RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/09/garland-just-tipped-over-the-dominos/

Destruction of the family has always been at the center of the collectivist project. In chapter two of The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels point out that the destruction of private property will never be complete until the “abolition [Aufhebung] of the family” is accomplished. The dream is perennial among snarling misanthropists. A couple of years ago, an interview in The Nation with a radical feminist explained that if you “want to dismantle capitalism” then you have to “abolish the family.” 

It is worth keeping that in mind as the little drama of Merrick Garland versus the parents of America unfolds. I wrote about the attorney general’s absurd but troubling memorandum shortly after it was released on October 4. As all the world knows (but only some precincts of the world admit), Garland threatened to mobilize the entire police power of the state against parents. Why? 

Because parents across the country have suddenly woken up to the wokeness haunting their schools and poisoning the minds of their children. The school boards, many of which are staffed by leftists, are pushing the Marxist ideology of critical race theory, virtue-signaling mask mandates, and forcing noisome gender identity politics on primary and secondary school students. 

Most parents don’t like that. They pay for the schools. The school board (in theory) works for them, and they, the parents, have been vocal in making their displeasure known. A left-wing lobbying group called the National School Boards Association complained to the Biden Administration that “Public Schoolchildren, Public School Board Members, and Other Public School District Officials and Educators” were subjected to “Threats and Acts of Violence” by parents whose actions “could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” Note the surreal accusation that schoolchildren were being harmed by “threats and acts of violence,” which, if you look at the actual instances adduced, turn out to be people arguing against the insinuation of radical, politically charged ideas into the the curriculum. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/10/the_true_merrick_garland.html

Conservatives generally don’t respect Mitch McConnell and for good reason, but he sure did this country a favor blocking Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination. It turns out, the soft-spoken Attorney General carries a huge stick labeled “domestic terrorists” that he isn’t afraid to wield against average Americans to deprive them of a slew of civil rights.

To exact his pound of flesh from Trump and his supporters, Garland willingly abandoned the very principles that originally won him Obama’s support:

Trust that justice will be done in our courts without prejudice or partisanship is what, in a large part, distinguishes this country from others. People must be confident that a judge’s decisions are determined by the law, and only the law. For a judge to be worthy of such trust, he or she must be faithful to the Constitution and to the statutes passed by the Congress. He or she must put aside his personal views or preferences, and follow the law — not make it.

Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my professional life, and it’s the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be for the past 18 years. If the Senate sees fit to confirm me to the position for which I have been nominated today, I promise to continue on that course. [Emphasis added.]

But instead of fidelity to the Constitution, Garland’s fidelity is to the power accorded him as America’s chief law enforcement officer. He comports himself as a rank partisan, places targets on his political enemies, and uses the full power of his office to track them down and lock them up. His June 2021 National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism provided his DOJ with a roadmap for cracking down on constitutionally-protected speech and assembly, and the legitimate airing of grievances from a handful of individuals who rioted for a few hours on January 6th.

Nonetheless, Garland’s emphatic that his latest edict isn’t about ideology, but violence: “Espousing a hateful ideology is not unlawful. We do not investigate individuals for their First Amendment-protected activities.” Moreover, “safeguarding our country’s civil rights and liberties is itself a vital national security imperative.” Compared to other parts of the world, “there is no place for partisanship in the enforcement of the law [and this] Justice Department will not tolerate any such abuse of authority.”

But Garland is all talk. The strategy he’s put into practice involves targeting individuals precisely because of their ideology, support of Trump, and concern about election integrity. The disparate treatment of the January 6th attendees compared to BLM/Antifa rioters is further evidence of a strategy based more on persecution for beliefs than prosecution for misdeeds.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/catastrophic_crash_in_polling_numbers_for_biden_and_the_dems.html

Is it really a surprise that a formal move toward police repression of its political opponents – siccing the FBI on critics of Critical Race Theory – is coming from the chief law enforcement officer of the Biden regime? The latest polling indicates that the already low public approval of the Biden presidency is declining further.

The prospects for any improvement in these numbers are poor. We have a massive wave of inflation ahead, with gasoline and natural gas both rapidly increasing in price, and both hard to cut back on. The chaos of the surrender to the Taliban augurs for more political humiliation ahead, with China potentially taking advantage of the weakness of the Biden administration. Crime has skyrocketed in cities that Democrats control. None of these factors will improve the numbers for Biden or his party.

The term “crisis of confidence” has been in play for at least a month as the failures mount and the incompetence becomes undeniable. Yesterday, Quinnipiac released its latest numbers:

President Joe Biden receives a negative 38 – 53 percent job approval rating, the lowest score he’s received from the American people on his job performance since taking office, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea- ack) University national poll of adults released today. In Quinnipiac’s last national poll released 3 weeks ago, he received a negative 42 – 50 percent job approval rating.

Today, Republicans (94 – 4 percent) and independents (60 – 32 percent) disapprove of the job Biden is doing, while Democrats approve 80 – 10 percent.

Going deeper into the issues, Biden and the Dems are underwater on just about everything:

the response to the coronavirus: 48 percent approve, while 50 percent disapprove;
the economy: 39 percent approve, while 55 percent disapprove;
his job as Commander in Chief of the U.S. military: 37 percent approve, while 58 percent disapprove;
taxes: 37 percent approve, while 54 percent disapprove;
foreign policy: 34 percent approve, while 58 percent disapprove;
immigration issues: 25 percent approve, while 67 percent disapprove;
the situation at the Mexican border: 23 percent approve, while 67 percent disapprove.

The most devastating figure has to be this:

More than half of Americans say 55 – 42 percent that the Biden administration is not competent in running the government.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/bidens_bank_robber.html

Joe Biden’s nominee for Comptroller of the Currency in the U.S. Treasury Department is Saule Omarova, a native of Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and graduate of Moscow State University, which she attended on a “Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship.” 

In a May 9, 2020 interview with Chris Hayes of NBC, Omarova revealed she was in an exchange program with the University of Wisconsin in 1991 when the USSR collapsed. The Lenin scholar remained stateside to pursue a PhD in political science. Some of her views on economics emerged in 2019, nearly 30 years after the USSR collapsed. “Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there,” Omarova wrote, “Market doesn’t always ‘know best.’” 

Contrary to the Lenin scholar, individuals know what’s best for themselves and a free market empowers them to make choices that reflect those interests. In the old USSR, by contrast, an all-male Marxist-Leninist dictatorship planned the economy. This ran up against the knowledge problem F.A. Hayek outlined in The Road to Serfdom way back in 1944 during the Stalin era. 

Economic knowledge is fragmented and dispersed, so no group of people is able to plan an economy that will thrive for the benefit of all. That’s why Omarova’s beloved “old USSR” was an economic basket case. 

Countries barren of liberties are also barren of groceries. The biggest country in the world, with abundant energy and natural resources, could not even feed itself. This was a matter of record, but Hayes failed to press the issue. Omarova knew that in the old USSR consumers waited in line to select, pay, and pick up the goods. That is how an economy planned by Communist Party bosses functions in practice, but there’s more to it.

https://www.publishedreporter.com/2021/10/02/op-ed-a-tale-of-two-heroes-william-billy-mitchell-the-father-of-the-u-s-air-force-and-marine-lieutenant-colonel-stuart-scheller/

 This is a cautionary tale of two American soldiers. Nearly a century spans the incidents that brought them their notoriety; yet the issues they evoke are exactly the same and timeless. Does an active duty officer in the military have the right, a moral obligation even, to criticize the actions of his superiors; both military and civilian, if he firmly believes that those actions are incompetent and have dire consequences?

Our first soldier, William “Billy” Mitchell was born in December 1879 into a family of wealth and influence. He seemed a man destined for success. Opting for an army career, he became enamored of early developments in the field of aviation and joined the fledgling U.S. Air Service; then a part of the Signal Corps. Following distinguished service in WWI, during which he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, he continued to advocate for American air power during the lean post WWI years when military budgets were being slashed to the bare bone. Regarded as a visionary and a man way ahead of his time, Mitchell made a number of prophecies … all of which eventually came true.

Among other things, Mitchell foresaw the mass bombing of civilian population centers, airborne armies being dropped behind enemy lines, and the replacement of the battleship by the aircraft carrier as the dominant naval vessel. These ideas were all regarded as “crackpot” in the early 1920s, but yet, he continued to advocate for his cause, making many enemies as well as friends along the way. Mitchell’s undoing came in September 1925 when a Navy dirigible, the U.S.S. Shenandoah crashed during a severe thunderstorm killing 14 men. The airship had been ordered aloft as a public relations gesture during a period of severe weather over the protestations of its own Captain. Mitchell offered his opinion on this and other incidents that had previously occurred: “These terrible accidents are the direct results of incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the National Defense by the War and Navy Departments.” This was the last straw for the army. He was charged with insubordination, court martialed, convicted, and suspended from duty for five years without pay. He chose to resign from the army and continued to espouse the cause of American air power but his time had passed. He died in 1936 in relative obscurity; five years before his most famous prediction came to pass. He could not have known when he wrote in 1924 that “One day Japan will seek to attack the United States through the Hawaiian Islands; some fine Sunday morning.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/10/9_30_2021_23_54.html

The classical liberal tradition that inspired America’s founding is rooted in a deeper Enlightenment tradition that rose in principled opposition to religious conflict in Reformation Europe. This earlier Enlightenment fostered a secular political culture that disavowed the enforcement of religious uniformity as an object of political endeavor. Under the guidance of the Enlighteners, the fanatics were disempowered and the West abandoned theocracy as a governing ideal. Western societies grew to accommodate religious variety without sacrificing social harmony. We are heirs to this tradition, and we would do well to reflect upon it, especially since human nature itself would seem to make the ascendancy of political fanaticism a permanent threat.

One might like to assume that people are basically reasonable and that episodes of brutal domination are historical aberrations, but such practices as the burning of heretics and the slaughter en masse of errant co-religionists did not simply end on their own — people didn’t just come to their senses one day. Political sanity is not as self-recommending as one might like to assume; arguments for toleration had to be made, and they had to gain general acceptance, supplying new norms. These norms had to be codified into laws and these laws safeguarded by institutions designed to uphold them.

The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was among the earliest authors of these new norms, norms that would eventually inform the American founding. These norms have held for centuries. Not so long ago the consensus supporting them was so solid there was little need to consciously invoke them; they are now buckling under the relentless attacks of a morally bigoted, hateful, authoritarian Left.  

It is perhaps a fundamental truth of the human experience that the mere prospect of exercising political power motivates the very worst kinds of people to seek it. These vulgar climbers often masquerade as paragons of virtue. Indeed, the empowerment of “virtue” (however defined) is perhaps the most common founding myth of tyranny.

https://victorhanson.com/what-made-us-go-crazy-part-two/

The Wages of Inert Citizenship

The world outside or before the U.S. was and is not a pretty thing. Even in rare consensual societies, factions and inequality under the law persisted—whether the plebs and populares of early Republican Rome, the greens and blues of Justinian’s Constantinople, or the Guelphs and Ghibellines of thirteenth-century Florence. Belonging to the wrong ethnic group or religion or political clique translated into a diminished political existence—or often far worse. Institutionalized persecution required the use of mass violence, in the way that governments today have systematically oppressed Chinese Uyghurs and Tibetans, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, or Serbian Bosnians.

Again, not all that much has changed politically for a majority of the world’s non-Western residents. Despite the glitter of globalism, contemporary Chinese are not treated equitably under the law—and are routinely electronically surveilled, monitored, and “graded” with social credits and demerits, by their own government. Hundreds of re-education and forced labor camps seek to transform Muslim Chinese into atheists or agnostics—on the premise that no one in China has inalienable rights of habeas corpus or freedom from unwarranted search, seizure, and arrest.

Currently roughly one-million Chinese Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province have been forcibly interned in re-education camps (“vocational training centers”), where Chinese Muslims are forced to renounce Islam, often required to undergo sterilizations, and to pledge fealty to the Chinese Communist Party. So far global outrage has been muted due to Chinese economic clout and commercial reach, along with Beijing’s brilliantly cynical posturing as a victim of historical Western racism.