This mountain photo above is in Sedona and was taken by a friend and fellow memo reader and is posted in honor of Max's birth to signify I hope he soars. That said, this is also a sad and confused world he is going to grow up in so I hope he rises above the insanity. His aunts and uncles and first cousins are , each in their own individualistic way, good, law abiding and productive citizens and thus great role models.
Today, the pledge of allegiance is to one's self (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Meanwhile, I embrace Trump's brand of nationalism as interpreted by Clifford May. (See 2 below.)
One of my favorite sayings is: "When All Else Fails, Lower Your Standards."
A second favorite is: "If you want more of something, fund it."
Third, if you want to get rid of something enforce it.
So it is with government.
It seems everything government touches it ruins. Bureaucracies exist to expand and they accomplish this by dumbing down because, in a pyramidal society, the numbers are at the bottom.
When Carter set up the Dept of Education, education declined and college tuition went up and so it goes.
He also closed "insane asylums" because of new medicines which, of course, no one took as prescribed so now we have an enormous homeless population. Oh well ,good intentions do not always lead to positive consequences.
Four of the most prophetic books I have ever read about the tragic consequences of government intrusion and its power to destroy are: 1984, Animal Farm, The Road To Serfdom, The Dumbing of America and Atlas Shrugged. I am sure there are many others.
Though I am cynical, I am not an anarchist. I know we need government to maintain an organized, functioning society. The founders of our nation constructed a government bound by a multitude of checks and balances and curbs. They knew man was flawed and tried to build in circuit breakers that controlled his behaviour so his actions would stay within bounds while allowing him to still be free They also intended/expected us to be self-disciplined, independent and responsible for our actions while at the same time to remain united. Quite a tall, ying-yang order.
Have we failed our Founder's and thus ourselves? Is the enemy us per POGO?
Statistically, we have had a remarkable history of perpetuating our republic beyond expectations but, of late, we appear to be coming apart at the seams again.
Government and rogue bureaucrats allegedly have been spying and manipulating in the belief they have the power and better judgement to overturn the people's decisions. Because we still seek truth, it is highly likely we will soon learn about the Russian Collusion Episode and the genesis of and basis for the Steele Dossier etc. That is all to the good and I would hope there will be consequences for those found guilty regardless of their social and/or political status.
Nevertheless, we continue to spend beyond our means in order to allow the"establishment types" to maintain power, to expand government control over our lives, to restrict our freedom and dictate a PC Culture. All of these trends are the antithesis of the characteristics that made us great and has kept us the envy of the world.
Has America's sun set? Have we run out of that independent spirit, our willingness to sacrifice for the good of the common weal? Has greed and nihilism triumphed? If these pernicious trends dictate can we reverse course or are the complexities of modernism, and all that entails, beyond our grasp?
We still remain free enough to bring about needed change if we care enough about the blessings we have enjoyed because we are a free,God fearing, capitalistic republic.
If we are what the majority of Democrat presidential candidates are selling should be rejected because it will only lead to more misery as it has wherever it has been tried.
Again, I will not deny Trump is without his many faults and warts but, at this juncture and considering his radical opposition, we really have little choice but to swallow hard and vote for his re-election. (See 3 below.)
After Hillary, that should be getting easier.
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Dick
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1) HIGH-SCHOOL
1957 vs. 2017
Scenario 1:
Jack goes duck hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2017- School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Scenario 2:
Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2017 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged with assault and both expelled - even though Johnny started it.
Scenario 3:
Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2017 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then tested for ADD. The family gets extra money (SSI) from the government because Jeffrey has a disability.
Scenario 4:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman.
2017 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse, Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she remembers being spanked herself, and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has an affair with the psychologist.
Scenario 5:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock.
2014 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations. His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.
Scenario 6:
Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2017 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
Scenario 7:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2017 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism. The, FBI investigates his parents - and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
Scenario 8:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957–In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2017- Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
1a) How to Create Conflict
By Walter E Williams
We are living in a time of increasing domestic tension. Some of it stems from the presidency of Donald Trump. Another part of it is various advocacy groups on both sides of the political spectrum demanding one cause or another. But nearly totally ignored is how growing government control over our lives, along with the betrayal of constitutional principles, contributes the most to domestic tension. Let's look at a few examples.
Think about primary and secondary schooling. I think that every parent has the right to decide whether his child will recite a morning prayer in school. Similarly, every parent has the right to decide that his child will not recite a morning prayer. The same can be said about the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag, sex education and other hot-button issues in education. These become contentious issues because schools are owned by the government.
In the case of prayers, there will either be prayers or no prayers in school. It's a political decision whether prayers will be permitted or not, and parent groups with strong preferences will organize to fight one another. A win for one parent means a loss for another parent. The losing parent will be forced to either concede or muster up private school tuition while continuing to pay taxes for a school for which he has no use. Such a conflict would not arise if education were not government-produced but only government-financed, say through education vouchers. Parents with different preferences could have their wishes fulfilled by enrolling their child in a private school of their choice. Instead of being enemies, parents with different preferences could be friends.
People also have strong preferences for goods and services. Some of us have strong preferences for white wine and distaste for reds while others have the opposite preference -- strong preferences for red wine. Some of us love classical music while others love rock and roll music. Some of us love Mercedes-Benz while others love Lincoln Continentals. When's the last time you heard red wine drinkers in conflict with white wine drinkers? Have you ever seen classical music lovers organizing against rock and roll lovers or Mercedes-Benz lovers in conflict with Lincoln Continental lovers?
People have strong preferences for these goods just as much as they may have strong preference for schooling. It's a rare occasion, if ever, that one sees the kind of conflict between wine, music and automobile lovers that we see about schooling issues. Why? While government allocation of resources is a zero-sum game -- one person's win is another's loss -- market allocation is not. Market allocation is a positive-sum game where everybody wins. Lovers of red wine, classical music and Mercedes-Benz get what they want while lovers of white wine, rock and roll music and Lincoln Continentals get what they want. Instead of fighting one another, they can live in peace and maybe be friends.
It would be easy to create conflict among these people. Instead of market allocation, have government, through a democratic majority-rule process, decide what wines, music and cars would be produced. If that were done, I guarantee that red wine lovers would organize against white wine lovers, classical music lovers against rock and roll lovers and Mercedes-Benz lovers against Lincoln Continental lovers.
Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. Again, the prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's win is of necessity another person's loss. If red wine lovers win, white wine lovers would lose. As such, political allocation of resources enhances conflict while market allocation reduces conflict. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict. That's the main benefit of limited government.
Unfortunately, too many Americans want government to grow and have more power over our lives. That means conflict among us is going to rise.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
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2)Trump’s brand of nationalism
In Europe, he defended a political order based on free and sovereign nation-states
Donald Trump strutted on the European stage last week and, it seems to me, put in a boffo performance. He wore white tie and tails. He charmed Queen Elizabeth. He gave the heroes of Normandy what may be, sadly, their final curtain call.
Beyond the theatrics, he signified something. His speech commemorating the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy included a robust defense of nationalism – the kind of nationalism, he explicitly argued, that won World War II; the kind of nationalism, he implicitly argued, that will be necessary to defeat those waging a war against the West today.
Let me back up for a moment to make sure you’re seeing the big picture. On the left, nationalism has become a dirty word, implying nothing less than proto-fascism.
In Paris last November, at ceremonies commemorating the World War I Armistice, French President Emmanuel Macron called nationalism “a betrayal of patriotism,” and “the opposite of patriotism.”
He went on to explain (more or less) that, “By pursuing our own interests first, with no regard to others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds most precious, that which gives it life and makes it great: its moral values.” President Trump, sitting a few feet away, stared, stony-faced, into the middle distance.
On the right, there is now a sharp split over nationalism. At its inaugural conference in Washington next month, the Edmund Burke Foundation will pose the question: “Is the new American and British nationalism a usurper that has arrived on the scene to displace political conservatism? Or is nationalism an essential part of the Anglo-American conservative tradition at its best?”
Keynote speakers include National Security Advisor John Bolton, and the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political philosopher and the author of “The Virtue of Nationalism,” the subject of intense controversy since its publication last fall.
Mr. Trump has called himself a “nationalist” and in this speech -- in others, too, those in Warsaw and Riyadh, for example -- he has been putting some meat on that bone. He recalled the “citizens of free and independent nations” who formed an alliance to “vanquish the wicked tyranny of the Nazi empire.”
He referenced the “nobility and fortitude” of the British, the “honor and loyalty” of the Canadians, the “gallant French commandoes,” the “fighting Poles, the tough Norwegians, and the intrepid Aussies.”
He added: “And finally, there were the Americans” who “knew that they carried on their shoulders not just the pack of a soldier, but the fate of the world.”
Naming nationalities, noting differences among them, and employing such terms as “sovereignty” and “self-rule” – all this was clearly intended to trigger those who reject the vision of benign nationalism, a political order based on free peoples with diverse historical, cultural and religious traditions who nonetheless come together against common enemies and in support of common values (not least classical liberal values).
He sees such a political order as clearly preferable to its primary competitor: globalism, the nations of the West surrendering sovereignty to the U.N. and other transnational authorities.
Some readers of this column are doubtless thinking: “But Cliff, it was a speechwriter, not the president, who crafted those remarks!” Of course, but the task of skilled presidential speech writers – Peggy Noonan, Peter Robinson, Clark Judge and Anthony Dolan spring to mind – has always been to weave their boss’s ideas, instincts and inclinations into a coherent tapestry. And every president wields a red pencil.
Interestingly, President Trump didn’t use that pencil to strike out “crusade,” a term prohibited by enforcers of political correctness because it evokes a medieval war between Christian and Muslim armies.
President George W. Bush used that word just once, sparking furious criticism. The headline in the Christian Science Monitor on Sept. 19, 2001: “Europe cringes at Bush 'crusade' against terrorists.”
I heard no similar response after President Trump said that the men who stormed Omaha Beach had committed “their lives in a great crusade,” and when, in his toast to the Queen a few days earlier, he spoke of World War II as a “Great Crusade.”
Why not? Let’s give the benefit of the doubt to Mr. Trump’s critics: Perhaps they recognized that his use of the term was an homage to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower whose memoir of World War II was titled, “Crusade in Europe.”
This, too, was clever: In Portsmouth, the English city from which the D-Day forces set out for the French coast, President Trump read excerpts from the prayer that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had recited in a radio address on June 6, 1944.
“Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day, have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion and our civilization and to set free a suffering humanity,” Trump read against a backdrop of the American flag and a portrait of FDR. Imagine the reaction had those words been his own.
Did Mr. Trump make any missteps in Europe? It seems to me he did. The interviews he gave should have reinforced the messages he was intending to communicate. They distracted from them instead.
He complained to television host Piers Morgan that Meghan Markle, the American-born Duchess of Sussex, “was nasty to me.” He tweeted something combative about singer Bette Midler. He responded to insults from London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
By now, this seems to me apparent: While Mr. Trump is often capable of rising to the occasion, he can seldom resist rising to the bait.
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times.
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3) Time for Political Plain Talk
Editorial of The New York Sun
The thing that gets us about the coming presidential campaign is how demure — dainty even — is the language the candidates are using. President Trump set the high-minded tone when he attached to Vice President Biden the sobriquet “sleepy Joe.” And then ventured that the ex-veep is a “loser.” Mr. Biden turned around and suggested that to America Mr. Trump represented an “existential threat.”
Can you believe it? The New York Times has up in its lead position a 1,700-word dispatch about this mist of rosewater. It quotes Mr. Biden as suggesting that Mr. Trump has embraced the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un — a “damn murderer,” the veep ventures. Mr. Trump put it out that not only is Mr. Biden “a loser” and a “sleepy guy” but he is the “weakest mentally.”
“Ferocious” is the word with which the Times describes that exchange of angel food. It quotes Mr. Biden as cooing that Mr. Trump had shown poor character by resorting to “crude language and embarrassing behavior that is burrowing deep into this culture.” The paper seems to have forgotten the example set by the Founding Fathers, who first refined the art of insults in the election of 1800.
That’s the election in which Thomas Jefferson’s opponent, President John Adams, was set down as a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” The Jefferson Foundation points out that those words are not from Jefferson himself but from a scrivner, James Callender (albeit at Mr. Jefferson’s instigation).
Callender may have been animated by resentment over the fact that Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts were used to throw him into jail — which is where our own Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, announced the other day that she wants to see Mr. Trump. Land sakes, Madam Speaker, is that the best you can do? John Adams called Alexander Hamilton the “bastard brat of a Scotch pedler.”
And he was just tuning up. He once penned a letter suggesting that Hamilton suffered from a “superabundance of secretions” that he could not find enough — the editor of the Sun requires us to paraphrase here — women of the night to “draw off.” Then again, Teddy Roosevelt once called Woodrow Wilson “a Byzantine logothete backed by flubdubs and mollycoddles.”
TR also insisted that President McKinley “had no more backbone than a chocolate eclair.” Even — or especially — Lincoln came in for the most outlandish insults. He was lampooned as a racoon and called (by New York lawyer George Templeton Strong) “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla.” President Truman called Vice President Nixon a “a no-good lying bastard.”
Of course, President Truman famously claimed General Eisenhower “doesn’t know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.” Once you start scouting around the Web, which is where we picked up this basket of insults, you get the impression that Messrs. Trump and Biden are rank amateurs at the art of political insults.
Even the newspaper headlines start to look wan (our favorite, “Trump, Treasonous Traitor,” from the Times). So let us just encourage the current crop candidates — these no good lying flubdubs and pussywillows — to take off the rhetorical gloves and when it comes to their opponents let the long suffering American voters know what they really think.
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