GrumpsReport Now On GETTR

Dear Readers. Things are moving so fast (still downhill I’m afraid) that to comment and remain current on breaking news and the vast array of insanity infecting society, we have elected to (gulp) dip our toe into the mayhem of social media by establishing an account and presence on the relatively new platform called GETTR. (https://gettr.com/). Enroll and look up Grumps and/or @GrumpsActual. There you’ll see all our commentary.

As our blood pressure rises and corpuscles boil, we’re able to respond/comment/rail quickly using this medium. The jury is still out as to whether we’ll stay on this platform, or any of the others for that matter: GAB, TruthSocial, Rumble, Parler, etc. but we’ll give it a try for a while.

Let us know what you think!

And hang in there!

Grumps

The Left Doesn’t Build – They Only Destroy

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

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.

Act Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace

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.

Perception, Reality and Alternative Reality

I’m going to be uncharacteristically charitable and start with the premise that the Left (choak) and the Right truly believe in their positions, both ideological and political. Further, I’m going to argue that people’s behavior is a function of their perception, that perception is reality and perception derives from experience. In other words, I’m going to suggest that because of their life experience peoples’ reality is that everything that’s happening in our country is, in the case of the Left, just peachy keen and in the case of the Right, diabolical and destructive. And both honestly and sincerely believe their views of the world are correct.

Here’s the well-known exercise that demonstrates what I’m talking about with respect to perception. Look at the following picture:

You see a young woman.

Now look at this picture.

You see an old hag.

Now, the way this experiment actually works, an audience is divided in two and each half is shown ONLY one or the other picture. This is the EXPERIENCE.

The entire audience is then shown the following picture.

The argument that ensues is that one half of the audience can only see a young woman and the other an old hag in the composite picture.

I submit the Right has a life experience that is diametrically opposed to that of the Left. The Right has grown up and experienced the good in tradition, virtue, self-determination, self-reliance, hard work, meritocracy, limited government, strong national defense, preservation of life, and so on. The Left has grown up seeing big government, authority, the State, collectivism, globalism, atheism, self-indulgence, insolence, indolence, the means justify the ends, pleasure over pain, narcissism, and so on.

How do these experiences happen?

For some, it is actual, physical experience. The traditionalist/conservative who grew up in a happy home, was taught and earned the rewards of hard work, etc. inevitably sees the world one way. The Leftist who was raised in a broken home, or in a so-called ‘alternative lifestyle’, taught throughout his or her life that the world was an oppressive place filled with people out to get them, that they are entitled to the fruits of ALL labor, taught to follow their heart strings rather than their heads; they see the world the opposite way just as the two halves of the audience are certain they see either the young woman or the old hag in the third picture above.

Since the advent of the Internet, for many experience is vicarious. By that I mean that their lives have been impacted not by actual experience, but by what they’ve heard from people with loud and popular voices (actors, actresses, politicians, etc.), read in the paper, seen on television, heard on the radio, absorbed from clicking on social media. This “experience” is just as impactful as real experience. Witness, for example, the impact teachers preaching Critical Race Theory or pushing the LGBTQ deviance and similar ideologies is having on our children. The kids are repeating things at the dinner table that are revolting and abhorrent to traditional parents. But the kids’ “experience” is coloring what they see and believe, and day by day it is becoming reality to them. For example, see: https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/warner-media-cartoons-woke/2021/09/15/id/1036621/. For the record, I’m revolted and repulsed by this blatant indoctrination.

It’s dismissed as silly that “it’s the Media’s fault.” BUT in large part, IT IS! The ‘Media’ creates what I’ll call “substitute” experience for many people, perhaps even most people, and thus determines both perception and reality. Because the Media preys on the baser instincts of human nature such as approbation and validation, sex, peer pressure, gluttony, pleasure, leisure, the herd/lemming instinct, etc. and generates revenues and profits from it, it creates a reality that feeds on itself and grows. By feeding on itself I’m suggesting that those who control and direct the media are themselves, addicted to and invested in the memes and reality they’ve created. And like any addiction, the lives they concoct get more and more perverse and masochistic until the people who believe them to be reality blow up, for example, by suicide or drug overdose. Think about all the violence, destruction, homicides, suicides, that so many have actually or vicariously experienced and how it escalates. Think about teen character destruction and the pandemic of them taking their own lives, of anger stemming from depression and lack of self-worth resulting in gang violence, drug abuse, sex trafficking. All of this can be attributed to the perceptions created by the Media and those who control it. And so long as revenues and profits persist, so too will the junk reality being put out by the Media.

The antidote?

Change perception and we change reality. We can’t just eliminate or eradicate evil from our lives. It has to be replaced by stuff that appeals to those baser instincts of human nature in a productive, positive way. An extremely tall order. Many conservative/traditionalist media outfits have tried and God bless ’em, continue to try. There seems to be some evidence that the tide is turning, but we have a long way to go!

The assault by the predominantly Leftist Media and the grip Leftist politicians now have on the minds and hearts of approximately half of our population is so strong that it can’t be broken by fiat or legislation. Overturning Roe v. Wade, for example, will not end abortion. It will just drive it underground. Counter the “my body my decision” position with enough “life begins at conception and is precious” using the same techniques and production values that the Left uses to push its agenda and we might have a chance of changing reality for so many who have been indoctrinated and brainwashed by the Left that abortion is just a procedure used in lieu of contraception or continence.  

As I’ve noted many times before, we need new heroes. We need attractive, articulate, persuasive, actors, actresses, politicians, leaders who can inspire and persuade those who believe their Leftist reality is ok that there is a better, happier and more satisfying reality than what they’re experiencing.

Many on the Left are seeing where things are heading and at least starting to scratch their heads. Unfortunately, the tsunami of Leftist reality is so strong and so pervasive in our society today, the peer pressure so great, that it’s a tough war. Many of my generation are giving up and suggesting that “it’s their world now.” I, however, feel it a responsibility and duty to try to move the two generations behind me to a course that thousands of years of history and REAL experience has taught is better than the one society is currently following.

We’ll never reverse the decline to destruction of our civilization unless we can change hearts and minds. For whatever time I have left on this planet, I will keep trying.

Real Heroes

Let’s face it, calling every member of the military or the Intelligence Community or teachers or first responders or medical providers HEROES cheapens the contribution and sacrifice of REAL heroes. The term “garbage marine” is one my own marine sergeant nephew attaches to some with whom he served. The term has been so overused it can be said that a hero “is in the eye of the beholder”. I’m going to state categorically that while there are many who serve, who have served or who will yet serve out country and its citizens, or our allies and their citizens (or subjects as the case may be), worthy, honorable, helpful and achieving though they may be, not all are heroes.

So who’s a hero? Perhaps it’s best to first describe who is NOT a hero.

An idol is NOT a hero. There are innumerable Hollywood celebrities who are idolized because they use that celebrity to “speak out”.  One of the biggest problems of Gen Z is sycophantically following the lead of some moron actor or actress that has no connection with the real world, believe their notoriety gives them credibility, and preys on weak minds like demagogues primarily to increase their celebrity. Just because someone is held in high esteem doesn’t make him or her a hero. Is the current president (uncapitalized deliberately) a hero because there are millions of Americans who look up to him (excuse me while I force down some bile)? The last thing I’d call the president and all who control or follow him heroes!

Someone just doing their job is NOT a hero. Serving others is not necessarily heroic. The majority of service jobs are just that: jobs. That they do jobs others won’t or can’t do doesn’t make them heroic. They may do work that requires courage, but that still doesn’t make them a hero.

So, who IS a hero?

A hero is someone who does something to serve one or more fellow human beings that requires tremendous courage or sacrifice. I’m not talking about the courage to do slightly above ordinary things. I’m talking about adrenalin flowing, internal shaking with fear courage. A hero is also someone who sets aside his or her own safety and welfare and consciously chooses to take on something that serves others because of a cause they believe in.

One caveat.

There are many fools and idiots who fall into the above categories who are NOT heroes. How? Because what they’re doing is fundamentally wrong. Many members of ANTIFA or BLM may be heroes to one another, but their cause is evil. Yes it’s a value judgment, but in my opinion, anyone who ‘heroically’ supports or advances EVIL is not a hero but a villain.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Nathanael Greene, Paul Revere, John Paul Jones, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Alan Shepard, Chuck Yeager, Rosa Parks, Theodore Roosvelt, Martin Luther King,  Oskar Schindler, Neil Armstrong, Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and on and on…THESE were heroes. All overcame tremendous adversity, scorn, ridicule, fear, doubt, trauma, withering criticism, isolation or a host of other impediments to achieve greatness, not for themselves, but for their fellow human beings.

Thus, the men and women who have organized quietly and acted with alacrity to effect the Pineapple Express rescue operation in Afghanistan are heroes. Others, unheralded, unknown to the public, unsung, are also risking their lives to save fellow citizens and allies from the grips of terrorists.

May they be blessed, guided, protected and successful.

Just Sayin’

Those of you who follow this blog know one of my key tenets is: “Go Where They Ain’t”. It’s not that I’m a non-conformist, although that turns out to be true. It’s rather that crowds and the herd are generally things to avoid not just in a crisis but also in non-threatening times as well. Similarly, I tend to go where they ain’t when collecting information. And with respect to my views on everything from local to world affairs, I ask “why?” when wisdom becomes “conventional”.

So, for example, the conventional wisdom is, “We are not nation-builders.” Nation-building, by the way, means the idea of invading and occupying a land afflicted by dictatorship or civil war and turning it into a democracy. That line is dogma for conservatives and in general, I don’t believe we should be nation builders, however, when I ask “why?” I have to also think that in the absence of us “exporting freedom and democracy”, what takes place? Turns out despotic adversaries like China and Russia move in for hegemonic reasons. That’s not good.

Another bit of conventional wisdom is, “America can’t be the world’s police force.” On this matter I have to ask, “What happens when we abandon that role?” Again, China and Russia move in. Is that what’s good for society and the world at large?

“We must withdraw from Afghanistan!” I have to ask, “why?” While we maintained a presence there, as we have in South Korea, Japan, Europe and other places around the world where we’ve acted as policemen, the country wasn’t great, but look at what we have now! And I don’t think a “prudent withdrawal” would have created a different outcome from the Taliban taking over.

No, I submit we ought to think about whether we SHOULD maintain an active military presence in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and other locales where we’ve spent blood and treasure both eliminating evil and also setting up self-determination (aka democracy). Walk away and we might think we’re doing ourselves a service, but every time we’ve done so, it’s cost us more in the long run!

It boils down to this. Either we believe that freedom and democracy are good and dictatorships and terrorist-led theocracies like the Taliban are evil, or we don’t. If we believe in freedom, doesn’t it become our DUTY to export it and ensure it around the world? Or do we pull in our horns, think we can create a bulwark against it with walls and prosperity here at home, and allow other nations whose ideologies and societal norms we believe to be evil, take over?

I grew up in Europe, an American kid going to an American school, surrounded by Americans, but with local foreign friends as well. They envied us. They worshipped the United States because of the freedoms and wealth that we enjoyed. Were we to leave our bases in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, they would be terrified! Our troops provide a deterrent that keeps bad actors from taking over. Had we troops in the Ukraine, or better, in Crimea, do you think Russia would have annexed it as they have?

If we stop patrolling the Taiwan Strait (and now, weak as we appear to be, even if we KEEP patrolling the Taiwan Strait), or the South China Sea, how quickly do you think the Chinese will take them over? They’re already establishing military bases in the disputed Spratly Islands and we’re just letting them get away with it. THAT’s what happens when we adopt the position, “We can’t be the world’s police force.”

Yes we can, and yes we should. It ain’t cheap, and it ain’t easy. But if we’re going to restore our nation as the Light Upon the Hill, I think we need to reconsider our foreign policy, our influence and Sole Superpower status.

Just sayin’

The Cuomo Canard

This isn’t about sexual harassment. The reason everyone is jumping on the “impeach/take down Andrew” bandwagon is about advancing the agenda, not defending victims. The Cuomo’s have always epitomized the Leftist political thugocracy. The outcry from the Left is manufactured just like every other meme they create. This one is about countering the Kavanaugh debacle and proving that they “listen to the women”. It’s about being able to say for the 2022 election, “See, we are consistent in demanding justice for women abused by Democrat men too!”

Do you honestly believe the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, would give a rat’s you know what about the allegations against Cuomo if she weren’t under siege for being a worthless, weak-kneed, political hack AG unwilling to prosecute real crime but ready willing and able to vilify and demonize any conservative or Republican? Having polled her Leftist peers who, against their consciences, supported Cuomo after the nursing home debacle, and having determined that the groundswell against him on the sexual harassment claims was going to build, James ran for the microphone to declare her righteousness. The word had gone out…Cuomo was going to be the sacrificial lamb upon which the Democrats were going to in part depend for the 2020 congressional race.

Next up, law and order. The Left will come up with some new phrase, meme, slogan or whatever to prove to everyone how supporting they are of the police and law and order. They may have wounded themselves so much already that they might even attempt to reverse their idiotic border policy (especially now that they’ve let in hundreds of thousands if not seven figure numbers of illegal aliens).

For the Democrat Left, ANYTHING goes, and when they overstep, overreach, they of course blame everyone but themselves, and will use their skill at creating high-production-value lies and appearances to counter attitudes moving against them. Thus, they will eat their own, they will seek to create the illusion that they are the champions of the electorate, of the People, of the victims, or whatever else suits their immovable goal: The Attainment of Power and Control.

I had to write this blog entry immediately after watching the coverage of the “Cuomo Affair” yesterday and today. The story will vanish by the end of the week, and nothing will happen to Cuomo. The Left, particularly those who have already amassed considerable power, like Cuomo, know exactly how to run out the clock. They know how to weather the storms and wait out the news cycle change. While they have always blamed the Right for Wag the Dog-like sleight of hand maneuvers, it is they who practice that art so skillfully.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some other “crisis” is manufactured shortly to put the Cuomo affair in the background. Murders on the streets of New York City (which has the added benefit of rubbing Cuomo’s nemesis De Blasio’s nose in the excrement he’s deposited on its streets), perhaps the appointment of a new Border Czar, something having to do with the COVID Delta variant or the new resistant fungus…something will pop up and Cuomo will still be in office, unscathed and untouched, a week, maybe a month from now.

And that’s good. He can serve as a poster boy, typifying what’s wrong with the Left.

I sense, and it’s only a feeling, that the Left’s departure from sanity and the damage it is doing to the country is oozing into the mainstream media. With CNN’s numbers plummeting, the money will dictate that they have to come from the Far Left towards the Center, and as THAT happens, as Fox continues its move to the left, as more and more Newsmax’s and OANN’s arise, things will gravitate to where America really is: Right of Center.

It may take a generation, and the pendulum swing could be accelerated by another major, 9-11-like crisis, but I’m sensing that more and more of America is waking up and starting to recognize the Leftist BS for what it is. Soccer moms now aware of the crap being taught their kids, people fed up with the mask/no-mask, vax’d/not vax’d idiocy, rank and file workers being whipsawed by politically driven, employer compliant, woke policies that are telling them that it no longer pays to work hard, everyone seeing the price of milk and gasoline inexorably rise… increasingly the main stream media will HAVE to cover the “victims” of the Leftist lunacy, and the pendulum will swing the other way.

Hang in there America.

Post-Truth

Irrespective of religion, one of the bedrocks of human morality and conduct is the rule, “Thou shalt not lie.” On the Decalogue it was worded “Thou shalt not bear false witness” but only the most ardent cynic would argue that the two phrases aren’t equivalent. Begs one to ask, “What is Truth?”. Regrettably, and sadly, today lying in all its forms is so common that Truth is completely obscured.

Truth is reality. Truth is fact. Truth is truth whether one believes it or not, whether all mankind believes it or not. It is eternal. It is immutable. There is no such thing as “my truth” as one political moron once suggested.

Truth doesn’t come in shades, different colors, isn’t nuanced, isn’t relative. It doesn’t have to be subjected to scrutiny or scientific testing. It is possible that there are truths undiscovered. Consider that as late as the 17th century China still believed the Earth was flat. Irrespective of their BELIEF that the Earth is flat, the TRUTH was and is that it is a sphere. So, the Truth of the Earth’s form wasn’t discovered by the Chinese for millennia but it was still Truth!

Lying, on the other hand, comes in many forms: outright falsehood, omission, misrepresentation, incomplete recounting, deception, misdirection, dissembling, extraction without context, “white”, and today’s favorite form – ‘spin’.

EVERYONE is guilty of lying. As with so many things, however, it is a question of degree. And, I would add, it’s a question of perspective.

I submit the Left utilize lying at a rate and in a quantity many times that of the Right. Consciously, with the argument that “the ends justify the means” continuously in mind, the Left lies almost non-stop. As a group, the class of vermin called professional politicians routinely lie, but the Left does so audaciously, consistently and arrogantly. They believe that if they shout and accuse, bludgeon and scream their words, THAT, in and of itself, creates Truth. They believe that if they say things often enough with catchy phraseology, it will become Truth.

And in the minds of the weak, it does.

Add to the propensity for falsehood the age-old psychological disorder called Projection, the amplification and megaphone aspect of the Internet, the sycophant and pandering broadcast and print media and the addictive and intoxicating dystopian impact of Social Media, and the Left wields far more influence than the Right. Like a steamroller, the Left crushes Truth and replaces it with “their” truth…a demented and sick, narcissistic, megalomaniacal and condescending view of the world that has consistently resulted in enslavement and attempts to suppress free will.

Using its finely honed skill at lying, its legions of mouthpieces all voicing the canon, the Left successfully destroyed the integrity of our election process. They’ve been working on it for decades. They almost got away with it in 2016, and they have provisionally gotten away with it in 2020. In terms of societal destruction, they’ve gone into hyper-drive, seeking to complete the “fundamental transformation” of our country and Western society.

It truly has become a world “post-truth”. Not just moral relativism abounds – EVERYTHING is now relative, even gender.

It is madness and while many of us sane people on the Right like to discount the lunacy as transient, to be rectified in 2022 and 2024, the damage being done to our culture and country, even if repaired, will leave scars and doubt for generations to come. It is the pattern of all great civilizations: from struggle for existence to relative peace to conflict of envy to moral decay to economic decline to war to extinction. In America today we’re for the most part watching the death of Good and the rise of Evil as if it were a sitcom…something that’s happening “out there” rather than in our own backyard.

But it IS happening, and part of the Post-Truth era is convincing the weak that the destruction they’re seeing with their own eyes, experiencing in their own lives, is either not really happening or is GOOD for them!

And all of it can be traced back, in large part, to the lies of the Left. From the lies of the 60’s: “Free” love, “Turn On, Tune Out, Drop Out”, “LSD will open your mind man…”, “All you need is love”, to the lies of today: “The crisis at the border is Trump and the Republicans’ fault,” “COVID-19 spontaneously jumped from bats in a wet market to humans”, “Job training (the unions’ welfare plan) equals infrastructure”, “Police are fascists,” etc., the use of high-production-value visuals, music, narrative and clever slogans constitute a tsunami of lies that have successfully brain-washed the weak-minded and elevated the demagogues.

I fear it’s going to take a cataclysmic shock for America to wake up and regain its ability to separate Truth from Lies. Until that time we will continue to live in a Post-Truth, Post-Reality world. Thankfully, mankind has something called “discernment”. If used, along with Free Will, it may yet save itself from a repeat of history.

A Trip Through The Heartland

I’ve just returned from a week-long road trip through Virginia and North Carolina. Getting out of the Northeast for a few days was like surfacing after holding my breath under water. People in the Shenandoah Valley, in the mountains of western North Carolina and the Outer Banks were, in a word, NORMAL. They were friendly, focused on their jobs, families and communities, and with rare exception, vocally angry about what the Left is attempting to do to our country.

I’d estimate people were split 50-50 on wearing masks indoors. Outdoors, few people wore them.

In bars and restaurants, behind hotel lobby counters, hardworking managers and staff were scrambling to meet the needs of patrons. Universally, the latter were patient and understanding.

Spring had sprung. The farms on each side of the highways were green, calves nuzzled their mothers, corn and other fields were plowed ready for planting. We had great weather and the open, blue skies, the clean air, cool mornings and evenings and warm days were a balm.

As we drove, we kept tabs on the news on SiriusXM. Same old, same old. The (expletive deleted) Left continued to pursue their utopian dream of permanent power, the politicians preened for the cameras and microphones proving, once again, that “all the world’s a stage”, and the media, ALL media, in unison jawboned about whatever was bleeding at the moment (“if it bleeds, it leads”). We frequently turned it off after hearing the “headlines”, so jarring was the contrast between the idyllic countryside through our windshield and the drivel emanating from Washington, New York and other major cities.

I couldn’t help sighing to myself, “What will become of this wonderful country?” I thought of my children and grandchildren…what their lives have been like over the last year, and what they might become like in the future. I spent a good deal of time thinking about one topic in particular…the effect “tech” has and will have on our lives.

Remember when word processing was supposed to make life better? And email? Ask yourself, “Has it really done so?”

What about the Internet in general? Has it really brought the world’s knowledge to our fingertips and made life better for all, or has it done more harm than good? 

Again I ask, “Has tech improved society and the world, or made it worse?”

It depends, of course, on what we value. If we value instant gratification, search engines and overnight delivery have certainly changed things for the better. But if we value faith and family and the rewards of applying the Golden Rule, tech has, in my humble opinion (IMHO, .sic) been tremendously deleterious.

As I drove, I alternated between hope and despair. There is a war on, similar in some ways but different in others from any that has been fought before. It is, IMHO, an existential fight for the soul of western civilization. As I have suggested many times over the years, the United States, and by extension, the western democracies who follow the Judeo-Christian ethics and traditions are either going to follow the path to extinction that other great civilizations have followed or arrest the rapid decline we are witnessing and restore sanity and reliance on the immutable principles and traditions that have brought the greatest good to mankind through all generations.

You may scoff at such a sweeping and draconian encapsulation of our times, but when one is driving for hours and hours a day one has time to step back and view the environment differently than one does when faced with the daily grind.

The fight is exhausting. I’d like nothing more than to put on some classical music, wade into my library, curl up in my easy chair, and escape. Even as I write this, I’d rather be pursuing some of my many hobbies.

But I must continue to speak out, warning and goading and cajoling in hopes that others with youth and greater energy can and will take up arms in this fight and turn back this onslaught of Leftist cancer… by supporting those who are on our side, by leaving our comfort zones and entering the political arena (such as running for school boards), by speaking not in hushed tones but boldly against the garbage spewing forth from corrupt politicians, corrupt media and brainwashed sheep, by countering the misinformation and outright lies being taught to our children (Critical Race Theory, 1619 Project, transgenderism, etc.) with family sit-downs in which parents demonstrate to their children that they, in fact, know far more than their teachers do about the real world and instruct them accordingly.

Sit back and let this tsunami of Leftist rot wash over and consume us and our civilization will indeed be destroyed and displaced by other intending hegemons (e.g. China). Fight now, each and every day, and we can turn back the tide and restore it to one which will allow our posterity to thrive in peace.