RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/03/joe-bidens-happy-things/

McDonald’s has its “Happy Meals,” so it’s only fair that Joe Biden has his “Happy Times.” The Fourth of July weekend is one of those bright, smiling occasions that normally begets happiness, though in truth the White House occupant was not smiling on Friday when reporters ventured to ask him about the decision (I won’t say his decision) to turn over Bagram Airfield to the Afghans after nearly 20 years, $2 trillion in taxpayer money spent, and thousands of U.S. casualties. 

Question for the future: what did we get for all that blood and treasure? Don’t answer now, just put it on your mental to-do list. 

Anyway, the leader of the free world didn’t want to talk about Afghanistan. “I want to talk about happy things, man,” he snapped. The Taliban is such a downer, you know, and besides “It’s Fourth of July” weekend. “I’m going to celebrate it. There’s great things happening.” 

Like gasoline prices about double what they were last year? Out-of-control inflation? A humanitarian and national security crisis on our Southern border? 

Mr. Happy did not mention those items. 

Nor did he dwell on the deeper question, viz what are we celebrating on the 4th of July? After all, many college students say they are “embarrassed” to be Americans. “Are you proud to be an American?” an interviewer asked. “Hell no,” was the answer, or words to that effect. 

Not that this is surprising. Most of the major institutions of the country have been telling us that America is irredeemably racist, sexist, and exploitative. The wretched “1619 Project,” which argued that America was founded as a “slavocracy” and that the American Revolution—whose culmination we celebrate on July 4—was fought to perpetuate the institution of slavery, was promulgated by the New York Times, supposedly our paper of record. The tendentious and historically inaccurate contentions of that disgusting anti-American broadside were then packaged for school curricula by the Times and other outlets of dubious national loyalty. As of this writing, elements of the 1619 Project’s ideology are part of the curricula of more than 4,500 schools. 

Then there is critical race theory, a catechism that teaches students to hate their country and whites to hate themselves. As Christopher Rufo has shown in meticulous detail, the wild ideas of CRT are being force-fed in mandatory training sessions not only to students but also to government employees. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/further_evidence_if_you_need_it_of_bidens_increasing_dementia.html

Those of Joe Biden’s public behaviors that align with classic dementia symptoms are escalating. In the past few days, he strongly exhibited two symptoms: A type of belligerence that’s a cover-up for confusion and memory loss and a paranoid fear of those in charge of him.

I used to spend a lot of time in the company of doctors. What always fascinated me were the tales they told of dealing with patients with early-stage dementia. The most interesting point they made was that elderly people, so as not to lose face or admit their own fears, are superb at deflecting the questions aimed at assessing their cognitive skills and memory.

For example, one of the most common questions is “Who’s the president of the United States?” Rather than admitting that they don’t remember, people in early-stage dementia will get defensive or otherwise deflect. They might say, “That is incredibly insulting that you’d ask me that question,” picking a fight to distract from their memory loss. Others might go for flattery: “I can’t believe that a young man like you doesn’t know who’s president. That’s just a silly question to ask me.”

Biden perfectly illustrated that type of angry, defensive, deflecting behavior when reporters on Friday asked him about Afghanistan:

Asra Q. Nomani

@AsraNomani

Facebook is following the playbook of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. From K-12 to social media, we now have snitch squads being created, turning people against each other and creating the platforms to turn each other in as “extremists.”

https://www.city-journal.org/our-american-inheritance

As Independence Day dawns again, the United States seems disoriented and on edge. The one-two punch of Covid-19 and urban riots, coupled with a sense of economic fragility and impending inflation, has left many feeling drained and nervous about the future. Institutions that once served as the ballast for national well-being have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Americans brace for the next wave of disruption.

When Twitter, Facebook, and cable news frame the issues of the day, it’s hard not to be discouraged. We are polarized and angry, and the radical Left is to blame—or maybe it’s the fascist Right. The despair is often accompanied by a self-righteous assurance that things would be better if only our political opponents would disappear.

But another America still exists, beyond the sound and fury of Twitter and the Beltway. It lives quietly in homes, where parents try to raise their children well. It exists in schools, where dedicated teachers show up day after day to teach. It flourishes in neighborhoods, community centers, and diners, where neighbors gather for conversation and a shared story. It pervades churches, synagogues, and mosques, where families pause from their busy lives to return thanks to God. Indeed, despite the turmoil and uncertainty, we have much to be grateful for.

If citizenship, properly understood, begins with gratitude, gratitude begins when we recognize that we are the beneficiaries of a great and multifaceted inheritance, as Edmund Burke understood. Writing at the outset of the French Revolution, Burke anticipated with remarkable clarity the disorder and devastation that was coming. Today, American society flirts with revolutionary sentiments that recall the attitudes that motivated the Jacobins. We would do well to listen to Burke’s warnings, for we risk squandering our inheritance—a fateful civilizational move.

Burke criticizes those revolutionaries who have learned “to despise all their predecessors.” Such despising led to “a great departure from the ancient course.” This wholesale rejection of the past represents, for Burke, the height of carelessness mixed with naïveté about the nature of human beings and human societies.