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On the Confederate monuments: Be careful what you ask for

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The U.S. Civil War killed or maimed huge numbers of people – as a proportion of how many people were alive, then. I’m told that, for two generations after the war, you would walk down the street in almost any U.S. city and see veterans missing an arm or leg, or women who were veterans’ widows.

After the war, the point of statues on both sides was to remember the sacrifice of those who had fallen. Both sides were American. Both fought because they thought they had a point.

The war was not about slavery until 1863 (well into it). The South fought to preserve the States against an encroaching central government. They lost – only after President Lincoln claimed a moral high ground, by finally making it a war to end the evil of slavery. Before then, in 1861 and 1862, the constitutional issues were primary and the South had a point. In short, they were not evil for fighting. They were Americans, fighting from a place of moral conviction (however mistaken).

The point of the Confederate monuments is to remember all that. The people whom you oppose so deeply are fellow Americans and they often (not always) come from a place of moral conviction (however mistaken).

It follows that the real effect of removing the Confederate monuments is to forget all that. Removal makes a statement that only one side matters: Your side, membership in which gives you the right to spit upon, and eventually to erase, your fellow Americans.

Whether a particular city or college or State should keep monument X is a local issue, that I won’t have an opinion on. But the overall push to remove the Confederate monuments is disturbing: it’s a push for ignorance and incivility. Forgetting the past, that’s the ignorance. And having only one side matter (yours) – that’s the incivility.

So, lefties: Be careful what you ask for. I will leave you with Charles Barkley’s perspective:

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And Diamond and Silk’s perspective.

#FakeCNN and their #FakeLincolnQuote

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From Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist. On July 4, CNN Politics tweeted this:

Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe. — Abraham Lincoln

As if it endorses CNN’s fake approach to the news. Problem: The quote is fake. It’s not from any of Lincoln’s speeches or letters.

After Lincoln’s death, someone reported a conversation (also known as hearsay) in which Lincoln might have said this:

I have faith in the people. They will not consent to disunion. The danger is, they are misled. Let them know the truth, and the country is safe.

Maybe CNN meant that quote; but note how they got it wrong (or deceptively edited it?). Or there’s another quote which, some years later, a writer attributed to Lincoln:

Let the people know the facts, let them see the danger; but let every effort be made to allay public fears, to inspire the masses with confidence and hope, and, above all, to frown down every attempt to create a panic.

Translation: Lincoln would be against CNN spreading fake, false, phony stories of Trumprussia collusion.

As Hemingway puts it:

Insofar as a hearsay quote should ever be tweeted out or inscribed in walls, at least it should be accurate. Particularly when it’s about “truth” and “facts.”

When I use a quote, I google it first to make sure. It takes two minutes. Except that, if I misremembered it, then I have to submit to reality and re-shape the post. I’m a minor blogger and I do all that. But CNN couldn’t be bothered. They live on a higher plane. (cough)

UPDATE: The New York Times isn’t much better. They recently mistook a parody site as a source of North Korea government quotes. [Read more…]

How America’s largest cities voted

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Commentor TnnsNe1 did some research. Thanks! I didn’t realize, until the moment I saw it, that I had been wanting to know.

From ESPN: “If you are a city in America, you are a racist city,” (Michael) Smith stated.

So, I did a bit of research (all figures by county) on the election results. Here are the results for the 15 most populated urban areas:

NYC Clinton 82%
LA Clinton 72%
Chicago Clinton 84%
Houston Clinton 48%
Philadelphia Clinton 82%
Phoenix -Trump- 48%
San Antonio Clinton 54%
San Diego Clinton 57%
Dallas Clinton 61%
San Jose Clinton 73%
Austin Clinton 66%
Jacksonville -Trump- 48%
San Francisco Clinton 85%
Indianapolis Clinton 58%
Columbus Clinton 60%

Emphasis added (because I just didn’t see, when I first read it). We can re-order it by Clinton’s percentage:

San Francisco 85%
Chicago 84%
NYC 82%
Philadelphia 82%
San Jose 73%
LA 72%
Austin 66%
Dallas 61%
Columbus 60%
Indianapolis 58%
San Diego 57%
San Antonio 54%
Houston 48%
Phoenix under 48%
Jacksonville under 48%

Given the premise that a vote for Hillary was a vote for the worst human being in that 4-way race, my guess would be that people are

  • reasonable in Phoenix, Jacksonville, Houston, San Antonio.
  • And less so in San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, San Jose, Los Angeles.

I’m not shocked that California has many of America’s less-reasonable people.

Finally, I must point out that this is exactly why the Framers created the Electoral College: so that America’s large cities – what with their numbers, kraziness and groupthink – would not have an overpowering influence in choosing the President (nor in the Senate).

My evolution on the topic of “war”

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Just speaking for myself. After 9-11, I supported the war in Afghanistan because:

  • Killing al Qaeda terrorists seemed like a good idea, and the Taliban was harboring them.
  • It was only one war.
  • It was legal. (Congress authorized it. As did the United Nations, explicitly.)

A couple years later, I supported the Iraq war because:

  • Killing al Qaeda terrorists seemed like a good idea, and Saddam had begun to harbor some who had just fled from Afghanistan, like Zarqawi.
  • Whether or not Saddam Hussein had ready-to-go WMD, getting him and his thugs off the world stage seemed like a good idea.
  • It was only a second war.
  • It was legal. (Congress authorized it. As did the United Nations, more or less.)

By 2008, both wars seemed almost to be won. Their endings were in sight. But then a strange thing happened.

America elected a feckless socialist (Barack Obama) as President. He promised indeed to end the above two wars. But he didn’t. He messed up our winning positions; meaning the wars dragged on.

Even worse, he started more wars. All were illegal (not authorized beforehand by Congress). All were disastrous.

  • His (and Hillary’s) Libya war destabilized all of northern Africa and eventually drowned Europe in “migrants”.
  • His Ukraine coup (and the war/tensions that followed) was an unprecedented and deliberate rattling of the Russian bear’s cage, re-opening the Cold War that had been won in the 1980s and settled in the 1990s.
  • His Syria war fueled the rise of ISIS in Iraq. (Since ISIS and the Syrian rebels overlap quite a bit, aid to the Syrian rebels quickly becomes ‘de facto’ aid to ISIS.)
  • His Saudi friends’ war in Yemen is no help to anyone.

For the first time in U.S. history, we were at war every single day of someone’s 8-year presidency. And his preferred successor (Hillary Clinton) wanted to extend those wars. The U.S. has “achieved” an Orwellian state of Continuous War. That’s bad.

Ever read Thucydides? Athens – the progressive, open, commercial-democratic society of that era – failed. Basically, she over-extended herself in too many wars. She couldn’t afford them – whether financially, militarily, politically or morally. I don’t think we can, either.

Sometimes it’s better to retreat and retrench, and patriotic to advocate for it. If you catch me striking a different tone on our wars than I did 5-10 years ago, that’s why.

We should shore up our borders and defenses, our infrastructure, our industry, our national finances, our energy independence, and our commitment to liberty, here at home. We can probably still keep our commitments to Europe, Japan, Korea and Israel (which means I’m no isolationist). But, apart from the historical commitments just mentioned, we should accept a multi-polar world order and NOT look for wars to get into.

In my opinion. Please feel free to criticize or to state yours, in the comments.

Book Review: John Ringo, ‘The Last Centurion’

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‘The Last Centurion’  by John Ringo was a frequent recommendation over at the AOSHQ Sunday Book Thread. (Yes, Morons can read.)  I received a paperback copy as a Christmas gift and finished it off about a week ago. The book takes place in the not-too-distant future (2019) in a world that has been hit by three catastrophic events. 1. A devastating plague caused by a mutation of the Avian Flu kills off somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of the population. 2. The onset of a mini ice age resulting in massive crop failures. 3. Hillary Clinton is President of the United States.

OK, she’s not actually called ‘Hillary Clinton’ in the book, but it’s totally Hillary Clinton.  And her response to these crises is absolutely believable in the vein of ‘Never let a crisis go to waste.’ The disruption in oil supplies leads her to undertake a Chavista-like nationalization of the oil companies. The crop failures and impending food shortages leads her to nationalize agricultural companies and farms; which are distributed to left-wing cronies. By 2020, she has used her emergency powers (granted by a Democrat majority Congress and upheld by a leftist majority Supreme Court) to shut down all opposition radio and TV networks, and throw her Republican opponent in prison.

But that’s all background. The plot is about an Army Captain and his company who have been left behind in Iran as the USA withdraws all forces from around the world to deal with its domestic problems. He has to, somehow, get his men home. Their fight across a war-plague-and-famine ravaged Middle East forms the journey of the novel.

So, was it any good? I’m not a big fan of the first-person narrative style, but I got past it. I liked the cultural, sociological, and political observations, and the way Ringo used the crises as a way to demonstrate how they would play out. The battle scenes were kind of perfunctory. Maybe it’s because I’ve been laboring for almost a year to get a battle scene ‘right’ in my own writing that I felt his could have used a bit more clarity and detail. But I can recommend it, and I’m at least going to check out some of his other stuff.

The Fall of the American Empire

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Regular readers are aware of this blogger’s opinion that the United States in its current form is fiscally and socially unsustainable, that the eventual disintegration of the USA is a historical inevitability. Kurt Schlichter — citing the Roman Empire as an example — thinks I’m an optimist.

Obama is the poster child for the ruling class’s decline. He is poorly educated – internalizing your commie prof’s clichés and lies does not make you educated even if your degree says “Harvard” – and utterly without any personal investment through service to his country (Obama in the military? That’s a laugh. Do they make camo mom pants?). Of course he has no respect for our norms and customs – he does not know anything about them and he has no personal investment in them. He has no business running anything, as he has amply demonstrated during perhaps the most damaging presidency since James Buchanan’s.

And then we have Donald Trump, who cares nothing for norms and customs and embraces raw power much as Obama and the left do, only he promises to protect the interests of a different constituency. Trump is a vulgar fool milking phony populism for power, best understood as a particularly tacky Graachi. Unlike them, Trump is both ignorant and a coward, but like them, if he does get elected president, he will be cut off at the knees by the patricians of the establishment.

Hillary Clinton is an even more anti-Republic candidate. Like Trump and Obama, she cares nothing for anything but power. Another sub-par mind trading off her degrees from a half century ago, this unaccomplished, bitter harridan lacks the wisdom to chart a course that avoids aggravating our society’s already gaping wounds. Instead, she’ll pour salt into them for no reason other than her own delight at asserting power, gleefully poking at normals with initiatives like forcing women to accept men into their bathrooms and trying to disarm the law-abiding. Inevitably, she will be stunned when she finds her actions greeted by a reaction she cannot control, and the American Republic will disappear as her rule by power is replaced by her opponents’ rule by power. Oh, we may get a good emperor or two along the way, but history tells us how this story ends.

Read the whole thing.

How the Left Observes the 4th of July

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The Democrat Leftists at Vox-dot-com think the War for Independence was a bad idea, because slavery.

The main reason the revolution was a mistake is that the British Empire, in all likelihood, would have abolished slavery earlier than the US did, and with less bloodshed.

Also…

Finally, we’d still likely be a monarchy, under the rule of Elizabeth II, and constitutional monarchy is the best system of government known to man.

Yes, the Democrat Left is very much in love with the idea of a hereditary monarchy and institutional ruling class.

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The Democrat Leftists at Think Progress suggest that the founding fathers are unworthy of veneration, and should be replaced with a selected group of radicals, communists, and affirmative action cases. Racist eugenics-enthusiast Margaret Sanger makes the cut, of course. Racist “populations we don’t want too many of” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes the cut. Environmentalist whackjob Rachel Carson, whose junk-science book “Silent Spring” led to the deaths of millions of human beings (mostly Africans, Latin Americans, and Southeast Asians) after DDT was banned.

Our country is currently governed and socially dominated by people who hate it.

What ARE the aims of Obama’s foreign policy?

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Victor Davis Hanson published a memorable piece in the National Review last week entitled “America as Pill Bug.”  The pill bug or the roly-poly bug is one that turns itself into a ball when it feels threatened.  Hanson writes:

That roly-poly bug can serve as a fair symbol of present-day U.S. foreign policy, especially in our understandable weariness over Iraq, Afghanistan, and the scandals that are overwhelming the Obama administration.

On August 4, U.S. embassies across the Middle East simply closed on the basis of intelligence reports of planned al-Qaeda violence. The shutdown of 21 diplomatic facilities was the most extensive in recent American history.

Yet we still have over a month to go before the twelfth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001, an iconic date for radical Islamists.

Such preemptive measures are no doubt sober and judicious. Yet if we shut down our entire public profile in the Middle East on the threat of terrorism, what will we do when more anti-American violence arises? Should we close more embassies for more days, or return home altogether?

Hanson makes an excellent point about the way the Obama administration’s closure of embassies is likely to be viewed in the Arab world and around the globe.  Although, as Jeff pointed out in a post last week, the administration may have ulterior motives–by trying to create a distraction–by closing the embassies in this manner, the reality is that the interpretation of the administration’s actions by our international foes is likely to proceed in a manner similar to that Hanson envisions in his article.

Hanson looks at the example of Libya and Syria to illustrate that the administration’s “lead from behind” strategy is not working, and that it appears to be counterproductive:

Instead, the terrorists are getting their second wind, as they interpret our loud magnanimity as weakness — or, more likely, simple confusion. They increasingly do not seem to fear U.S. retaliation for any planned assaults. Instead, al-Qaeda franchises expect Americans to adopt their new pill-bug mode of curling up until danger passes.

Our enemies have grounds for such cockiness. President Obama promised swift punishment for those who attacked U.S. installations in Benghazi and killed four Americans. So far the killers roam free. Rumors abound that they have been seen publicly in Libya.

Instead of blaming radical Islamist killers for that attack, the Obama reelection campaign team fobbed the assault off as the reaction to a supposedly right-wing, Islamophobic videomaker. That yarn was untrue and was greeted as politically correct appeasement in the Middle East.

All these Libyan developments took place against a backdrop of “lead from behind.” Was it wise for American officials to brag that the world’s largest military had taken a subordinate role in removing Moammar Qaddafi — in a military operation contingent on approval from the United Nations and the Arab League but not the U.S. Congress?

No one knows what to do about the mess in Syria. But when you do not know what to do, it is imprudent to periodically lay down “red lines.” Yet the administration has done just that to the Bashar al-Assad regime over the last two years.

Hanson sees the Obama administration’s foreign policy as a disastrous replay of the Carter doctrine, once again illustrating Glenn Reynolds’ frequent observation that a replay of Jimmy Carter is simply the “best-case scenario” for Obama.

While I believe Hanson is right in his characterization of the big picture and the likely consequences of Obama foreign policy, I’d differ from him in seeing Obama as being as feckless and weak as Carter.  I’d maintain that Carter’s foreign policy was guided by a number of naive precepts about the nature of the world.  At least during the years of his presidency, I’d contend that Carter “meant well” in the way the phrase is commonly used to describe a hopelessly incompetent bumbler who seems incapable of recognizing his own shortcomings.  Likewise, early in the Obama administration, Tammy Bruce started referring to Obama as Urkel, the nerdy, awkward, inept kid from the TV show “Family Matters” who had an uncanny ability to mess up almost everything he touched.  That certainly is one narrative for what Obama is doing in the world of foreign policy, but I’m not sure it is the right one.

As I contemplate Obama foreign policy, though, particularly in the Middle East, I find myself thinking more and more that although incompetence might be the simplest explanation, it might not be the best or the right one.  I see no good intentions in the administration’s domestic policy, so why should its foreign policy be exempt from charges that it is motivated more by malevolence to the United States and its role in history than by a supposed set of “liberal” ideals?

This is an administration that seems bent on alienating all of our historical allies as quickly as possible, while taking it easy on our geopolitical foes.  Obama seems to want our allies to view us as unreliable and untrustworthy while making sure our enemies view us as weak, indecisive, and either unable or unwilling to use force to protect our interests or to enforce our stated policy goals.  If there is a better explanation of the administration’s ultimate foreign policy goals, I’d sure like to know what it might be.

 

When In the Course of Human Events…

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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

Enjoy!!

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The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton