would have something to say about the thing everyone is discussing. The one exception is the piece they get from Victor David Hanson, but he has no role in the editorial stance of the site. In fact, he is notable in being the last actual conservative writing for the site.

Of course, Conservative Inc. is not just National Review, but it has always been the canary in the coal mine. The more vibrant and active sites are shifting into the populist camp as they realize there is no future with the National Review types. The average age of a NRO reader is over 70 now. You’ll note that most of their stories get few comments and that is because many nursing homes no longer provide free internet access to their patients.

All of this is good news. The National Review type has always been a hindrance to the genuine right-wing, because they operate as the “good” conservative. That is, the Left anoints them as the opposition, so money and attention flow to them. Meanwhile, the genuine opposition to the Left is begging for scraps and attention. Stripped of that credibility, it is no longer possible for them to play that role. The money will continue to dry up and National Review will go the way of all legacy media.

All of this points to something much bigger. What has unfolded since the election has opened the eyes of millions of people. Despite the rhetoric from their cult leaders, even many lefties are getting nervous about what is happening. They live close enough to reality to know what lies ahead if we keep on this pace. For Conservative Inc., it means they no longer have an audience hoping that a settlement can be negotiated with their friends on the Left. Principled surrender is no longer an option.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

Techno-Democracy

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A popular way to understand the problems of the present is to compare current times to the past. It is popular to say there is nothing new under the sun. That is certainly true regarding the human condition. The mix of people changes over time, but the types of people are fairly fixed. What changes is material progress. There are new things, and those new things are often very important. Those new things create new challenges for those old ways of thinking and acting.

For example, advances in weaponry changed how people related to the people in charge of their society. The crossbow suddenly made it very easy for one man to kill another man from a distance. Even a farmer could quickly learn to use the weapon and be deadly accurate with it. The traditional bow required training and was not as accurate as the new weapon. Suddenly, an angry peasant could take out the king, which changed how the king looked at the peasants.

An example in our age is how technology has made it nearly impossible to know who is making the laws. We have a labyrinth of laws regarding immigration, but no one knows who offered up these laws or when many were created. Exactly no one has ever heard their congressman or senator promise them to increase immigration from Somalia, but it happened. Someone in the law-making system tucked that provision into a bill that no one read, and we suddenly have infinite Somalis.

The truth is, the reason we have the open borders system we have is that a million rats in the system have been gnawing away at the borders for generations. A defense bill will have tucked within in it an obscure passage that removes some provision of a previous bill on immigration. In the farm bill some other gremlin will slip in a provision that replaces that one removed in the defense bill. The old bill that became law years ago is still there but amended over time to be the opposite.

The irony of this is that the argument in favor of liberal democracy is that it opens the law-making process to the public. Laws are proposed in a public forum by legislators, who are elected by the people. Those laws are then debated and voted on by those representatives of the people. If the people do not like how their representative voted they can vote him out of office. Unlike palace intrigue and laws passed by the whims of a king or dictator, it is all out in the open.

This would certainly be true a century ago. The reason is the bills were written by hand and read out loud. Legislators had private correspondence, but it was also written by hand and carried by horse. The only way to conduct business in a parliamentary body was in person and out loud. It also meant the bills were short, as no one was going to write a 6,000-page bill by hand. An American could sit in the gallery and literally watch the laws be written and debated in the Congress.

Today, we have no idea who is writing the bills. There is a vague sense that it is the army of squires in Washington, taking dictation from monied interests. The names of these people are unknown to us. In fact, they are unknown to the legislators who vote on the bills presented to them. None of the bills passed by Congress are read by the men and women voting on them. They simply get an executive summary and calls from their donors as to how they are supposed to vote.

It is not just law making where we see the democratic process overwhelmed by the technological progress of this age. Here is an example from the courts. A century ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment protections only apply to your immediate dwelling. They do not extend to your land. At the time, this meant that the government could walk onto your land and look around for crime. They could not go into your house, but they could walk all around it.

At the time, this seemed perfectly reasonable. You can’t reasonably ask someone to not look at something in plain sight. Modern technology, however, has now taken this bit of common sense and turned it into another tool of the police state. The government can install cameras on your property and record your comings and goings. A century ago, this outcome was impossible to imagine, so no one imagined it. Technology does not just make dreams come true. It makes the unimaginable into reality.

Here is the thing. We have no idea who decided that the court permitted this new intrusion on our privacy. Clearly, the court did not say it is okay for the government to install cameras on your property. Someone in the system looked for a way to do this and found that court ruling. No one knows who that person is because it is probably a collection of people. Like the rats eating away at the border, these rats gnaw away at other aspects of civil society.

A reason America is in crisis is that no one knows who is responsible. The left-wing rioters we saw in the summer were not acting irrationally. Sure, they were mostly rental mobs, but let us suppose they were motivated by legitimate grievances. Where can they go with them? To whom would they make their appeal? The Right is now facing the same dilemma. Where do they go for a redress of their grievances? Who can they blame for the censorship regime we have now?

Since aggrieved citizens cannot put a name to the problem, they are left with attacking the system itself. Technology plus liberal democracy has ended up with a war between the system and the people. Technology has made the democratic process a black box that even the legislators do not understand. It is a system in which no one is responsible for anything, so the system itself becomes responsible. The only option for the disgruntled is to smash the system.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

The Big Lie

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The expression “the big lie” gets tossed around a lot in modern times, usually defined as the means with which the Nazis fooled the people. In reality, the expression was coined by the most significant man in history to explain how the people who tried to prevent the catastrophe of the Great War ended up being blamed for it. The big lie is a falsehood so big that no one would think it possible to state such a lie. In other words, it is believed because it is so outlandish it must be true.

One of the many ironies of this age is that the people the most significant man in history accused of employing the “the big lie” have spent generations since that time redefining it to mean Nazi propaganda. In popular culture, the Left will apply the expression to some inconvenient facts pointed out by their many enemies. They claim a famous propaganda minister associated with the most significant man in history is the guy who coined the expression to describe his own efforts.

That is the real trick of “the big lie” that gets missed. The audaciousness of it distracts the attention of people. Instead of focusing on the facts of something happening in society, their eye moves to some other related thing. It’s no different than how a magician uses distraction to get the audience looking one way while he some other sleight of hand. Even though you know he does not possess magical powers, you are amazed nonetheless.

We see this in how the term “fascist” is used in this age. The Left in the West has always accused their enemies of being fascists, even when there were no actual fascists vying for political power. For a period, fascists and communist were locked in a bitter struggle for the soul of socialism, so it makes sense. In America is never made much sense, as we never had fascists or a communist party of note, but for the Left everywhere, it is always monkey see, monkey do.

Even so, through the Cold War, a popular way to make sport of the Left in America was to mock their absurd use of the word “fascist.” It was only the hardcore cranks who used the term, so even the conventional Left would mock them for it. The left-wing crazy was the guy making his own clothes and growling his own food, so he was not a prisoner of the fascists running society. The joke relied on the fact that America was a bourgeois society, so we did not have fascists or communists.

Of course, the term is everywhere now, as the rulers and their loyalists wage jihad against our ancient liberties. The excuse for their excess is they are fighting fascists, so it is okay. They have internalized their mythology about themselves and the world around them to such a degree they really think Donald Trump was some sort of fascist dictator plotting to seize power. They are sure that the peaceful protest at the Capitol was their version of the Reichstag fire.

This is the modern version of “the big lie.” Look around at what is happening and it is as close as any western society has come to fascism in 80 years. The people stripping the rights of Americans are not government employees, but corporate powers. The vitriol from the politicians may be the signal to act, but the people trying to destroy Trump and his supporters are corporate actors, not the state. Corporatism is a foundation stone of fascism and that is what is usurping the authority of our system now.

In other words, the big lie here is that the people allegedly under assault are the people wielding power. That is a lie so big that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” The people with a monopoly of power are crying out in agony as they crush their enemies. Their claims to be on defense are a lie to distract from the fact they have assumed total power. Amazon can offer murder for hire to prime members and no one can stop them.

This is the “the big lie” in neon. The people who are engaging in a modern version of fascism are claiming to be the great enemies of fascism. This leaves the genuine opponents of genuine fascism without a language they can use. Calling what is happening Marxism is so stupid only the dullards accept it. The communist would not have allowed the tech giants off the leash. They would not have been slavishly in support of the financialization of the economy.

Another part of this big lie is that over time the fans of the most significant man in history have accepted the premise of the big lie as their big truth. That is, fascism exclusively means opposition to nonwhites. The result is we have the self-proclaimed fascists reinforcing the premise put forward by the actual fascists that they cannot possible be fascists, because they are not white. In this version of the big lie, the fascists have created an enemy and put him to service in their cause.

The thing with a lie, big or small, is it is like trying to conceal a body. Like a body after a murder, no matter how well you hide the truth, no matter how many layers of lies you throw on it, its absence is noticed. This is the problem facing our new fascist overlords as they scramble to consolidate their power. Whatever this new system is, people know it is not democracy or constitutional government. No amount of lying can change that realty and eventually, there will be a word for it.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

The Game of Life

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Note: There is a post up behind the green door on the movie Pulp Fiction, which clocks in at #95 on the top-100 list. There is a post up at Taki on the change we are seeing in the political climate.

What has gotten the most attention on this side this past week is the hypocrisy by the ruling class and their histrionic flunkies in the media over the peaceful protest in the Capitol last week. The first response of normal people is to note how the same people raging about these protests were celebrating violent riots in the summer. In what remains of the internet, people have been posting examples of people in politics or the media saying the exact opposite of what they said a few months ago.

Normal people have been programmed to think hypocrisy is important, even though it is clearly not important to the people in the ruling class. Normal people are taught that a civil society operates by a clear set of rules that apply to everyone. When the people in the ruling class have one set of rules for normal people and a different set of rules for themselves, normal people get mad. The ruling class, however, does not care, as there is one set of rules for them and another for the rest of us.

This focus on hypocrisy has left something unnoticed. That is the increasingly overwrought behavior of our rulers. They have become a collection of hysterical drama queens, who carry on like the world is about to end. This is the one thread connecting all of the insanity we have experienced from our rulers recently. Their reaction is wildly out of proportion from what is expected. The actual news, when you think about it, is always about their emotionally charged reaction to mostly normal events.

If we go way back to the 2016 election, the political class reacted as if the most important man in history had come out of his cryogenic chamber in Paraguay and seized control of the government. Instead of analyzing why it was there preferred option was rejected and making the normal adjustments, they concocted wild fantasies about invisible Russians and carried on like teenage girls for four years. It has already been forgotten, but they really believed that Russia stuff.

The Covid stuff is another great example. The local tyrants have used this minor public health issue to feature themselves in a drama of their own creation. In this story, they are heroically fighting the great virus enemy. They are rallying the people in a great cause to prevent the extinction of mankind. The media slavishly reports on their great deeds as if they are out slaying dragons or facing the Black Knight. The buffoonish governor of New York even had a book written about his heroism.

What should be a minor public health issue has been turned into a great drama acted out by emotionally unstable people. According to the CDC, over 250 million people have been tested with 22 million confirmed cases. Total deaths in 2020 were in line with what you would expect, given the country’s demographics. A little higher due to Covid and a little higher due to the reaction. Sober-minded people would have treated this as a very bad flu season. Our hysterical rulers treated it as the end times.

The most recent example of the overwrought behavior by our rulers is the reaction to the protest last Wednesday. The “storming of the Capitol” was really just a bunch of people walking past the cops and going inside the building. Sure, juvenile pranksters livestreamed themselves doing shenanigans, but other than the Pence aide murdering Ashli Babbitt, it was nothing more than a frat house prank. It was nothing like the Kavanaugh protests just a short time ago.

The reaction by the rulers is as if a rebel army laid siege to the Capitol and set fire to most of the city. The FBI has been tasked with hunting down, in the most dramatic way, all of the protestors. Their media lackeys are now calling the Capitol protestors “insurrectionists” and demanding they be destroyed. Instead of calling it a protest, they are calling it a siege. Again, the image is of a foreign army attacking the center of the empire, like the Gauls sacking Rome in 387 BC.

For the inauguration they have now deployed army and national guard units. The media lackeys are bragging that they will be prepared and enthusiastic about using lethal force if any protestors turn up that day. Pelosi has been trying to get the Army to remove Trump from office. She apparently thinks he could launch a nuclear attack. We have come a long way from the America where citizens were expected to petition their government for the redress of grievances.

What we are seeing is the reaction of people who are no longer engaged in normal life, but instead are playing the game of life. They are immersed in a live action role playing game operated by juvenile narcissists. The ruling class gets to imagine themselves as world historical figures and every event puts the world on a knife edge. Their actions will determine the outcome. The entire ruling class is swept up in these false dramas that they get to play, while the rest of the country suffers.

Another clue is how they echo one another in the use of dramatic language to describe mundane events. One uses some over-the-top language then the rest of them are repeating it, maybe adding on some more dramatic language. The “protest” went from “riot” to “insurrection” to “horrendous insurrection” in a few cycles. They are competing with one another to show their loyalty to the group. What matters to them in this game is the opinion of the people in the game, not the rest of us.

America has reached a point where the ruling class and its various support structures is no longer connected to the people over whom it rules. They are inside Versailles or the Winter Palace, imagining what is happening outside. Meanwhile, outside, the world is nothing like the rulers imagine. The people outside look at the palaces and try to understand what is happening inside, based on the noises and behavior they see from the organs of the state.

That really is the root of their anger. The outside broke though the wall and gently reminded them that life is not a game and they are not great men. In the game they are always the winners, but in real life they are judged by their actions. It may take a while, but they will be held accountable. This is what angers them. They hate this reality, which is why they cling to the alternative reality of their fantasy, but reality does not go away when you stop believing it.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte.

The Blood Of Patriots

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Yesterday, Ashli Babbitt was shot in the neck and died while protesting inside the Capitol with other protestors. A group of angry Trump supporters had got into the building and were making a racket. This is not an unusual occurrence. During the Kavanaugh hearings, Democrats organized mobs of screeching women to harass Republicans in the halls of the Capitol. Party media was there to celebrate it as the purest expression of democracy. It was power to the people time.

That was not the case yesterday, according to the media. Instead, it was a direct threat to “our” democracy. This is a bit ironic in that the protests are over the obvious corruption in the election system. The direct threat to democracy is the people demanding their elections be fair and honest. That’s why Ashli Babbitt was inside the Capitol making a racket. Her whole life she had been told this was how citizens angry at their government demand redress when the system fails.

That is how popular government is supposed to work. The people expect their government to be responsive to the will of the people. When they don’t like that they see, they vote for different people to hold office. If those politicians ignore the people, then the people go bang on their door and demand redress of their grievances. The politicians then come out and address their issues. That’s not it works now. Instead, they open fire on the people like they did yesterday.

Ashli Babbitt was not some drug-addled degenerate, like we saw last summer, when the ruling class unleashed their mobs on us. She was a veteran, serving 14 years in the US Air Force, and she was a high-level security official throughout her time in service. She was like most of the people at the protest, in that she had bought into what she was told about America. So much so she signed onto serve in the military and go overseas in various deployments.

Like most of the protestors, she was there because she had spent her life playing by the rules and defending those rules. She was there because the people in charge of maintaining the rules have been violating those rules. They ignored the official corruption in the 2016 election and they laughed about the grotesque fraud that was plainly obvious in the 2020 election. Like the rest of those protestors, she was angry that the politicians were not following the rules.

For her trouble, she died in a pool of her own blood inside what is supposed to be the people’s house in America. It is a bit ironic that a citizen exercising her rights would be murdered by an agent of a corrupt system that is now infringing on her rights. Murder is the right word here. The man who shot her was under no threat and was on the other side of a locked and barricaded door. The murderer was part of Vice President Pence’s security detail. The video, for those interested, is here.

There will be no charges against the murderer. Unlike the cops involved in the George Floyd case or any number of others, this coward will not be fired from his job or face criminal charges. He will probably get a medal. He will not have his face and address plastered all over the media, so that he can be attacked by mobs. There will be no media orchestrated campaign to defund the police over this. Most likely, the whole thing will be put on mute so that the public forgets it.

Of course, unlike George Floyd, Ashli Babbitt will not get three nationally televised funerals and be treated as a fallen hero. That honor goes to drug-addled criminals who overdose in police custody. In this America, patriots who served their country and exercise their rights get gunned down by agents of the state. This woman, this patriot, bleeding out in the halls of the Capitol, murdered by an agent of the state, is the perfect image of what has gone terribly wrong in America.

No doubt, millions of decent people who sympathized with her cause are saddened by this terrible tragedy. It did not have to come to this. This was not an accident. This was not a terrible misfortune. The people on the other side of that door, the people who celebrate the murderer of Ashli Babbitt now, they did this. They created this crisis that threatens to plunge to country into a death spiral. They had choices and they had plenty of warning, but they refused to listen and now Ashli Babbitt is dead.

Be angry, but also remember Ashli Babbitt. The Republican Party will not remember her or even mention her name. The media will work hard to make sure you forget her name and how she died yesterday. Dissidents need to remember her so we never forget why we are angry and why we are dissidents. We are angry with a system that thinks it is okay to murder citizens who play by the rules and exercise their rights as citizens to petition their government for redress.

The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent for 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.