COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Beria Was Right: " Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime. "






Can a Divided America Survive?

The United States is currently the world’s oldest democracy. {Are we? We are not supposed to be}

But America is no more immune from collapse than were some of history’s most stable and impressive consensual governments. Fifth-century Athens, Republican Rome, Renaissance Florence and Venice, and many of the elected governments of early 20th-century Western European states eventually destroyed themselves, went bankrupt, or were overrun by invaders.

The United States is dividing as rarely before. Half the country, mostly liberal America, is concentrated in 146 of the nation’s more than 3,000 counties — in an area that collectively represents less than 10 percent of the U.S. land mass. The other half, the conservative Red states of the interior of America, is geographically, culturally, economically, politically, and socially at odds with Blue-state America, which resides mostly on the two coasts.

The two Americas watch different news. They read very different books, listen to different music, and watch different television shows. Increasingly, they now live lives according to two widely different traditions.

Barack Obama was elected president after compiling the most left-wing voting record in the U.S. Senate. His antidote, Donald Trump, was elected largely on the premise that traditional Republicans were hardly conservative.

Red America and Blue America are spiraling into divisions approaching those of 1860, or of the nihilistic hippie/straight divide of 1968.

Currently, some 27 percent of all Californians were not born in the United States. More than 40 million foreign-born immigrants currently live in the U.S. — the highest number in the nation’s history.

Yet widely unchecked immigration comes at a time when the country has lost confidence in its prior successful adherence to melting-pot assimilation and integration. The ultimate result is a fragmenting of society into tribal cliques that vie for power, careers, and influence on the basis of ethnic solidarity rather than shared Americanness.

History is not very kind to multicultural chaos — as opposed to a multiracial society united by a single national culture. The fates of Rwanda, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia should remind us of our present disastrous trajectory.

Either the United States will return to a shared single language and allegiance to a common and singular culture, or it will eventually descend into clannish violence.
Does the unique American idea of federalism still work, with state rights and laws subordinate to federal law? We fought a Civil War that cost more than 600,000 lives in part to uphold the idea that individual states could not override the federal government.

Yet sanctuary cities declare that they can freely nullify federal immigration law. The California Senate passed a bill earlier this month that would prohibit the state from contracting with any firms that work on the federal government’s wall at the border with Mexico.

States such as California vow that they will ignore Washington and work directly with foreign nations to promote their own policies on global warming. Read carefully what some prominent Californians are saying about the federal government: It is not much different from what influential Confederate South Carolinians boasted about in 1860 on the eve of secession.

The national debt has almost doubled over the last eight years and at nearly $20 trillion is unsustainable.

Entitlement spending rose even as new taxes increased. The have-nots claim the haves make far too much money; the haves retort that they pay most of the income taxes while nearly half the country pays nothing.
All Americans need to take a deep breath, step back, and rein in their anger — and find more ways to connect rather than divide themselves.

Most Americans agree that the present levels of borrowing and spending cannot continue. But many believe that the tough medicine to cure the disease of chronic annual deficits and mounting debt is unacceptable.

America’s infrastructure and military are vastly underfunded, even though some voters want more subsidies for themselves and apparently want others to pay for them.

America’s once-preeminent colleges and universities are fatally compromised. Universities charge far too much, resist reform, expect exemption from accountability, and assume their students must take on huge amounts of debt. Yet campuses can’t guarantee that their graduates are competently educated or that they will find jobs.

Illiberal attempts to end free speech, to sanction racial and gender segregation, and to attack rather than argue with opponents are disguised by euphemisms such as “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and various -isms and -ologies.
Behind the guise of campus activism and non-negotiable demands is the reality that too many students simply are unprepared to do their assigned work and seek exemption through protests in lieu of hard studying.

America barely survived the Civil War of 1861–65, the Great Depression of 1929–39, and the rioting and protests of the 1960s. But today’s growing divides are additionally supercharged by instant Internet and social-media communications, 24/7 cable news, partisan media, and the denigration of America’s past traditions.
All Americans need to take a deep breath, step back, and rein in their anger — and find more ways to connect rather than divide themselves.

They should assume their opponents are not all sinners, and that their supporters are not all saints.

Things are bad now. But our own history suggests that if we are not careful, they can get even worse.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, to appear in October from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2017 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

42 comments:

  1. Half the country elected Trump because they wanted change.

    The half that lost will do anything to undo the election of Trump.

    Does half the country believe Trump is being treated fairly?

    Will that half accept a process that forces Trump from office?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, but it's unlikely to happen what with the Republicans so strong in the Senate

      Delete
    2. John "Maverick" McCain ...

      That is who Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson pins his hopes upon.

      Comically stupid, on the "Draft Dodger's" part.

      Delete

    3. The object is not to replace Mr Trump, but to allow him to emasculate is administration.

      The Democrats do not want Mr Pence in the Oval Office, the Trump Team is doing nothing, quite well.

      Delete
  2. Currently, some 27 percent of all Californians were not born in the United States.

    Good Grief.

    Well, their children will be unless California secedes, which they are almost doing informally now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. June 17, 2017
    Trump supporters: Little children they are not
    By Patricia McCarthy

    "The American people are like little children. We have to hold their sticky fingers and wipe their filthy mouths, teach them right from wrong. Tell them what to think and how to feel, and what to want. They even need help writing their wildest dreams, crafting their worst fears. Lucky for them they have me." –Frank Underwood, House of Cards

    American politics is very ugly at the moment – uglier than usual. It seems increasingly obvious that the American version of House of Cards is less fictional, more true to life than previously thought. In fact, the Netflix series seems almost benign by current standards, except for the above quote. It seems to convey exactly how the American left views the American people, at least those who voted for Donald Trump. In the minds of our leftists, those people are beneath contempt. Their votes were cast in ignorance. They do not deserve to be heard; they do not count. They are all little children who need to be told what to think.


    But those Trump supporters are not cooperating. It turns out they do think for themselves. They were sick to death of how much the last eight years changed this country. Obama promised to "fundamentally transform America," and he did. He eviscerated our military, took race relations back to the days before the Civil Rights Movement, launched a war on our law enforcement men and women, doubled our national debt, weaponized the IRS, the FBI, and the EPA. He let guns flow into Mexico in order to blame gun deaths on America's Second Amendment; he cared not a bit for the death of American Border Patrol agent Brian Terry or all the Mexican lives lost to the drug cartels who bought those guns. For Obama, an Alinskyite Marxist, the ends always justify the means.

    Despite the warnings against it from every military expert consulted, Obama created ISIS by vacating the Middle East, removing all peace-keeping forces. It is almost as if he wanted the genocide of Christians that resulted throughout the region; every scholar of the Middle East and Islam told him what would happen and it did. The list of Obama's crimes against the country is long and depressing. And yet the left still thought Hillary was going to win the election in a landslide! Her loss should have been a wake-up call to the left, to their self-imposed insulation from reality. But instead, they have doubled down on their conviction that they are right and everyone and anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong but evil, deserving of rhetorical death if not actual death.

    So intent on their crusade to take Trump down, they completely miss the rising tide of disgust much of the population feels for them. Those Trump supporters are not falling for their campaign of vitriol, made up stories, accusations or their certainty that he will be impeached. They are liking Trump more and more. They do not read the N.Y. Times or the Washington Post; watch CNN or MSNBC; pay any attention to the pompous, partisan Sunday News programs. These self-important sites, networks, and cable channels are just noise, noise of the left, by the left, and for the left. The rest of us are done with them. They do not speak for us. Their feeble attempts to convince us Trump is some kind of criminal or traitor are ridiculous. They know this but think the rest of us, as Frank Underwood says, need to be told how to think, what to feel, and what to want. This is how deluded these people are.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One would think the attempted assassination of congressional Republicans at that baseball field would temper their malignant bigotry, but it did not. Within twenty-four hours, Nancy Pelosi, of course, blamed the Republicans and their "politics of personal destruction," a Democratic tactic if there ever was one (think Robert Bork). Social media was coarse – too coarse to repeat. Many cheered the shooter; so full of hate are many on the left that they behave like the Palestinians who cheer every Israeli death by terror and pass out candy to celebrate.

      And that is where we are today. There is no unity possible with the deranged left; they mean business. Unlike our passive, submissive Republicans who let the Democrats steamroll them at every turn, the leftists will stop at nothing in their quest to destroy Trump. The Republicans, on the other hand, are eternal beginners in the game of mixed martial politics. They give up without fighting back. With a few exceptions – Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, for example – they are pathetic. The rest of them roll over like puppies who want their tummies rubbed. They are pathetic cowards waiting to see if Trump survives the left's assaults.

      The leftists among us do think of conservatives as little children with sticky fingers who need to be manipulated into accepting their worldview – a worldview antithetical to the Founders and the Constitution. The symmetry between House of Cards and our current reality is that the television series is a work of fiction and the left's campaign to destroy our democratically elected president is a grim reality that threatens to destroy our Republic. Ben Franklin, at the signing of the Constitution, was asked, "Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" He replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." Keeping it, this Republic, at this moment in time depends on our lethargic, acquiescent congressional Republicans. Sen. McConnell, Paul Ryan, et al. need to get off their high horses and do our Founders proud. Step up to the plate and stop all this anti-Trump nonsense. Go after the criminals on the left, beginning with the Clintons, Comey, Lynch, Brennan, Clapper, etc. Fight as the Democrats do. We are depending on you. Earn and deserve your places in office.


      http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/trump_supporters_little_children_they_are_not.html

      Delete

    2. New York Observer editor, Elizabeth Spiers, claimed she told Kushner that she had serious problems with Trump’s repeated claims that Obama was not born in the U.S., to which Kushner allegedly told her:
      "He doesn't really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they'll buy it."

      Delete
  4. Trump Navy Destroyer Runs Into Container Cargo Ship

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/navy_destroyer_in_sea_of_japan_a_sideways_collision_or_more_fake_news.html

    See pictures for proof.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fake news. Anytime I see the caveat words like "claims" " allegedly" "may have" "possibly" "could have", or one of the more popular ones used here, "it's been suggested," it's not real.

    IMO, Obama will be one of the forgotten POTUSes. Along with the likes of Harrison, Filmore, and Pierce.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies


    1. "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way." - Henry David Thoreau

      Delete


  6. 100% Fake News

    Correction: June 16, 2017

    An editorial on Thursday about the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords.

    In fact, no such link was established. The editorial also incorrectly described a map distributed by a political action committee before that shooting. It depicted electoral districts, not individual Democratic lawmakers, beneath stylized cross hairs.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/opinion/steve-scalise-congress-shot-alexandria-virginia.html?_r=0


    Originally, the Times article, “America’s Lethal Politics,” had stated:

    Was this attack evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably.

    In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear.

    Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.

    It also added that “there’s no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack” in Wednesday’s shooting.

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/15/new-york-times-corrects-fake-news-editorial-blaming-sarah-palin-shooting/

    ReplyDelete

  7. Toll reaches 30, but news hard to find.

    The public housing block’s cladding had been changed in a 2016 renovation, but reports have emerged that contractors installed a cheaper, less flame-resistant material.

    The Guardian reported that they used aluminum composite cladding on the building’s exterior, but opted to use a plastic type called Reynobond PE, rather than Reynobond FR, which stands for fire-resistant.

    Using the fire-resistant version would have cost a few dollars more per square metre, according to the newspaper.


    The cladding has caused fires to spread quickly in the past. A 63-storey luxury hotel in Dubai with problematic cladding went up in flames on New Year’s Eve 2015, injuring a handful of people. A blaze at a building in Melbourne, Australia, in 2014 was later directly linked to the type of combustible cladding in place on the structure and triggered an audit of many of the city’s high-rises.

    The International Building Code calls for structures taller than 12 metres to use fire-resistant material.

    http://globalnews.ca/news/3534486/london-fire-grenfell-tower-cladding-canada/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. London apartment fire: Cladding maker warned against using panels

      Diagrams in a brochure dated 2016 for Reynobond tiles reviewed by Reuters show how polyethylene (PE) core tiles are suitable only for buildings of up to 10 metres in height.

      "As soon as the building is higher than the firefighters' ladders, it has to be conceived with an incombustible material," the brochure says.

      http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2017/06/london-apartment-fire-cladding-maker-warned-against-using-panels.html

      Delete

  8. BREXIT, Dougo, BREXIT, the International Code is of no importance to the British Crown.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. British Prime Minister Theresa May, facing criticism for the government’s handling of the Grenfell Tower fire disaster, has met with 15 survivors and community leaders at her official residence at 10 Downing Street in London.

      The meeting lasted more than two hours Saturday but the group did not speak to reporters gathered outside.

      The meeting is unlikely to quell complaints that May has been slow to reach out to fire survivors, despite her announcement of a $6.4 million emergency fund to help displaced families. Some 600 people were living in the tower’s 120 apartments. Police say 58 people at the tower are now confirmed or presumed dead. All the rest are homeless.

      May said after the meeting there have been “huge frustrations” in the community as people tried to get information about the fire investigation. She says “the support on the ground for families who needed help or basic information in the initial hours after this appalling disaster was not good enough.”


      But there is no reason to be alarmed ....

      Delete

  9. " Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime. "



    “The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies.”
    ― John Lescroart

    ReplyDelete
  10. show me jack rat hawkins and I show you a self confessed war criminal

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Look in the mirror, Robert, and you will see a thief.

      Want to read your quote?

      I guess you do.

      Delete


    2. Bob Thu May 27, 12:52:00 AM EDT

      But I did rip off the bank for $7500 hundred dollars, when I was on my knees, and fighting for my economic life, on my aunt's credit card. But that wasn't really stealing, just payback.


      It was not payback, "Draft Dodger", it was ...

      Theft by Fraud

      So ashamed of your actions, you won't even sign in.
      A coward and a fraud, that's what you are, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.

      Delete
  11. show me jack ass hawkins I'll show you a dead beat dad

    ReplyDelete
  12. show me psycho rat hawkins I show you man needs shrink help

    everyone say so too

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. everyone say so too


      No, wrong again, Mark.

      bobal Mon Sep 01, 05:20:00 PM EDT

      Rat's a gentleman.
      With his own way of thinking about things.
      ….
      While with Rat, you are always eager to hear what he has to say.



      See, even bobal knew the rat was smarter than he was, so much so that bobal looked forward to what the rat had to write.

      You stand alone in your mental morass, boobie.





      Delete

  13. ... a feud has broken out among these three crucial American allies, and Mr. Trump has thrown his weight firmly behind the two countries where he has business ties, raising new concerns about the appearance of a conflict between his public role and his financial incentives.

    Mr. Trump has said he is backing Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates because Qatar is “a funder of terror at a very high level.” But his stance toward Qatar, which is host to the largest American air base in the region, has differed sharply from the positions of the Pentagon and State Department. The secretaries of defense and state have stayed neutral, urging unity against the common enemy of the Islamic State.

    Mr. Trump is the first president in 40 years to retain his personal business interests after entering the White House.


    Mr Trump, will he write off the largest US air base in the Middle East, because of his interests in two golf courses in Dubai?

    We know that his most ardent supporter here, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson certainly would.
    Birds of a feather ... flocking together.

    ReplyDelete
  14. you worthless jack ass

    goodby

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. A spokesman for the White House declined to address questions about the appearance of a conflict of interest. The spokesman, Michael Short, said in an email only that Mr. Trump had “formally extracted himself” from management of his business, the Trump Organization.

      Stepping away from management without giving up ownership does not diminish Mr. Trump’s financial incentives or conflicts, as the director of the Office of Government Ethics warned before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.


      Delete

    2. A few days later, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson called on Qatar “to be responsive to the concerns of its neighbors.” But he added, “We call on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to ease the blockade against Qatar.”

      He noted that the dispute was impairing international trade and hindering the military campaign against the Islamic State.

      Mr. Trump, on the other hand, endorsed the blockade as soon as it started. He had returned days earlier from a summit meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the leaders of all the gulf states, and he declared on Twitter that his visit was “already paying off.”


      The battle against the Islamic State is being hindered, and Mr Trump claims his work is "paying off"

      Delete

    3. No "Travel Ban" and little likelihood of one being approved, thanks to Mr Trump's Tweets.
      The battle against ISIS is being hindered, by the very men who rubbed "The Orb".


      Mr Trump, could he really be a "Closet Muslim"?

      Delete

    4. Or just kowtowing to the Saudi Royals ....

      Delete
  15. Mueller and Comey have spent vacations together, making Mueller a perfectly unbiased pick.

    Republicans are squealing like pigs.

    Not

    ReplyDelete
  16. "He who constantly quotes others to bolster his asinine opinion has no thoughts of his own."
    MOME

    ReplyDelete
  17. What a hell of a mess -

    The Justice Department Is Killing Trump

    ....Mueller has also broadened his scope to include the scrutinizing of financial activities of Trump associates, reportedly based on hunches about possible bribery and money-laundering. These, in turn, are based on the assumption that there was collusion — notwithstanding that months of investigation by the FBI and several congressional committees has turned up no such evidence. In addition, there are conflicts of interest that are apt to discredit the investigation, regardless of whether they technically require disqualification. Rosenstein selected Mueller despite the latter’s close friendship with and professional ties to Comey. Now that obstruction is suddenly the focal point of the probe, Comey is clearly a central witness.

    Meanwhile, no doubt relying on Mueller’s sterling reputation, Rosenstein gave the special counsel free rein on staffing. Mueller promptly made tin-eared hires: lawyers who, despite their impressive prosecutorial credentials, are Obama and Clinton donors. One of them, Andrew Weissmann, is also plagued by the scorched-earth reputation he developed as special prosecutor in the Enron investigation, particularly the infamous prosecution that destroyed the Arthur Andersen accounting firm — which Weissmann indicted on very thin proof for, yes, obstruction of justice . . . only to have the conviction thrown out by the Supreme Court.

    Rosenstein’s decisions mean the Mueller investigation is likely to become one of those sprawling, interminable affairs that have made special-prosecutor investigations the death-of-a-thousand-cuts for presidential administrations. And the staffing decisions make it inevitable that much of the public will suspect prosecutorial bias even if all the lawyers perform responsibly. Ideally, the Justice Department provides the kind of legal rigor and prudent judgment that can prevent or minimize problems for a president. To be fair, President Trump can be an erratic and intemperate client. But at the flashpoints where the Justice Department might have reversed the tide of scandal, it has gone with the flow. If the president has learned nothing else, it should be the importance of filling the Justice Department, and the rest of his administration, with his own appointees. To say the prior administration laid traps for him, and that he has blundered his way into them, is putting it mildly.


    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448728/trump-obstruction-scandal-partly-doj-fault

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also:

      LORETTA LYNCH, PORTRAIT OF CORRUPTION
      New revelations surrounding Lynch’s effort to sink email probe sparks bi-partisan call for investigation.
      June 16, 2017 Ari Lieberman

      https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267021/loretta-lynch-portrait-corruption-ari-lieberman

      Meanwhile Crooked Hillary, the chief scamp, scoots free.

      Delete
  18. Syrian Muslim ‘Refugees’ Throw Rocks and Bricks at Canadian Dupes Who Welcomed Them
    By Pamela Geller - on June 17, 2017
    CANADA

    EXCLUSIVE: REFUGEES FIGHT CANADIANS WITH ROCKS, BRICKS
    By Faith Goldy, Rebel, June 17, 2017:

    OVER ONE THOUSAND SYRIAN REFUGEES WERE WELCOMED INTO HAMILTON, ONTARIO. HOWEVER, ONE YEAR AFTER THE NEWCOMERS ARRIVED, LOCAL ATTITUDES ARE SHIFTING.

    In one Hamilton neighbourhood 12 months ago, neighbours gathered bicycles and patio furniture for the newly arrived refugees.

    They even bought soil to help the Syrians plant a vegetable garden.

    But today, relations in the community are anything but neighbourly:

    Complaints about boundary issues, violations of private property, unsupervised Syrian children intimidating the Canadian kids and causing adults to fear for their safety.

    This week, one incident occasioned the presence of police.

    A witness, Andrea, who reached out to The Rebel, rushed out of her house after hearing a commotion outside. What she found was a frightful standoff involving one of the Syrian families from down the alleyway hurlings rocks and bricks at her Canadian neighbours, with kids in the crossfire.

    I talk to witnesses, alleged victims, and the accused refugees in an exclusive on-the-ground report you absolutely have to see to believe.

    VIDEO

    http://pamelageller.com/2017/06/syrian-muslim-refugees-throw-rocks-bricks-canadian-dupes-welcomed.html/

    ReplyDelete
  19. It must be true because it is from Newsweek, Quirk's favorite news magazine -

    FBI Dem Party Operatives Offered Russian Hacker Bribes to Say He Hacked the DNC Email for DJT
    By Pamela Geller - on June 17, 2017
    DEMOCRATS: PARTY OF TREASON

    While the criminal witch hunt against our President continues apace over the nonexistent collusion between Trump with Russia, here’s a blockbuster front page news story virtually ignored by the elite enemedia. The FBI offered a Russian hacker cash and citizenship if he would confess to hacking Hillary Clinton’s email for Trump. There was just one problem: he hadn’t.

    These rogue Obama plants within the FBI and other agencies, who are even trying to fabricate evidence to frame Trump, must be removed and prosecuted, or they could be the death of the American republic.

    “FBI Probe Into Clinton Emails Prompted Offer of Cash, Citizenship for Confession, Russian Hacker Claims,” by Tom O’Connor, Newsweek, May 11, 2017:......

    http://pamelageller.com/2017/06/fbi-bribe-trump.html/

    ReplyDelete
  20. 15 Times Celebrities Envisioned Violence Against Trump and the GOP

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/06/14/15-times-celebrities-envisioned-violence-against-trump-and-the-gop/

    ReplyDelete
  21. "Navigation" of Cargo Ship prior to ramming USS Fitzgerald.

    Collision occurred soon after Cargo ship made sharp turn toward Tokyo.

    http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/06/17/15/417F0AF000000578-4612334-image-a-11_1497708031094.jpg

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4614624/Young-sailor-identified-one-seven-missing-sea.html

    ReplyDelete