These are Strange Times Indeed

The following is my comment to Jonah Goldberg’s “Bonfire of the Straw Men” column in National Review Online for July 11, 2018, https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/michael-doran-strawman-response/.

Why do we have to portray our leaders as saints or devils, with those unable to accept the starkness facing excommunication or worse? Some traditionally on the right have embraced the hodge-podge that is Trump-thought as the closest thing to scripture. While on the left, many are careening off the cliff of outright socialism and boosterism for an end to the rule of law. It’s madness.

The madness is an international phenomena. Here we have a Norwegian protester screaming after comments by a government minister.

Trump is still a buffoon and the Dems have finally shed any semblance of reasonableness in the exposure of their socialist and anti-western inner selves. What we have remaining is a chaotic and impulse-driven Trump as the Dems go batty.

It’s not that I’m not thankful for a right-leaning Congress, SCOTUS, and the occasional winners coming out of a ping-pong ball presidential mind. Restrained judges, tax cuts, reigning in the administrative state, a no-nonsense use of military might, and controlling the immigration tsunami are greatly appreciated. But, please, let’s stop the sycophancy on the right and the mob-like Jacobanism on the left. In today’s politics, is there a zone of serenity and rationality somewhere between Sean Hannity and Maxine Waters?

Maxine Waters (D, Calif.) living up to her reputation.

RogerG

Cross-Fertilization of Two Investigations and the Bane of Progressivism

I have long sought to keep separate the FBI’s Trump/Russia probe and their “MYI” [Mid-year Investigation] into Hillary’s server. The IG report of this past week shattered that assumption. The two are linked by the same personnel, a coterminous but muddled boundary in time, and an obvious unity in partisan bias. All of this is nestled in unbridled DOJ and FBI higher-ups in DC and its satellites. We’ve got a real mess on our hands.

The legacy media oracles responded as if they are on a mission to contradict conservatives and simple common sense. A bias in its own right. They serve to mystify and cloud what is increasingly becoming apparent: powerful organs of our government engaged in crass partisan favoritism in both official queries.

If this doesn’t dispel the progressive dream of the benign, above-the-fray rule of a clerisy of “experts”, nothing will. Progressivism has its roots in upending the understanding of our nature dating back to Genesis. It used to be accepted as axiomatic that humans are corrupted by an imperious selfishness. We were counseled by our traditions to restrain it. The late 19th-century progressives jettisoned this human nature and replaced it with a person cleansed by an expertise born of formal education (the “expert”). In other words, people like themselves.

This has profound societal consequences. The design of our Constitution is predicated on the overriding inclination of people to pursue self-interest, and thus it is true to our traditions. The founders’ structure sought to fight selfish faction with selfish faction by distributing power with separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism.

No need for that kind of thing under the progressives’ scheme of rule by a degreed priesthood of technicians. According to Churchill, though, “The French have a saying, ‘Drive Nature away, and she will return at the gallop'”. The episodes in 2016 and 2017 reveal those technicians to be riven by the same weaknesses as our sandaled and later-wigged ancestors. All that we’ve done is insulate the powerful from accountability in a massive bureaucratic pyramid.

The officials with the guns now have a political eco-system to facilitate great damage. Free of popular sovereignty, their base instincts are free to flower.

Recourse to official ombudsmen – like the IG – as a corrective is fruitless. They are too often infected by the same natural defensiveness as the rest of us. Thus we have the IG report’s equivocations, contradictions, and voluminous mind-numbing prose stretching beyond 500 pages. A glaring example from the report: on the one hand there exists coarse bias; on the other, we can’t attach the bias to any actions. What? How does that work?

There’s the rush to exonerate the favorite (Hillary) while they jump at the slightest unproven provocation to bedevil the targeted villain (Trump). It’s laid out in the report’s timeline and public record. But we’re expected to believe that what’s in the head of Strzok, Page, McCabe, and untold others is somehow unrelated to the clearly observable actions adjoining the thoughts. It’s simply Orwellian.

Trump/Russia and Hillary’s server are two investigations that share the same DNA. Questions about Mueller’s probe are similarly warranted. Like the others, Mueller is taking on a flavor akin to the previous machinations. The same or similar people are scouring for Trump people to ensnare.

Has it been happening for years? You know, the underhanded tactics to flip people, empire-building of imaginary cases, the incestuous relationships – some sexual – between big journalism and big law enforcement, the hounding of people into incriminations, and all of it unchecked. A look under the rug at the Carl Icahn-Phil Mickelsen-Chlorox-Tom Davis imbroglio, shepherded by FBI honcho David Chaves and the DA of SDNY, might be instructive.

Yes, we’ve got a mess. The sooner we discard the demigod status of government apparatchiks, the sooner we’ll make sense of it all. Only then will we be empowered to restrain our own government. Accountability need not be something necessitating a 500 page report.

RogerG

2016 Hayseed Racists? NO!

I’ve been reading Salena Zito and Brad Todd’s The Great Revolt, an exegesis of the 2016 election. Villification of one’s opponents after the shocking loss has reached new heights, enough to obscure the reality. Tune into the halfwit but snarky late-night comedians and you’ll get a flavor of it.

The authors Brad Todd (c) and Salena Zito (r) on C-SPAN Book TV.

No, the voters opposing Hillary cannot be reduced to rural bigots left behind by “progress”. Many other things were at root to explain Trump’s winning coalition: condescension, social and political bias, and too many deaf ears in too many places of cultural authority. Those places correspond to urban and academic dots, socio-political monasteries walled off into insular echo chambers. The roiling in the backcountry therefore came as a shock to those comfortably nestled behind the walls – which means most everybody in the dots, or mentally influenced by the dots.

The book dispels these real urban myths with a grand survey of Trump voters and a series of vignettes in locales that flipped 15-30 points from solidly Democrat to Trump in the rust belt. In a nutshell, they were so fed up with the long-running disparagement that not even Trump’s boorishness would slacken their momentum to the polls.

Main Street, USA, the epicenter of the Great Revolt.

Main Street rebelled against the Acela corridor, the left coast, intense urban clusters, and the disconnected college campus. Zito and Todd make abundantly clear it was a revolt and not a Klan march. Many Obama voters became Trump voters and the rest is history.

RogerG

A Chance Meeting and Not Connecting the Dots, 5/26/2018

An accidental meeting on a forest road with a semi-Californian/Montanan – he spends his winters in California (understandable) – showcases much that has gone astray in the America of today. Our biggest threat doesn’t arise from material circumstances but from what rolls around in our heads. Occupying the synapses are an excess of unexamined assumptions and the crazes that they feed.

Let me explain. While riding our ATV’s through the forests near our property, my wife and I came upon a man on a motor-bike. Pleasantries and friendly conversation arose. It turns out that the man haled from Redding, Ca. He had few nice things to say about the winters and complained of the shrinking longevity of restaurants in the area. I mentioned that we had lost our appetite for our native state after one of many recent visits. Prohibitions, high prices, and petty annoyances – the plastic bag carousels are empty at the stores for instance – have soured us.

He complained about the plastic litter in a feeble defense of the ban. I don’t think that he, and many others, connected the dots between the propensity for prohibition and the new feudalism that is taking shape in the so-called golden state. Many off-the-cuff reactions to a hypothetical evil produce unexpected effects. Too much plastic bag litter? Ban them. Too many poor people? Tax the rich. Don’t like carbon? Command people to put solar panels on their roofs or punish them with high utility bills – or both. Don’t like suburbia? Strangle it in a maze of land-use controls. The only problem is: growth suffocates; the middle-class flees; and the cost of living inflates. The result is a new feudalism of the hyper-rich in their manorial enclaves surrounded by a growing low-wage servant class.

As for the limited restaurants in our area, our friend showed no acknowledgement of rudimentary cause-and-effect. Enterprise has been suffering in industrial and rural America for quite some time. Take away the primary industries – mining and lumbering in our case – in those places dependent on them and poverty, meth use, and social chaos erupts. Tourism is a very poor substitute.

Many of these ruminations were kept to myself. He did say that he didn’t like mining for its scarring of the land. I responded with the obvious: without it, he and I wouldn’t be on our vehicles. He dismissed the claim with a cursory, “I’ll buy it from China”.

There you have it. Don’t think of employing our own people; export our wish-fulfillment to foreign lands; and don’t give a second thought about the repercussions. As long as the consequences are invisible to us, and we remain ensconced in our comfortable illusions, all is right with the world. Right?

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34

RogerG

The Free State of … San Bernadino

US President Donald Trump makes remarks at a roundtable meeting on sanctuary cities May 16, 2018, in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, DC. Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel is 3rd from left.(Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

From 1864 to 1865, Jones County, Mississippi, and its immediate environs were in open revolt against the Confederate state of Mississippi and its governor, Charles Clark – a Democrat by the way. The so-called “Free State of Jones”. Numerous state officials were assaulted and harassed, some probably killed. Clearly, this was a pro-union constituency. Project forward to May 16, 2018 and a meeting of disgruntled California local leaders with President Trump. A parallel anyone?

Some firebrands of the left – who rule the roost in California – are as incensed about federal immigration law as the South was about abolitionism and tariffs. They have made cooperation with ICE the equivalent of assisting child porn traffickers. What’s next, an act of secession?

Well, some in the state are having none of it. They have approached the president, as surely as some in 1864 Jones County would relish a confab with Lincoln.

History seldom repeats, but it does rhyme. (Reputedly stated by Mark Twain)

RogerG

* See “Orange County, Inland Empire leaders talk immigration with Trump in White House”, Roxana Kopetman, Orange County Register, 5/17/2018, https://www.pe.com/2018/05/16/trump-meeting-today-with-leaders-from-orange-county-inland-empire/

#REDFORED = #RESIST

Teachers rally outside the state Capitol for the second day of a teacher walkout to demand higher pay and more funding for education in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, April 3, 2018. Reuters

The recent teacher strikes – mostly in “red” (i.e., Conservative) states – are intriguing. What started out as a cause to boost the pay of truly underpaid teachers in West Virginia has metastasized into Occupy Wall Street, something under the rubric #redfored. In truth, I think that the lefty hive is being ginned up as the Supreme Court deliberates its decision in Janus vs. AFSCME. If Janus wins, the cushy power relationships of public employee unions will be deflated. But here’s the big scoop from the ruckus: government unions are lefty enterprises.

PHOENIX, AZ – APRIL 26: Arizona teachers chant in support of the #REDforED movement as they walk through downtown Phoenix on their way to the State Capitol on April 26, 2018 in Phoenix, Arizona.  (Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images)

It’s a familiar script. Trump gets elected and hyperventilation replaces deliberation – mostly on the left but also in some extreme precincts on the right. The swarming extends everywhere the left has a stranglehold. The only surprise to me is the length of time it took for the education blob to catch on.

What has the adoption of California-style taxes to do with teacher pocketbook issues? Clearly, for the firebrands, simply raising pay is too vanilla. The slogan is bloated to include lefty planks like the adoption of the progressive tax nightmare and dolloping layers of bureaucracy on the schools. Poor pay was simply the vehicle to swarm the hive and cloak the wolf in a pleasant disguise.

Well, it took some time but the genus Ovis aries (sheep) costume was outed. Now the “#redfored” is no different from “#resist”, “Bernie Sanders for president”, or Occupy … [fill in the blank].

RogerG

* Check out “Teacher strikes morph from pocketbook clash to partisan street theater”, Frederick M. Hess, Education Next, AEI, 5/8/2018,  http://www.aei.org/publication/teacher-strikes-morph-from-pocketbook-clash-to-partisan-street-theater/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RjM1pERXhabUZsWVRBNSIsInQiOiJzeFpQdkVWblBGaExlMGhtQnFwTFB4dEd4VmlDbFBxYWdZSVF5QXJoQVVzNDdYK3J3bDNEb0xycDBHT2dJOWUzVGI5Rjh1QTdIOU9mMWhDYllmWWFodVpneWxPNXhWSUo5T0VtWGZsK3BGSGtIV2ordDBHM0ZqcVhiVUxvSnhyYiJ9

Drunken Sailors

Today’s rambling was inspired by George Will’s column, “Are We Trapped in a Debt Spiral?”* I’ll try to keep this short.

I can’t get away from the old cliché about the spending habits of intoxicated sailors. For us to protect ourselves as we maintain a wide-open spigot for the nanny state, DC is spending us into oblivion. The federal debt monster, according to the babblers in the CBO, will explode from 39% of GDP in 2008 to 96% by 2028. Most likely, it’s worse. In other words, we’re reaching the point of not paying it back. Do the words “Argentina” and “default” have a special meaning?

The National debt is shown behind Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, left, as he makes the semiannual monetary policy report to the House Financial Services Committee, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018, in Washington.

How did we get so inebriated? Now there’s a Gordian knot to unravel. My stab at it begins with the practice of labeling defense outlays “discretionary” and that for federal check recipients “mandatory”. It’s a formula for a descent into the deeper circles of Dante’s fiscal inferno.

Who’s to blame? Don’t look any further than the mirror. We chose our representatives and reward them for furthering the insanity. We are comfortable in our fictions. Many of us seem to like a democracy of unelected administrators. Or, how about “fiscal discipline” defined as increasing dependency on the dole while “national security” is construed as Red Chinese-controlled sea lanes? “Contradictio in terminis” (contradiction in terms) anyone?

And come November, we might be getting ready to hand power to a party of people who’ve added dope to the booze. Go figure.

RogerG

* Thanks to “George F. Will: Are we now trapped in a debt spiral?”, George Will, Salt Lake City Tribune/Washington Post, 5/6/2018,  https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/06/george-f-will-are-we-now-trapped-in-a-debt-spiral/

The Season of Living Dangerously

“The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982) with Mel Gibson and Linda Hunt.

Ever since the Trump ascendancy, the left has been on a tirade. The marches, the gnashing of teeth about fictional prophecies of doom, and the willingness to tramp over broken glass to defeat anyone with an “R” (Republican) after their name are loose in the land. They are ginned up as if on amphetamines. The political season erupted after inauguration and hasn’t let up. It’s the season of living dangerously.

2,500 unhinged protesters hit Boston Common to protest the election of Donald Trump, Nov. 2016.
Anti-Trump rally, NYC.
Man disrupted and had to be removed from Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R, La.) townhall in Feb. 2017.

Case in point: lefty bankrollers like Tom Steyer and their misnomered “League of Conservation Voters” (LCV) are airing adds hyper-ventilating about the rape of nature by the R’s. The bilge of extremist rhetoric abounds. Here in Montana, the targets are Greg Gianforte and Brian Zinke. I’m sure that the field of fire is national.

So-called “dark money” abounds at the LCV. That’s the money hidden behind a non-profit label, taking full advantage of FEC regs. Peeling back the facade, though, one finds envirotopia’s big-time cleanup hitters.

The “League” ain’t a quaint collection of middle-class hikers. It’s heart is the well-heeled lefty do-gooder, anxious to order our lives according to their semi-literate conscience. The hall of shame includes Facebook co-founder Dustin Muskowitz and wife who cut loose with $5 mill for the “League” in 2016. 2014 saw AFSCME and George Soros ladle a combined $1 mill into the coffers. Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action poured $775,000 into the collection plate. That’s just a sample of the deep pockets.

Lefty billionaire activist Tom Steyer turns to people standing behind him before taking questions during a news conference in Washington, Monday, Jan. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster).

This campaign has nothing to do with the grassroots. The average Joe and Jane want good jobs and healthy social conditions to raise their families. All the lefties can offer up is DMV-style government, debilitating dependency, and micro-management of our lives, aka California. The whole thing adds up to a social and economic cesspool.

Billie Jo leans back at her homeless encampment near unincorporated Cameron Park in El Dorado County, Ca.
A encampment is shown along the Santa Ana River trail on the border of Fountain Valley, Ca.

If they succeed, watch out! It certainly is the season of living dangerously.

RogerG

** Thanks to “League of Conservation Voters: Environmental Group or Democratic Campaign Heavyweight?”, Hayden Ludwig and Kevin Boyd, Capital Research Center, 7/6/2017, https://capitalresearch.org/…/league-of-conservation-voter…/

“Reprehensible Ideas vs Reprehensible Behavior”: Interesting Exchange

Comments from readers provide opportunities to further expand on a point.  Brevity can lead to leaving some terms obscure – the “reprehensible ideas” for instance in a previous post.  In the following exchange, I gave some sense about what I might mean by “reprehensible ideas”.

Respondent: Right now, the most important thing is character and decency. Period. No Faustian bargains with the likes of DT.

My reply: You make much of “character” but say nothing of character-destroying policies. Unleashing an unaccountable administrative state sets the stage for unaccountable government and irresponsible conduct. Class warfare policies puts the power of government agencies into the incitement of envy and envy-based confiscation. Modern progressivism’s lifestyle fascism is the single largest organized threat to faith institutions. Trump’s episodic insults to particular persons creates a much smaller universe of victims than the state’s massive and broad social destruction. Don’t be so animated about Trump’s boorish behavior while refusing to recognize the much more serious assault on our national health from lefty policies. That’s the “reprehensible ideas” part of our current dilemma.

And so it goes.

RogerG

Reprehensible Ideas vs. Reprehensible Behavior

Reprehensible ideas:

Nancy Pelosi (D, San Francisco), House Minority Leader

Reprehensible behavior:

Donald Trump, President of the United States

The results of the soon-to-be-defunct Pennsylvania 18th congressional district election signals a rising tide for the Democrats in November, but not because of any great love for their lefty ideas.

Conor Lamb (D), winning candidate in the 18th congressional district race.

Their (Dems) fortunes rose in direct proportion to the repulsiveness and churlishness of a president with a “R” after his name. Trump is the accelerant for this state of affairs, not love for SDS-type values. (SDS: the 60’s Students for Democratic Society – Tom Hayden’s, et al, group for bringing socialism to America).

This is an election year that will pivot on the choice between reprehensible ideas (Democrats) vs. reprehensible behavior (Trump). Trump has soiled the “R” label. It’s a sad situation when people react to deplorable conduct by turning to people with deplorable ideas.

Time to recycle the wisdom of the historian Robert Blake: ““The right to misgovern oneself is as valid as any other political right, and it is exercised more often than most.” We might see it play out in November, and maybe two years later.

Robert Blake, historian, Queen’s College, Oxford University.

Say good-bye to your tax cut and guns; say hello to incessant impeachment dramas and the Californication of the federal government.

RogerG