Category: Society & Culture

Misinformation, Disinformation, No Information

Economy, Education, Government, Headlines, Media, Politics, Reason, Science, Society & Culture, Technology

Chaos is, well, chaotic. Let’s face it, the Left has succeeded in screwing things up so royally that their strategy of creating chaos so as to make the most people dependent on them as possible is working. While some are just getting back to some sense of normalcy after the “pandemic”, getting used to responding to an alarm clock and heading back to on-site work, others are still cowering in kitchens and walking around in masks. There are still virtue signaling “Hate hath no home here” and “We Believe” signs on some lawns but they’re now cockeyed (Occasionally I see a Biden-Harris sticker although it’s usually on a Prius driven by a recycled hippie.) For the moment, gas is available though getting more and more expensive by the day. The truck convoy has been moved to the back pages of the media, and cat food is still hard to come by in the stores. Few at this moment are dutifully counting the number of illegal aliens slipping across our southern border. News channels compete for how “breaking”, how bloody their coverage is. Never has the slogan, “follow the money” been more apt. Even philanthropies are trying to exploit the chaos by flooding us with an unprecedented number of phone calls, text messages, snail and email. Selfishness and self-centeredness, “looking out for number one” have taken over.

It’s a mess.

With instant communication via the internet and social media, ANYONE can shape perception, thus reality. But how much more adept at “creating” reality are the pros in politics, government, Hollywood and the media than the average snowflake photoshopping an image to create a meme?

No matter how erudite the source, not one institution, organization or entity has a grasp of the totality of what’s going on. Politicians still pontificate, with even greater breathlessness and ever more shallow and poll-tested, made-for-the-cameras commentary. Never has the slogan “if it bleeds it leads” been more apt. And never before has information been so colored, absent or FAKE as it is right now. 

What’s happening in Ukraine is overshadowing everything at the moment. It may not tomorrow, when Ebola is announced in Santa Barbara or murder hornets are found in Barrington, but this morning it’s Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine.

We all can absorb and assimilate only so much input, so fast. Trying to sort out what’s real, what’s relevant, what’s actionable and what’s just entertainment takes too much time, time we might spend more usefully doing things that will give us greater growth, prosperity, security and meaning.

In 1931 the president of Columbia University voiced the categorization that “The vast population of this earth, and indeed nations themselves, may readily be divided into three groups. There are the few who make things happen, the many more who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens.” Doomsday Preppers are stocking their shelves for the Apocalypse. Snowflakes are creating “apps” to hold and collectively wring their hands. Others bitch and moan and drink and return to their old routines.

So, what to make of all this?

Our recommendation is to stop, take a breath and re-dedicate yourself to the tried and true principle of critical thinking. Rather than define this principle myself, I’ll borrow from the description found here.

“Critical thinking is an approach to gathering data and making inferences about the world. It advocates an approach of data acquisition and rational assessment. When applying critical thinking, the goal is to collect as much relevant data as possible, assess that data for accuracy, and finally use the data to arrive at the most justified conclusions possible.

Critical thinking is an ongoing process, and even ideas that one feels are well supported need to be occasionally reevaluated to see if new information might change one’s mind. For example, critical thinking eventually showed that Copernicus was correct in claiming that the Sun was the center of the solar system, even though many people believed this to be false at the time. However, this didn’t make him completely correct either, since more critical thinking showed that he was wrong on other things (he also thought that the Sun was the center of the universe).

Critical thinking uses many aspects of formal logic and informal logic. It also focuses on discovering bias, propaganda, delusion and deception (more generally, logical fallacies) both in the sources of one’s information and one’s own views and approaches to reasoning problems out.

Leftists conflate critical thinking with critical race theory and postmodernism, the latter by using verbiage that implies one needs to look out for meanings behind words and determining for oneself what occurs, while at the same time advocating that all reality is fictional and that one can create their own ideas and reality.”

In short, be a skeptic of EVERYTHING. Remember Grumps’ First Law of Experts:

“On any subject one can find a minimum of twelve, world-renowned experts who can cite documented, empirical, irrefutable evidence to support arguments that are diametrically opposed to one another.” Translation: “Use critical thinking, form and trust your own judgment.”

Is The Pendulum Starting To Swing Back?

America, Government, Headlines, Media, Politics, Reason, Science, Society & Culture

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but evidence that the American public has had just about enough of the idiocies emanating from Washington and are finally pushing the pendulum back the other way is starting to emerge. The revulsion against everything leftist has been there all along, of course, but recently it has become ok to “say the quiet part out loud”. An example of this concerning the COVID response comes from Zero Hedge:

HBO host Bill Maher and writer Bari Weiss received a somewhat-surprising rapturous round of applause from the mostly liberal audience during Friday’s show after they dropped truth-bomb after truth-bomb into the pool of dissonance that remains among blinkered leftists unable to think for themselves about COVID risks and see beyond the “I must zealously support anything and everything that Fauci or Biden say or I am a Trumper” mindset.”

The article from The Liberty Beacon which references Zero Hedge is available here.

Parents speaking up in school board meetings. States beginning to relax mask and vaccine mandates. Even the CDC shamelessly is flip flopping once again on its guidance essentially saying, “It’s over now…everyone can relax”. Jenn Psaki is exhibiting the most intricate verbal contortions attempting to explain the government’s policy.

But hold on. Is this really a pendulum swing shift to the Right or is it just more Leftist shenanigans for political gain?

I regret to say it’s most likely the latter.

The Leftist swing has always been opposed by a majority of the American people. It may not be a large majority, but a majority nonetheless. As is their wont, the Left overplayed their hand and the parents of school-age children and the hardworking middle class were pushed too far, and the Left knows it.

So now they’re changing their tune and claim the “science” has changed. Having been played for fools, even a significant percentage of Democrats have slammed on the brakes and said, “No way Jose”! And so now, the Left is going to vociferously announce that it was THEIR POLICIES that brought about the end of the pandemic.

It’s not going to work. The American people no longer believe anything coming out of the mouths of either Biden or Psaki or Blinken or least of all, Kamala Harris. The media will trumpet this end of masks as a Biden accomplishment. Psaki has already started to explain the change of attitude as due to Biden’s brilliance. AND WE AIN’T BUYIN IT!

That the American people have thrown the BS flag onto the field, however, does not necessarily mean that the pendulum is decidedly moving rightward. I think it’s too early to tell.

We still have to clean up the voting disaster or else the Democrats will cheat their way to minimizing the damage that should occur this coming November. We still have to slog through all the crises and minefields (as well as ‘mind’fields) that the Democrats will create between now and the election. We still have to get the now significantly divided GOP on the same page so we don’t end up in another circular firing squad this Fall.

And perhaps most importantly, we have to prevent the following scenario:

1. Biden nominates Kamala Harris for the Supreme Court and the Dems shove it down the GOP’s throat somehow (maybe by buying off or placing guns to the heads of Manchin and Sinema). Somehow, she is confirmed.

2. Biden appoints Hillary Vice President.

3. Biden steps down or the 25th Amendment is invoked.

4. Hillary becomes President.

Sound crazy? Would you put ANYTHING past the Democrats and the Clintons?

So, is the pendulum swinging back to the Right? I fear the string is bent in a right angle but that length between the angle and the pivot is still pointed Left. As the Democrats get more and more fearful, their tactics will become more and more unhinged.

We must straighten out the string and push both it and the bob at the bottom to the Right as quickly and as forcefully as we can. And we must be prepared to protect and defend the integrity of the election in November!

“I Was Wrong”: Words You’ll Never Hear From The Left

America, Government, Media, Society & Culture, Values, World Affairs

As fond as Joe Biden is of quoting his father, I thought I’d write about an aphorism MY father taught me. It is: “The hallmark of a powerful man is the ability to admit when he is wrong.” In my opinion, one of the biggest problems the Democrats have is their unwillingness to do just that. That they’re wrong on most everything is undeniable except by die-hard leftist delusionists, pedants and sycophants. The last thing I want to do is give them a formula for righting (.sic) their sinking ship, but how jarring and rejuvenating would it be for the Democratic leadership to come up to the microphone and say the words, “America, we were wrong. We were wrong about the economy, about the border, about COVID, masks, lockdowns, about therapeutics and mandates, about defunding the police, about energy independence, about wokeness in the military, about selective prosecution, about lying for political gain, about the means and methods we used to manufacture and count illegitimate votes during the 2020 elections, about unconscionable gerrymandering, about packing the Supreme Court, about ending the filibuster, about Russian collusion, about the Afghanistan withdrawal, about the sham impeachments, about apologizing for and defending anti-American, antisemitic, anti-Christian bigots, about transgenderism, about deviant behavior (e.g. pedophilia), about critical race theory and the 1619 Project, about kowtowing to the unions, about conflict of interest investing with impunity, about suppression of dissenting views and canceling voices that disagree with us or don’t preach the leftist orthodoxy, about supporting fake news, fake polls and ignoring the will of the Silent Majority, about an ambiguous, flaccid and indefensible foreign policy, about China, about Iran, about North Korea, about Venezuela, about CUBA, about Russia…”

They will of course never admit any of this nor claim to be wrong on anything.

Much as I detest the content of the nonsense that spews forth from the mouth of the White House spokesperson Jen Psaki every day, I have to give her credit for her mastery at the podium. She has that skillful facility to deny, decry, defend, deflect, divert, dissemble, detract, and dismiss. “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. Contrast her with two other equally talented spin doctor/press secretaries: Kayleigh McEnany and Dana Perino. The difference between Psaki and the other two is that the former can ONLY use the list of ‘d words’ above while McEnany and Perino had truth, facts and fundamental honesty on their side. They too spun the messaging so as to cast as positive a light on both successes and shed the spotlight on the failures of their administrations. But the successes so far outweighed the failures the preponderance of messaging was straight up truth. By contrast, Psaki has to cover, “circle back”, postpone, attempt to belittle valid questions, launch ad hominem attacks or just outright lie to cover the failures of the Biden administration. And of course, she NEVER admits Democrat wrongdoing.

Over the years I’ve had to admit I was wrong many times. It always stabs me in the gut to do it, but I WILL admit mistakes when I make them. Oh that we had leaders that could and would do so as well.

I’ve been reading Dwight D. Eisenhower’s book written shortly after World War II, “Crusade in Europe.” In it he describes the character attributes that would disqualify potential commanders: “Foremost among these was the one who seemed to be self-seeking in the matter of promotion.” Another was evidence that a man made any effort to ‘pass the buck’. Pessimists were eschewed, as were men who made every decision himself, i.e. who was unable to delegate both authority and responsibility. In the book he recounts numerous incidents when his own estimates or judgments were faulty or just plain wrong. The consensus building, the arbitrating, the therapy he had to administer to get the Allied commands to work together was superb preparation for leadership not just of the military, but of, as it turned out, the Country. Admitting he was wrong when he was garnered deep respect and support from the Allied command.

Lay these attributes up against what we have now. Self-aggrandizement on the part of all politicians is inveterate but the narcissism of the celebrity-addicted Left is manifest and amplified by a makeup-laden media. I’ll posit that the Left’s pre-occupation with celebrity has infected and damaged the two youngest generations to the point where social media (a euphemism to be sure) has created an almost universal self-centeredness among them.

Passing the buck or blaming everyone but oneself is commonplace, a REAL pandemic, but especially among the Left (Did you hear Kamala Harris the other day blame Congress for not fixing the border?!).

Weak-kneed positions on crime, on our duty and responsibility to be the beacon of freedom in the world (Nancy Pelosi: “Go compete at the Olympics but be careful not to offend the Chinese.”; “We will boycott the Olympics by not sending any diplomats.”), on supporting not tearing apart the American dream, about the rule of law, about the Constitution itself…the Left and Democrats have deliberately sought to “transform our country” according to a Rules for Radicals (Saul Alinsky), frankly, communist way.

I’ve been encouraged of late that there is more talk among the Republican leadership of fashioning a Contract With America version 2.0. I think they’ve figured out that it is not enough to expose and openly denigrate the idiocies of the Democrat Left. It is imperative that we provide an alternative vision of what America can and should be. Unfortunately, the Democrats have so mucked things up, it will be necessary to enact harsh measures to eradicate the detritus they have scattered across the political, social and economic landscape.

We need to distribute “No More Mr. Nice Guy” coffee cups to every elected or appointed, conservative-minded, constitution-supporting Republican now or prospectively in office. The true fabric of our nation is frayed and, in some cases, hanging by a thread. If we screw up along the way, we need to admit our mistakes and make course corrections that keep us on a path leading up the slippery slope down which we have so lamentably slid.

And by contrast let’s NOT encourage the Left to admit their mistakes. Let’s continue to point out their fallacies and destructiveness while also adhering to Napolean’s maxim: “Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.”

And let us fashion a positive, seductive message that begins to restore America to the greatness her people deserve.

A Profound Essay on Post Truth

America, History, Society & Culture, Values, World Affairs

I find it’s increasingly difficult to have a rational conversation with ANYONE! There is so much falsehood, so much unbridled emotion and so much bitterness in communication today that it’s even hard to have a civil chat with members of my own family. While there are many topics on which we agree, there are many on which we disagree depending on what media we’ve consumed or exposure we’ve had to flak in the air! Now I’ve come across someone who has articulated the reasons for the conflict. Donald Williams, PhD is a Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College and I think he nails it:

“I frequently encounter people who do not seem to understand the difference between a fact and an assertion. To them, a “fact” is simply an assertion with which they agree. A “false fact” is an assertion with which they disagree. And “evidence” or “argument” mean repeating the assertion more loudly, more passionately, and/or with fancier rhetoric. These people appear on both sides of the political divide.

This kind of inability to participate in valid forensic reasoning has always been with us, of course. But I think at least two current influences are making it worse.

First, social media amplifies the idiocy. There used to be gatekeepers you had to get past to inundate the masses with your message. In so far as social media makes it easier (until it gets “community standards”) to make an end-run around the censors, it is a good thing. But the multiplication of mindlessness in public discourse is a huge downside. The old gatekeepers were not perfect, but they did as much good as harm. At their best, they did more good than harm. They helped to keep the grosser forms of illogic in public discourse to a minimum.

Second, the dominance of Post-Modern “theories” of various kinds in the academy has been an environmental factor that has caused this malady to mutate into even more virulent strains. Like social media but in a different way, this has neutralized some of the natural predators that used to keep it in check. Today’s students are constantly taught that objectivity is so impossible of attainment that it is dishonest to have it as a goal or even an aspiration. It is endlessly drummed into them that no one can escape the deterministic perspectivalism supposedly created by race, class, and gender.

Truth claims are automatically reduced in knee-jerk fashion to mere cynical attempts to assert power. It is not surprising that people come away believing that we really do live in a “post-truth” world. It should not be shocking that they will eventually act on that belief. Thus education, which used to inhibit the kind of thoughtlessness I am describing, now not only encourages it but actively foments it.“

THAT is why rational conversations are no longer possible. Call it brainwashing, call it attention deficit, call it lack of emotional energy…the madness continues.

For my part, I have buried myself in history books. I’m rereading the texts on world history I didn’t pay much attention to when in grade, high school and college. Having traveled to many places described in those texts, I’m reading them with a renewed interest and comprehension. Moreover, it’s giving me perspective. Great civilizations have been down the road we’re traveling before. All were eventually purged of evil and in context, what we’re experiencing now in 2022 is but a blip in history. The great journey of our own civilization – call it The Western World or America, its archetype, is following the course of all great civilizations: struggle to prosperity to a breakdown of traditional values to indolence to jealousy to war to chaos to demise.

We’re in the chaos stage. In the future as we look back on the turning point and what happened, I predict we’ll say that the post-World War II period of relative calm and “normalcy” gave rise to a “fat and happy” indolence which gave rise to the 60’s breakdown in traditional values which gave rise to the Korean and Vietnam wars as well as the more recent hegemonic quests to the chaos we’re now experiencing as the deterioration of values and moral relativism reach their peak and chaos prevails.

What do we have to look forward to? If we don’t learn from history and not just arrest this slide down the slippery slope but return to virtue, eternal truth and traditional values, we will see America continue its decline and eventually either be surpassed and taken over by an ascendant China, a militant Russia, or Armageddon will occur.

On the other hand, if we can wake up, grow up and pay attention to what I will for lack of a better term call “real reality” vs. “manufactured reality”, we can turn the chaos back into a better world for all.

Alas, I’m not very hopeful. I fail to see the leader or leaders who can inspire us sufficiently to turn the corner. I hope I’m wrong, for my children’s and my children’s children’s sake.

2022 Will Be Crazier Than The Last Two Years

America, Headlines, History, Media, Society & Culture, Technology, Values

What more needs to be said about how bad things were, not just in 2021 but in 2020 as well? On a positive note, the Silent Majority of grounded, traditionalist Americans started to speak up and speak out, throwing the BS flag, as it were, on the field. The Left so overreached, their stupid and destructive ideology was so exposed, we could remain silent no more! Previously quiet citizens and formerly reserved pundits took off the gloves and began to call out the idiocy and treason for what it truly was and, going into 2022, still is. Even some, albeit still a minority, of Trump-hating, head-in-the-clouds Democrats took down their Biden-Harris and Black Lives Matter virtue-signaling, lawn litter signs.

A rehash of all the moronic policies, actions and lies that saturated our lives isn’t needed here. It will be said many years from now that if in retrospect you didn’t remember 2020 and 2021, “you weren’t there”.

We must look forward and not just bemoan all that has transpired to “fundamentally transform” our country, but paint a new picture of what “could be”. The reason the Right in 1994 was successful in taking back the House after 40 years in the wilderness was The Contract With America. Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey’s positive message is what carried the day, not a continued condemnation of the destructiveness of the Left.

We need to give people one-liners and mental images of What Could Be in America. And while an old timer like me would suggest a return to what was, for my kids and grandkids the vision has to be one which takes into account the changes (some would say advances, but I question whether they were!) that have occurred over the last ten to fifteen years.

Technology, for better or for worse, has marched inexorably on, invading every aspect of our/their lives. In my opinion its impact has done more to transform our society than all the Leftist nonsense. However, it gave the Left an unprecedented platform from which to manipulate the increasingly addled minds of what have become known as “The Sheep”.

We must show how fundamental principles of honesty, self-reliance, meritocracy, thrift, traditional families, uncensored history, the Golden Rule and all the rest of the traditional norms and values that made America the greatest country the world has ever known, can and will create a more prosperous, peaceful and equitable society. Slowly, but increasingly evident, this is happening.

We need new heroes. I’ve said this many times before, but the reality is that peoples’ attitudes are shaped by pop-culture and celebrity figures. We need to draw clear distinctions between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys. Pull heart strings and create gut reactions that reinforce traditional values, not seek to destroy them. The Good Guys need to expose all that’s wrong with the utopian fantasy and triumph over the encroachment of Evil represented by Leftist tyrrany. They need to be the kind of heroes who Gen Z’rs can tweet about, establish memes about, get excited about, align behind.

These heroes should NOT be politicans. Nor should they be reality show celebrities, pundits, Hollywood actors or flamethrowers. They will be more like Edward Durr, the 62 year old union truck driver who last November toppled the longest-serving Democrat Senate president in New Jersey history after spending pennies on his campaign. Or they will be like the eminently brilliant and sober Condoleeza Rice, a patriotic American woman who cannot be pigdeon-holed as a political operative. They will be John Wayne for the New Millennium. While Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and similar outspoken Republicans will still bevvery much needed to draw headlines and bring attention to the failures of the Left, a new breed of leader is needed.

They need to be worthy of celebrity status but not because they seek it. They need to be attractive, articulate, positive, strong, quick-witted, exceptionally knowledgeable, tireless, patriotic, plain-spoken…a tall order to be sure.

I’m not sure what will happen this coming November. I fear the Right is being far too cocky already – a recipe for disaster. And speaking of disasters. It’s clear the Left/Democrats will do ANYTHING for power, American values, traditions and proven successes be damned. Just wait. Perhaps it will be “The Fungus”, or something external like an actual invasion of Ukraine or Taiwan, the Iranians testing a nuke or some other crisis. The Democrats will exploit it mercilessly and without reservation. And since the ends justify the means to them, they will lie, cheat, steal, and use every vicious and deceitful tactic in their arsenal to fight for their malicious agenda.

Gird your loins traditionalists.

2022 is going to be one hell of a ride as well but if we can use technology and social media to create that positive agenda, we’ll prevail in taking our country back!

The Left Doesn’t Build – They Only Destroy

America, Headlines, History, Morality, Science, Society & Culture, Values, World Affairs

I just read an article by Dennis Prager entitled “A Brief Guide to Leftist Destruction“. It makes the point that the Left never produces anything of value. It only destroys things and has done so since the first evil-doer walked the earth. It’s the age old conflict between the givers and the takers, of the producers and the indolent, of the haves and have nots. The Left are takers, indolent, have nots and all their whining and complaining is a product of their own making and choosing. Why work, why strive, why achieve when they can just take from those who DO produce, work hard and thus ‘have’.

I reproduce Prager’s article in full. It lists all the Left’s destructive results brilliantly.

“To understand the modern world, perhaps the most important rule one needs to know is this: Everything the Left touches it ruins.

This first became clear to me years ago during my radio show. I was talking about the Left’s war on the Boy Scouts (for not accepting announced gay people). It was becoming clear that this would ultimately lead to the decline of the Boy Scouts, which led me to ask: “Will the left replace the Boy Scouts with a left-wing Boy Scouts?”

Then I answered my own question: Of course not. Because the Left only destroys; it doesn’t build anything (other than government).

In support of that observation, here is a list of many of the things the Left ruins and often destroys.

No. 1: Art. The Left long ago conquered the art world. Consequently, since the 20th century, most modern art has been ugly, meaningless and nihilistic — the opposite of what Western art had always been.

No. 2: Music. What the Left did to the eyes in art, it did to the ears in music. As a part-time conductor, I can say with some knowledge that since the invention of atonal music (an oxymoron if there ever was one), most contemporary classical music is also ugly, meaningless and uninspiring. The people who like such music are almost all music critics and, of course, music professors. Most lovers of classical music never listen to the stuff.

No. 3: Journalism. Journalists were once highly respected. Unless a piece was listed as “opinion,” people generally believed they were getting, to the best of a journalist’s ability, as truthful a report as possible — “just the facts.” Today, on virtually any controversial issue, they are getting opinion, not truth. The purpose of nearly every major newspaper and other “news” outlet is the same purpose Pravda had in the Soviet Union: to transmit the party line.

No. 4: Colleges and universities. The Left has destroyed universities as places of learning devoted to seeking truth and therefore welcoming, even cultivating, diverse opinions. Virtually every left-wing idea was born at a university.

No. 5: High schools and elementary schools. Most schools in America — private as much as public — teach children that America is systemically racist and that they are not born male or female, but at a later age will choose whether to be one or the other — or neither. And increasingly, American educational institutions deny objective truth exists, even in mathematics.

No. 6: Happiness. You can meet happy and unhappy liberals and happy and unhappy conservatives, but you are unlikely to ever meet a happy leftist. The only question is whether the unhappy gravitate to leftism or whether leftism makes people unhappy. Both are probably true.

No. 7: The family. People on the Left increasingly choose not to get married and not to have children — in other words, not to make families. And their welfare policies serve to disincentivize the creation of families.

No. 8: Women. The rates of depression among young people, especially young women, are higher than ever recorded in American history. One reason is that for half a century, women have been told, as one famous feminist saw put it, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” But the fact is that the vast majority of (heterosexual) women need a man to be fulfilled, just as the vast majority of (heterosexual) men need a woman to be fulfilled.

No. 9: Childhood. One reason young people on the Left don’t want children is that the Left doesn’t particularly like children. The teachers unions’ adamant refusal to open schools for over a year has opened many Americans’ eyes to this fact. So has the war on children’s innocence – like prematurely talking to them about sex and having schools introduce them to drag queens from the age of five.

No. 10: Black life. Like the Democratic Party historically, the left is racist. And it is so in precisely the way the word was always used — the Left believes in black inferiority. That is why leftists advocate lowering standards for blacks. That is why they advocate policies that always result in more blacks dying at the hands of other blacks. That is why they believe the state must take care of blacks more than any other group. That is why left-wing policies, from the Great Society to today, have destroyed so much of black life, especially its family life — and they don’t care.

No. 11: Black-white relations. According to polls and according to just about every American who remembers life from about a decade ago, black-white relations were far superior then and both groups were optimistic about relations continuing to improve. The Left shattered that with its anti-white, “America is systemically racist” propaganda shouted from almost every major media and relentlessly pushed in almost every school and big business. The Left knows that when blacks and whites feel good about one another, the Left loses its appeal and loses elections.

No. 12: The military. As the military gets more and more woke — recall the testimony of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testifying before Congress about the need to teach the military about white racism — soldier morale declines. Add to this the utterly gratuitous and cruel mandate that every member of the military get vaccinated or be discharged and you understand why military morale is in steep decline.

No. 13: Late-night television. Americans who remember the titans of late-night comedy — Johnny Carson and Jay Leno — remember how their sole aim was to bring some smiles and laughter to Americans before they went to sleep. Few people had any inkling of the political views of either host. That is now history. The Left has destroyed late-night comedy. It now consists of little more than angry rants against conservatives.

No. 14: Superman. Superman was an iconic American hero. Thanks to the Left, he is no more. About a decade ago, Superman stood in front of the United Nations to announce he was renouncing his American citizenship to become a “citizen of the world.” And the Left has now changed his motto from “Truth, Justice, and the American way” to “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow.”

No. 15: Free speech. Never before has freedom of speech been threatened as it is today. As has been true since the communist revolution in Russia, everywhere the Left has gained power — from Russia in 1917 to the university and social media today — it has suppressed free speech. There is no exception.

No. 16: Sports. Until last year, sport was a great American unifier. It was one place Americans could go and, leaving politics behind, Left and Right, Democrat and Republican could root for the same team. No longer. The Left has ruined it by radically politicizing baseball, football and basketball.

The great American tragedy is just about every liberal knows the above is true, but nearly every one will still vote for the Left.”

Couln’t have said it better myself.

Thanksgiving

America, Family, History, Morality, Reason, Religion, Society & Culture, Values

Ah, turkey day 2021. I am thankful to have my family around the table with me today, 16 of us, and thankful that this tradition hasn’t yet been cancelled. I’m grateful to have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, an abundance of food on our table. I’m reminded that today we celebrate and mark the day when those who sacrificed so much and came precariously close to perishing thanked almighty God for a successful harvest and the preservation of their very lives so that we could have what we have today.

I am also thoughtful, however, of the forces that would destroy Thanksgiving, our history, our traditions, fundamentally transform our nation and society in a way that can only be described as evil. As they pursue their authoritarian, one world order nightmare, the writhing hydra of the Left is engaged in a Banzai Charge. I pray the result will be similar – the defeat and surrender of the human wave of hellhounds who maniacally rush to overwhelm the Right, the just and the good.

I wish I had a magic wand and could instantaneously make everyone as comfortable, happy and content as I. But no-one can, not the least a bunch of arrogant, megalomaniacal Leftists who think if they have all the power in the world that they can create a utopian society. THAT concept, is, in my opinion, inherently evil.

The war is engaged. The BS flag has been thrown down on the field. The Silent Majority is increasingly less silent as the blood from a thousand cuts, the heat from the flame underneath the frog in the pot have both reached the tipping point where we’ve had enough. In talking with people around the country and observing the countenance and behavior of the blue-state sheep surrounding me, I’m convinced that more and more people have now awakened to the reality of what is happening to us. More importantly, in more organized ways, the rugged, self-reliant and mind-my-own-business individualists of which we on the Right are made, have been united and begun to speak up in places like school board and town meetings. And now that the Left’s election lies, deceit and fraud have been fully exposed, we will see, thankfully, more of what occurred in Virginia and elsewhere during the elections earlier this month.

As the Leftist mob faces opposition for the first time, they, squealing and reluctantly, are starting to back off and stand down. Yes, there are still huge swaths of swamp yet to be cleared of infestation, and in the absence of an outside shock such as a World War III, it may take a couple of generations, but I sense a turning of the tide. It is slow, almost imperceptible, but it is turning.

And for that I am thankful.

I had a “heavy” conversation with one of my apolitical, extraordinarily busy, focused-on-fundamentals family members recently who, though aware of what’s happening, has the attitude that there is little any of us can do about it, that it’s the next generation’s world now and they’ll have to deal with it, that they have enough to worry about. Her implication was that no such principles exist, that change is inevitable and it is for each generation to decide for themselves what principles will or will not guide their lives.

I, on the other hand, believe that mankind is best served, and the greatest happiness, prosperity and peace has been in the past and will in the future be achieved by adherence to certain inalienable truths. MY attitude has always been, even when I was working 24/7/365 with my hair on fire, that it is my obligation, my duty, and my fundamental purpose now in my twilight years to do what I can to impart traditional values and teach those inalienable truths that persist and endure through all generations of time to my family and community.

What are these Inalienable Truth/Principles?

Let’s start with the Ten Commandments. I’m going to restate some of them in my own words.

There IS a God, and only One.

Don’t worship material things in lieu of God.

Don’t blaspheme.

Set Sunday apart as a day when you don’t work.

Honor your father and your mother.

Do not murder.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not lie.

Do not be jealous of what others have. Be grateful for what you DO have.

There are many inalienable principles but the last one in the Ten Commandments goes straight to the heart of what Thanksgiving is all about.

Today, I’m grateful to be reminded of it.

Remember The Russia Hoax

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Hoax is too gentle a term as it suggests something lighthearted. The Clinton Campaign, authorized no doubt with no more than a nod of the head for plausible deniability by Hillary Clinton herself, conceived and executed “the most ambitious dirty trick pulled in an American election and its aftermath.”[1] While America’s attention was focused on last week’s election, the indictment of Igor Danchenko became the third and most significant in the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry led by Special Prosecutor John Durham. As Charles Lipson summarizes in the above-referenced RealClear Politics article and as Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal wrote, the so-called “Steele Dossier” should be called the “Clinton Dossier”, since “Hillary commissioned it, paid for it, and had her aides feed it to the media, the State Department, and the FBI. It was a full-scale disinformation campaign — coherent, well-organized, and well-funded. It was rotten to the core.”[2]

The media, of course, is trying to sweep all of it under the rug as “old news”. Like my previous post, “Remember November 3, 2020” we must not let this happen.

We’ve all known about this archetypical political trickery and misinformation for years. As time softens the harsh reality and truth about the whole affair, we must tenaciously pursue the investigation for a couple of reasons: First, this was no normal-course-of-business set of campaign tactics using opposition research. It was, indeed, a full-fledged conspiracy to undermine and destroy Trump not just in advance of the 2016 election, but also afterwards, to hand-tie and cripple his administration. Second, unless and until there are consequences and incarceration for the perpetrators of this assault not just on Trump but on the American people, the Democrats will keep it up.

The strength of the conspiracy stems, in part, from garnering the Leftist troops to read off the same page of the hymnal. It may take seconds to expose the smoking guns, but years to amass so much evidence as to change the narrative, change the perception to reveal and cement the truth. The latter is obviously due to the crushing verbal diarrhea emanating from the Leftist dominated media, complicit in the lie. It’s not enough to expose the truth. It’s not enough to have a 5 minute segment on Fox News. The Truth must be crafted onto to a batman searchlight and projected on the clouds so brightly that it is impossible to ignore, and everyone sees it, once and for all, for what it is.

The genius of the Democrats is they have almost perfected the “Art of the Steal”. The lies, deceit, misinformation, denial, libel, deflection, misrepresentation, dissembling, bludgeoning, silencing, cancelling and physical, felonious activities are so well coordinated now that exactly contrary to what they are saying about the Right, it is they who act like terrorists, with all of their clandestine and covert techniques, cells, secret meetings and funding, etc.

Yeah, yeah, I know. “The Republicans do it too.” Having personally spent time in the political ooze in various capacities over the years, I can regrettably report first-hand that yes, the Republicans engage in all of these shenanigans as well. So, if you put a split screen on the television you could show examples on both sides of the political spectrum.

But, as with most facts and truth, IT’S A QUESTION OF DEGREE! The Democrats have abandoned even lip service to fairness and truth. They have shown over and over again to anyone with their eyes open that there is no length to which they will not go to achieve their megalomaniacal ends. Their use of malfeasance in seeking power and control dwarfs, as the sun dwarfs the moon, anything the Republicans have EVER been able to mount.

Thus, to perpetrate their lies takes only a fake dossier and the conspirators run with it. To counter the lies, it takes us on the Right years and years of painstaking effort, research, documentation, and exposure in the face of “nothing to see here”, shiny objects there, “old news”, and continuing cover-up, lies and disinformation (“that was debunked”) to overcome the BS emanating from the Left.

And still we may not be able to turn hearts and minds. One would think that adjudication in the judicial system of the evidence of the Left’s evil doing would suffice. But it doesn’t because the judiciary is also biased, corrupt and sometimes wittingly and sometimes unwittingly part of the conspiracy. PysOp, Coercion, Threats and Extreme Peer and Political Pressure has polluted our courts all the way up to the SCOTUS.

So, the only remaining avenue to correct the record is the collective chant of “Let’s Go Brandon” which translates, figuratively, to “Down with this Leftist BS” and “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”.

We must not forget what the Democrat National Committee, Hillary and her acolytes and minions perpetrated on America in 2015 and 2016 and thereafter. We must continue to shine the batman beacon exposing the corruption and evil for all to see.

Let’s Go Durham!

[1] Lipson, Charles, RealClear Politics, November 8, 2021 “John Durham Is Getting Close To The Jugular”

[2] ibid.

Remember November 3, 2020 – Comments on Mollie Hemingway’s New Book, “Rigged”

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I’ve just completed reading Mollie Hemingway’s book, “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections” which I have now placed at the top of my list of exposés documenting the fraud, deceit and slimy shenanigans in the pursuit of power and control perpetrated by the Democrats not just in 2020, but over the last forty or fifty years, and that now threatens a virtual Leftist takeover of our society. It is a tale of frogs sitting in lukewarm water with a flame underneath. It is the story of a death by a thousand cuts. It is an account of how manipulating perception can change reality such that we now face consequences most would never have thought possible even a few years ago.

One of human nature’s truisms is that time changes things. I don’t mean that things change over time. I mean time itself changes things. Perception is reality, and the impact of time on our memories changes our perceptions, thus reality. I know that’s a bit heavy, but time allows the Left to lie repeatedly such that the lie becomes ingrained in the collective psyche, and as time passes, the lie becomes history, with the truth being swept under the rug.

We have spoken among ourselves of all the outrageous things that have transpired just in the last year, as well as over the last ten or fifteen years, and continue to be appalled at what is happening now, right before our eyes. Yet time has a way of softening outrage, causing our minds to forget what angered us as it happened, and forcing us to pay attention to the present, leaving the past behind. Time erases both truths and falsehoods. Perceptions rather than reality are what remain.

Such is the case with what happened last November 3rd. As time passes there is acceptance of the lie that Biden fairly won the election. It is reinforced when even conservative news outlets slip phrases like “Trump’s unfounded accusations of fraud,” or “The debunked elections steal” into their retrospectives of what got us to this awful place where Leftist dogma is rapidly destroying our country. The truth almost always comes out, but often many years after the fact. Amity Shlaes’ history “The Forgotten Man”, for example, revealed the real truth about what the New Deal did to our society; the truth about the burden born by the forgotten who, head down, kept this country afloat while government increasingly and permanently began to take over our lives.

I am sickened by how quickly we have moved on: “nothing to see here”, “old news”, “that was debunked, discredited, etc.” Yet one of the most consequential periods and some of the most impactful events in history have occurred in our recent lifetimes, culminating in what occurred with the 2020 election. We are now facing the consequences of years and years of razor cuts, of an imperceptibly slow turning up of the flame beneath us.

Fortunately, there are those of us who, despite criticism, ostracization, ridicule and condescension, believe letting the truth wait twenty or more years to emerge is wrong. I continue to study the analyses of how the Left rigged, or stole – take your pick, the November 3, 2020 election and rail against the wrong that the Left so desperately want us to believe didn’t happen – that they want time to erase. And I will continue to speak out about this pivotal moment in our nation’s history and its caustic effects on our people.

In my opinion, this forgetting of even recent history is one of the greatest problems a society, a nation, civilization itself can face. I often speak of slides down the slippery slope, and I’ve often talked about how every great civilization, at its height, tipped over the top and rapidly declined due to what I flippantly refer to as getting “fat and happy.” When survival is displaced by comfort, meaningful things in life get replaced by less serious things that we use to occupy the free time those comforts afford us. What’s important gets lost in what feels good. A large part of life that had been previously devoted to survival is displaced by the constant search for other forms of gratification and self-actualization. Think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the bottom of the pyramid are physiological needs, then safety, then belongingness, then esteem then self-actualization. Today way too many of us are focused on the higher levels while ignoring the more basic ones at the bottom, the provision of which we have left to the government.

History proves that leisure breeds indolence, narcissism, destructive ends-justify-the-means competitiveness, resentment against the “establishment”, pleasure at all costs habits, and ultimately, revisionist history, delusional utopian fantasies and an evil thirst for power and influence on the part of some who are wired to dominate and control. Think Egypt, Athens, Rome, Western Europe and now the United States. Meanwhile, third world nations are dozens of years behind us. Russia already faced their turning point with the collapse of the Soviet system. China is still rising but I predict will ultimately face a civil war as its middle class rebels against totalitarianism, just as other societies revolted against monarchies and dictatorships. Their rise continues while our civilization declines.

Reading Hemingway’s book, I’m grateful for her sober, well-documented and definitive, in my judgement, account of how it is that the ‘nice guy’, hyper-corrupt, professional politician Biden is now sitting at the Resolute Desk surrounded by Rasputins and marionette masters. The Left will no doubt have a glib or carefully crafted response for every assertion in the book, but they have already won and don’t really care whether the truth exposed in it influences anyone. Elections have consequences, and as the book documents and spells out to anyone with an objective mind and a modicum of critical thinking skills, the theft of the 2020 elections (I use the plural noun because the same cheating in Fulton Country Georgia put the Senate in the Democrats’ hands) consequently gave the Left the power, albeit barely, to forcibly enact their destructive and megalomaniacal agenda and ideology.

The Leftist abuse continues. Mark my words, another crisis will unfold before the ’22 election and the Democrats will exploit it to the fullest. Last Tuesday may have put a chink in their armor, but the cancer of which they’re composed is so metastatic at this point there are only two ways to rid ourselves of it: playing whack-a-mole in every corner where we find it or administering radiation and chemotherapy, which risks killing the patient. We should all prefer the former approach, starting with school boards. The latter may make a good movie plot, but it really could lead to a bloody revolution, not something anyone should desire.

Time has changed things. But we should never forget what happened on November 3, 2020.

Act Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace

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Some of my readers have asked recently why my posts come in bursts and why they seem to have tapered off in recent months. The answer is simple. Actions speak louder than words. I have markedly stepped up my activities that, for lack of a simpler description, consist of championing the “Let’s Go Brandon” movement. And if you don’t know what that slogan means, you have your head in the sand and should pull it out and look it up. It’s not just an anti-administration motivation that drives me. It’s the recognition that despite my reservations, despite the impingement on my time and energy, I must actually DO something, not just talk about it.

So I have. I have worked to expand my network of like-minded people also disgusted by what they see transpiring before their eyes. We meet regularly and discuss the atrocities of the day and what our extended networks are telling us about leftist overreach and right-minded push back. We talk about contingency plans. We speak in public settings (e.g. in bars, restaurants, at the grocery store) openly and unabashedly about the toxic drivel coming out of the Biden administration, the lies, deceit, misinformation of the main stream media, and we openly applaud those who sport patriotic tee shirts and hats.

And here’s something I’ve learned. As angry as I am about the Democrat daily atrocities, I’ve found that the Democrats who surround me respond better to subtle encouragement rather than overt condemnation. As much as I’d like to grab them by the neck and rub their noses in the excrement they’ve left all over the ground, I’ve found a better formula, one that doesn’t corner and confront them, but that gives them an escape route.

For example, the other day I was deployed as a member of our community emergency response team and as we worked on setting up our equipment I overheard one of the members say something about attending a Democrat meeting of one sort or another. As the conversation ended and the Democrat and I came in close proximity to one another, I said to him, “Wow Bob, I would have never pegged you for a Democrat.” His expression was priceless. It was clear he was embarrassed to have been outed!

My statement was, of course, both a compliment as well as a dig. I acknowledged he was a good guy, with smarts and skills and organizational ability, while also pointing out my surprise that anyone possessing these attributes could be a Democrat!

I’m encouraged by the fact that there are more and more traditionalist/conservative blogs, videos and other forms of media published every day. As I’ve often stated, there are many who’s ability to articulate the outrage we all feel far surpasses my own, and it’s clear, reading or viewing their work, that we all have similar sentiments. Thus, I’ve frequently begun a post only to find that someone has already covered what I want to say, and far better than I could.

I’m tempted, and may in fact act on this, to add a curation feature to GrumpsReport. Curation, by the way, is one of those terms, usually applied to the selection of displays in a museum, that the tech world has co-opted and abused. But its apt. What I’m suggesting is the establishment of a section with links to specific articles, videos, tweets, etc. that are particularly intriguing, thought-provoking or bile-inducing. Thus, my readers will have a sense of what I’m made up of.  As we all know, “we are what we consume”, and that goes for what we read, watch and listen to as well.

In the meantime, please understand that the fewer hours I spend writing the more I spend actually doing something about the stuff I’m so pissed off about!

I hope you’ll join me in DOING SOMETHING. Speak up, act out, join with, and by all means, help the unfortunate (I’m being extremely generous) Democrats and independents who think that everything’s just swell to wake up, open their eyes, filter out the bs they’re consuming and start thinking with their heads instead of other parts of their anatomies.

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