Unfortunately for the Johnny Roccos of the GOP, the old way of doing business isn't working anymore. It happened in the Massachusetts special election that sent Mr. Brown to Washington, and it's happening again. The national GOP is being disintermediated via the Internet. No wonder they're upset. The people's choice, Joe Miller — endorsed by Sarah Palin and with major funding from the Tea Party Express — is battle ready:
Read the whole thing; it may be the most illuminating post of the summer.
It would be the most delicious of ironies if the Revolution that has been gestating since the 1960's, encapsulated in the slogan "Power to the People", were to finally hatch in the 2010's, run by the children and grandchildren of the 60's generation, using the technology their parents developed and they have grown up with. The Ruling Class have no idea what they are up against and are being blind-sided by an angry, though generally polite, American people; if they continue to rule in a fashion inimical to the People's interests, they can fully expect a less polite electorate in 2012.
NB: John Brennan is the chief White House counter-terrorism adviser.
We cannot name the enemy, we cannot discuss the history of his ideas, and we cannot acknowledge his perfidy. Is this any way to either fight a war or disarm an adversary that wants us to sleep while he plots? We are not only behind the OODA loop, we are not even aware we are bumbling along within it.
Where else can you find out why our national bird is an Eagle and not a Turkey (not for the faint hearted) or why the Japanese Navy is better at recruiting than ours or how crucially important word placement can be? Go directly to Reed the Viking, who makes it all clear:
Yet the survey also revealed that many Americans harbor lingering animosity toward Muslims. Twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly one third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President — slightly higher than the 24% who mistakenly believe that the current occupant of the Oval Office is himself a Muslim. In all, just 47% of respondents believe Obama is a Christian; 24% declined to respond to the question or said they were unsure, and 5% believe he is neither Christian nor Muslim.
For the record, I do not think Obama is a secret Muslim. Obama calls himself a Christian, which is good enough for me. As far as his belief structure, his actions suggest he is an adherent of the religion of modern leftism, which takes a Post-Modern approach to religion, ie religious belief is something that really enlightened people have transcended and those who still believe in the conventional versions of religion are to be pitied. However, why should anyone be surprised that a quarter of the country believes he is a Muslim? What do you suppose the percentage of Muslims who believe he is a Muslim might be? How would he behave differently if he were a Muslim?
If you don't want to spend the time to read and study on the international MSM biases, you could do worse than to spend a few minutes with Richard Landes at PJTV:
Watch and learn. Richard Landes was the first person to shine a light on Pallywood; shine on brightly!
All of this is related to the current barely acknowledged COFKATGWOT (the Conflict Formerly Known As The Global War On Terror) to use Walter Russell Mead's acronym. The enemy is occasionally referred to as the Religion of Peace at the same time they are responsible for 90% of all terrorist acts in the world. Here are some headlines, and brief commentary, from the world of the RoP:
Amid mounting international attention and concern for Pakistan's future in the face of the tragedy, US officials on Wednesday called on Islamabad to abjure politics and accept India's help, including an initial $ 5 million offer it has sat on saying it is under consideration, even as it is begging for international aid.
"I think the priority is to use offers of assistance to help the Pakistani people, so we would encourage Government of Pakistan to accept that (Indian) offer," Frank Ruggiero, Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Wednesday. Separately, state department spokesman P J Crowley said, "In terms of responding to a disaster, politics should play no role. You have a country (India) that's willing to help (Pakistan), and...we expect that Pakistan will accept."
Their remarks came amid a rash of reports in the Pakistani media blaming India, principally, for the massive floods, purportedly because New Delhi had deliberately diverted waters from dams in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, and from the ones it "controlled in Afghanistan”. Some reports also charged that US was manipulating weather patterns over Pakistan. US officials dismissed the idea with incredulity.
Let me get this straight: Your economy is a basket case and 20% of your country is under water. Not only do you refuse aid from your neighbors (a gesture that could potentially be leveraged for improving relations between the two of you) but you concoct crazy theories for how India and America are causing the floods that are bedeviling you. I am reminded of a very old joke, the punchline of which was, "So, how do you make a flood?"
On June 11, 2002, a Palestinian suicide terrorist walked into a restaurant in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya, and detonated a bomb that killed a girl, 15-year-old Hadar Hershkovitz, and injured 16 others.
You know the rest; there is now a town square in the Palestinian Territories named after the lovely human monster who perpetrated this horror. These people do not think like you and me.
Speaking of which, a Moderate Muslim interested in healing the rift between the RoP and his neighbors would not be planning a giant in-your-face example of Muslim Supremacy for downtown New York, but most Americans appreciate that already. Both John Podhoretz and Elizabeth Scalia have reinforced something I noted a couple of weeks ago. First there is John Podhoretz:
The real story of the Ground Zero mosque is that the project only became feasible because of the appalling and astonishing fecklessness of the officials who were charged with the reconstruction of the site and the neighborhood all the way back in 2001.
We're just three weeks shy of the moment, nine years ago, when the landing-gear assembly from the plane that hit the South Tower smashed through the roof and two floors of 45 Park Place, which housed a Burlington Coat Factory.
Imagine that, in the weeks following, you had expressed the opinion that in nine years' time, that building would sit abandoned only 560 feet from Ground Zero -- and there would be no memorial, no museum, no nothing on the 16 acres on which the towers themselves sat.
Forget the whole question of whether there would be a mosque (or Islamic cultural center) in its place. Just imagine that you'd delivered the view that New York would so completely fail to maintain a sense of purpose regarding the salvation of Ground Zero. Imagine the scorn to which you'd have been subjected at the suggestion.
Yet here we are. Memories of the last nine years have turned Ground Zero from a site of horror, to a reminder of grief, to an occasion for ludicrous artistic posturing -- and now to something very close to parody.
Lizzie captures the psychology of our post-9/11 failure:
In just a few weeks we will be observing the 9th anniversary of the deadliest attack ever to take place on American shores. We will stare solemnly at the gaping hole of Ground Zero, and the hole will stare back at us, until it becomes clear that we are the hole, and the hole is us – politically paralyzed into stagnation; broken, sad and empty.
The crater in Lower Manhattan has become a permanent aching void, but nature abhors a vacuum and so from its empty depths something must arise. In a near-decade that “something” could have taken the form of a park, or a memorial, or a glistening new tower, and the construction of a mosque two blocks thence would have been nothing more than a reinforcement of the notion of American Exceptionalism and what Madeline Albright called The Indispensable Nation, and the narrative would have been a stirring one:
“. . . brought to her knees, Can-Do America has rebuilt and moved on; a proposed mosque two blocks from the new construction only emphasizes her broad shoulders, her self-assurance, her commitment to liberty; it demonstrates to the world the strength that America draws from her own character and constitution, and from knowing who she is . . .
All of that would have been a psychological victory over the spectre of terrorism; it would loom large in the minds of the world and a mosque built in its shadows would only be a mosque, unremarkable in a nation dedicated to freedom of religion.
Read her whole post; it should move you and infuriate you. In the end this is not about Islam or a particular Mosque; it is about us.
I will be taking the rest of August off from blogging though may post an occasional brief note if something particularly interesting presents itself. In the meantime, I would leave you with this story and some comments:
Starbucks' strange vernacular finally drove a customer nuts.
Lynne Rosenthal, a college English professor from Manhattan, said three cops forcibly ejected her from an Upper West Side Starbucks yesterday morning after she got into a dispute with a counterperson -- make that barista -- for refusing to place her order by the coffee chain's rules.
...
Rosenthal admitted she had run into trouble before for refusing to employ the chain's stilted lexicon -- balking at ordering a "tall" or a "venti" from the menu or specifying "no whip."
Instead, she insists on making a pest of herself by ordering a "small" or "large" cup of joe.
This story is a revelation to me, for when I go to Starbucks, I, too, refuse to order "tall" or "venti"; I always order a small or medium, usually a cappuccino. I had always felt a small frisson of fear at my temerity, subliminally realizing that I risked arrest and persecution for my thought and speech crime of refusing to assault the English language, however, the revelation I experienced upon reading this story was that I might be part of a movement, small now, but growing.
When middle aged Academics and Shrinks rebel against the destruction of our language, can complete upheaval of our system be far? If the 1960's is any guide, all we need now is a protest song!
And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into your Congress critters office wherever you are, just walk in say "Congress critter, You can get anything you want, at Starbuck's restaurant." And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't arrest him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots* and they won't arrest either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin' a bar of Starbuck's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin' a bar of Starbuck's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may think it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Starbuck's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement.
Different societies are arranged in different ways. In a tribal society, there is very low trust between members of competing tribes. Such societies tend to be dominated by the Honor-Shame ethic where members are protected from the consequences of their transgressions as long as they do not bring shame upon the community. Exceptions occur but in general there is no expectation that members of a competing tribe will behave honorably with each other.
In America, we tend to have a Guilt based culture, a gift bequeathed to us from our Judeo-Christian ancestors. We assume a higher level of honesty and trust, until proven otherwise. We believe in an admittedly idealized fantasy of equal treatment under the law, even as we recognize that there exist significant disparities. In America, even the lowliest person has the right to legal representation and a trial under the rubric of blind justice. The erosion of the ideal of impartial justice is a serious threat to social comity.
Don Quixote, guest blogging for Bookworm, is concerned about how much stress our system can take when the common assumption of trust erodes:
I cannot count for you the number of clients and other witnesses I’ve had ask me “What should I say?” Not as in “What should I say to present my true story in the best light possible?” but as in “What should I say, true or not, that increases the likelihood that I (or the person I’m testifying for) will win at trial?” It is distressing to see the disappointment on their faces when I suggest that they might consider telling the truth.
So I suppose I’m asking just how important the Bookwormroom readers think the truth is these days. Does anyone tell the truth any more? Does it even matter, if everyone assumes everyone else is lying anyway? How can our society, much less our courtrooms, function if people will say anything to get what they want?
This resonated with another post this morning from Armed Liberal:
I spent five hours with him once; another scared parent watching his son prepare to go to war. We talked, controlling our feelings, reassuring each other and together my wife, as the men who we saw as boys did what they needed to do. I took some pictures, he snapped one on his cell phone. And they were gone, and we went to our hotels and homes and on with our lives.
And then a line of text on my screen. In my alerts. I've got a dozen of them, alerting me to anything on the web that might be about my son, and my phone shakes or my email box slowly fills up with news, and to be honest not much of it's been good. And then it was very bad as I saw a name that I recognized, a name on a tape on the chest of a young man who wasn't my son but who my son had talked about when we spoke on the satphone.
I am sure I am more sensitive to Armed Liberal's post because my Sons have chosen to defend what this country stands for. Last night, Reed posted a poignant comment during a rather long post:
One time during my training, I was out at the coffee shop during break and chatting with my friends. I was joking and talking about my "lessons" learned in the Navy. Mainly, that their core values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment were discouraged because you get penalized for being honorable, courageous, and committed. They'll tell you to do the right thing, and then the right thing will totally fuck you over. I was talking about this at the coffee shop and I jokingly said something to the effect of, "The Navy has taught me that when you see something wrong happening, close your eyes, leave, pretend you never saw anything, and never tell anybody." Standing a few feet from me was a little asian woman in civilian clothes who looked pretty pissed and asked if that was really what I thought. I later found out she was a Marine Captain. What does this story have to do with anything? Hero Postmaster who tried to stop armed robbers, getting injured in the process, is being fined thousands of pounds. It's like life is emulating The Incredibles, where doing the right thing gets you punished. I guess it makes guys like me who do the right thing all the more impressive, but one can't help feeling like a chump sometimes.
If you have the time, I am sure a word of encouragement from the rest of us chumps would be welcomed by the Viking.
It seems sometimes that our culture is determined to make honor, courage, and commitment into discredited concepts, unworthy of the investment by smart, young people. We have come to expect venality from our politicians; is anyone surprised that Charlie Rangel, as one of a growing population of examples, is a pig and shows no shame?
Perhaps the most telling comment concerning our eroding standards comes inadvertently from the New York Times this morning; consider this a meta-communication about morality:
Marc Hauser, a Harvard academic who gained prominence with the publication of a book on the origin of morality, has gone on leave after an investigation by the university into problems with his research.
Dr. Hauser, whose field is the comparison of human and animal minds, is the author of “Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong.”
A Harvard press officer, Jeff Neal, at first refused to confirm that Dr. Hauser was on leave or that Harvard had conducted any investigation. But a message on Dr. Hauser’s laboratory phone says he will be on leave until the fall of 2011, and at least two scientific journals are acknowledging problems in Dr. Hauser’s articles that were brought to light by an internal Harvard inquiry.
The journal Cognition published an article by Dr. Hauser and others in 2002 saying that tamarin monkeys could learn certain rules much as human infants do. The journal is about to run a retraction saying that an internal examination by Harvard “found that the data do not support the reported findings.”
“We therefore are retracting this article,” it continues. “MH accepts responsibility for the error.” The initials M.H. refer to Dr. Hauser.
Cheating has always gone on yet it seems that there has been a concerted effort in the last several years to mainstream cheating of all sorts. Those of us who play by the rules are increasingly made to feel like chumps. This is not a healthy development for our society's future..
I will leave you with two brief excerpts from one of the great treatises on good and evil:
Pip: Tell me, is there any hope? For Frodo, I mean; or at least mostly for Frodo. Gandalf: There never was much hope. Just a fool’s hope, as I have been told.
Recall though, that it was a man, one who embodied all the viurtues that are routinely mocked these days, who responded otherwise:
Oldest Son and I have been having an argument/discussion for quite some time now. He insists that the various moves made by the Obama administration that have predictable, unintended, and pernicious consequences are the result of incompetence, while I believe there is room for some malicious intent. For example, it is obvious that as constructed, Obamacare will inevitably lead to a single payer system of healthcare. It is not a difficult calculation. If insurance companies have extensive government mandates and government imposed limits on their ability to raise rates, they will inevitably enter a death spiral between rising costs and stagnant (or more slowly rising) income. OS and I both agree that this is either by design or incompetence; he just has a lower opinion of the abilities of the "smartest men in the room."
The question arises again because this administration and our Congress insist upon making an economic recovery more difficult. Hidden within the Financial "Reform" package is a time bomb:
Buried deep inside the new "financial reform" law is a scheme to force affirmative action on small-business lending -- a "reform" with ominous implications for the US economy.
Aimed at curtailing supposed discrimination, the race-based lending mandate is guaranteed to have perverse effects -- just like the drive for "racial fairness" in mortgage lending paved the way for the subprime crisis and the 2008 financial meltdown.
The new Dodd-Frank banking law sets up a data-collection system to monitor small-business loans for racial bias. Lenders must report if a business that applied for a loan is minority-owned, and whether the application was rejected.
...
Last year, the Obama Justice Department forced a consent decree on First United Security Bank, which has branches around Birmingham, Ala. Though it still denies the charges of racial redlining, the tiny bank felt compelled to agree, among other things, to set up a special $500,000 fund for black borrowers and businesses.
It must also take several other steps, including making small-business loans to African-Americans on terms "more advantageous to the applicant than it would normally provide" -- even if the applicant "would ordinarily not qualify for such [a lower] rate for reasons including lack of required credit quality, income or down payment."
In other words, don't worry if black borrowers aren't qualified. Just give them the money -- at a discount.
...
Black, white or purple, anybody who's credit-worthy should have access to credit. But extending credit based mainly on skin color, rather than on an individual's ability to repay, is a recipe for a rotten economy, not to mention racism of a different kind.
One of the more pernicious ideas to emerge from the Racial Industrial Complex is the concept of "disparate impact." According to this whenever a "designated minority" is underrepresented in an industry there is assumed to be racism at work. Interestingly this does not apply to industries where there is an over-representation of minorities. (Perhaps some enterprising 5' 7" White basketball player can take the NBA to court based on the disparate impact of rules of basketball which obviously discriminate against short white men?)
There is no doubt that affirmative action based on disparate impact in lending to small businesses will be yet another drag on the economy, yet the Democrats must know that if the economy remains in the doldrums through 2012, as appears likely, they will be decimated at the polls. Which again raises the question: Are they malicious, ie trying to destroy the economy for some hidden, nefarious reason? Or are they merely incompetent?
[This post was mistakenly copied here from Reed the Viking's blog. It is his work and mysteriously appeared here; I could blame Typepad or Gremlins, but in reality I must have hit the wrong button yesterday. My apologies to all.]
As somebody who constantly makes things up (see yesterday's post about Owen Wilson's nose conspiracy), I feel not anger, but respect for this young woman. You got me, and if I was an insecure man, I'd go edit yesterday's post to make it seem like I knew your little "using white board to quit job" routine was a hoax. But I'm not insecure (please don't go check to see if I edited it, I didn't I swear). Apparently she's just a hot actress, once more confirming that attractive women in real life are either poppin' out babies at home like they should, or whoring it out in Hollywood. Don't fall prey to the myth that attractive women actually get jobs and do work, please.
Speaking of acting, the legendary James Caan of Bottle Rocket fame is one of those rare Hollywood conservatives. Never heard of Bottle Rocket? Ok, how about James Caan of Bulletproof fame? No takers? I think he was in the Godfather, I don't know if you've heard of that one. Whatever, Bottle Rocket's James Caan is a smart man, not because he's not a liberal, but because of this:
"Caan, who was at the event promoting his involvement with the online platform Openfilm.com, also added that he doesn’t think Hollywood actors need to comment on every single political issue. "I don't want to comment on that. I'll let those other geniuses do that – all those actors who like to find a stage to push their agendas," he said. "They don't have political science degrees... I certainly don't. I'll leave it to Sean Penn or Barbara Streisand to comment on that.""
Damned straight. I hate listening to these assholes lecture about whatever the trendy cause of the week is. Perhaps they don't understand why it's called the silver screen. Silver tarnishes easily, it kinda sucks and gets awarded to second place. The celebrities of Hollywood are celebrities of the silver screen, because their importance to the world is secondary to that of people who are important in real life. That said, Rip Torn: Great actor or greatest actor? He played the best dodgeball coach of all time, but his character in Dodgeball can't compare to himself in real life. Apparently, he drunkenly broke into a bank he thought was his home while armed with a gun. This happened last year, at age 78. Bless him.
Now let me turn my sights to dumb musicians (if the two people I'm going to rail against can even be considered that). Katy Perry, I feel wrong to shit on you because it's just so easy, but the California Girls Gurls song is one of the worst things I've ever heard. I lived in California for two years, there were cute girls and ugly girls, just like anywhere else. You girls aren't special, if anything, many of you are vapid, flaky messes with inflated egos for G-d knows why. To be fair, the guys are similarly lame; lame is probably the best word to describe Cali culture. Tool is a good one to describe Cali people. Ok, I'm sorry to whatever Cali readers I have, you're not all bad, but if she's going to generalize the good, I'm going to generalize the bad. So Katy, you're both forgettable and deniable, and the hottest girls in your state are most likely from other states, or Asia on student visa. When The Beach Boys sang California Girls, I thought it was ok because they were complementing the ladies, but for you to sing a song about yourself like that... could it get any more self-centered?
Unfortunately, yes it can, and that brings us to number two, Travis (Travie now, apparently) McCoy. Your billionaire song is the whiniest, self-pityingest (I made up another word!) piece of garbage I've ever heard. It's more whiny and self-pitying than "Why don't girls date me, what did I do to deserve this, when will mom let me move out?" by <insert name of Jewish comedian here>. The lyrics, "I want to be a billionaire, so freakin bad" pain me every time I hear them; it truly sounds patheti I hate to sound like a commie, but somebody who money is that important to kind of makes me sick. He wants to be "on the cover of Forbes magazine, smiling next to Oprah and the Queen." Well, Travie, how about working for that money? Instead of whining about how bad you want to be a billionaire, start a business or invest in one. Oprah is a self-made woman; granted the Queen is just a lucky asshole, but most billionaires don't get there by whining about how much they want to be one, and how if they were one they'd help the world be a better place. They are men of action (lies do not become them), so get a real job you hippie and grow up, TraviS. Your song is gay.
Real musician Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull play show in Israel, despite pressure to join artist boycott of Israel. I love Tull, have since I can remember, and Bouree is always a fun one to whistle, but this live version performed in Israel has the added bonus of a mid-song Hatikva break. Stand Up and Benefit still remain two of my favorite albums of all time, check 'em out if you've never heard 'em. Lucky dad of mine got to see them in concert like a month ago, I'm very jealous.
Identity politics, the lifeblood of the democratic party: Harry Reid, "If you're a hispanic and you vote Republican, you're Polpot and Casto's demon-spawn son, Polsto... or Caspot if there's more than one of you." Cuban Republican Marco Rubio's response also in the link, but if you don't want to click, I'll let you know that Rubio called Reid a "cockaroach" and told him to "fuck Gaspar Gomez and fuck the fucking Diaz brothers." His representatives were unavailable for comment.
Sex, much like alcohol, can do anything: Sex makes you more beautiful. So are hot people attractive because they get laid, or do they get laid because they're attractive, and thus get hotter, facilitating their sexual conquests? Viscious cycle.
Patriotism is now offensive: You can't sing the national anthem here, this is the Lincoln Memorial! Apparently singing the national anthem is a political "demonstration."
California 1.9 billion in the red after ONE MONTH of new fiscal year. Maybe if they gave the money to Travie McCoy they'd be in a better spot, anything is better than giving money to Sacramento to spend. It's not tax revenue that's indebted us, it's spending. I wonder, Katy Perry, how are you California gurls gonna look when you're all broke?
Buffalo, New York was once the 14th fattest city in the world. One man, trying to lose weight by eating leaner meats, had his efforts foiled by the law. NY Police Find Live Cat Marinating in Car Trunk. Cats are evil, disgusting animals, not to be confused with their cute, awesome relatives, the Lolcat.
My second or third post ever on this blog was a piece of history about myself, my father, and camping. Thankfully, he was a little better than these guys (H/T also goes out to my dad, from one of my favorite blogs, Are We Lumberjacks):
I leave you with a reminder to find me an adult sized alligator shirt. My father's good friend went on vacation, and being the vigilant man that he is, he found a shirt, but alas, it was not made for adults. Here are the pictures he took so you know what to look for.
I missed this news from a few days ago. Apparently our government has carried its ideological mission of remaking America to new heights of absurdity; if the country doesn't want what the Obami want, it must be the people who are ignorant and out of step:
In an unprecedented move within Homeland Security special agents recently gave ICE leadership a “non confidence” vote. The The Center For Immigration Studies reported:
In an unprecedented move within the Department of Homeland Security, the special agents responsible for enforcing our nation’s immigration laws issued an exhaustive, scathing letter simply titled “VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN ICE DIRECTOR JOHN MORTON AND ODPP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PHYLLIS COVEN” on June 11, 2010. The letter, acquired through sources, provides a litany of examples of how ICE’s mission is being skewed towards supporting an unflinching goal of amnesty by refusing to allow agents to do their job; allowing criminal aliens to roam free; depleting resources for key enforcement initiatives that preceded this administration; and misrepresenting facts and programs, demeaning the extent of the criminal alien problem and geared to support amnesty.
The letter, authored by ICE Union President Chris Crane, begins as follows, noting that all ICE union representatives have signed on to a unanimous “Vote of No Confidence” in ICE leadership:
There are more details at Jim site.
The reference to Ice Nine is intentional; when crystals of Ice Nine came into contact with normal water, it "froze" at room temperature. The friction between the increasingly autocratic and aloof Ruling Class and the peons (that's the rest of us whose job it is to work hard to supply money to our bosses) is escalating; eventually the heat from the friction will cause the machinery of state to seize up. This is not a pleasant thought.
Which raises the question of the day: Are we now living under tyranny?
I sometimes get myself worked up into emotional states, and when I do I try to avoid writing about the topic that upset me, because I find I am more capable of being logical, analytical, and rational when I am calm. And it is really easy to get all worked up and scream that these people who want to invade our privacy, steal our money, and run every last aspect of our lives are tyrants.
But the other day I was calm, collected, unemotional, relaxed, you know, completely sober in every sense of the word, and I concluded that, yes, it is beyond question that the United States government has become tyrannical.
On sober reflection, I still agree with my sober and reflective thought.
(I should probably be more emotional about such a disturbing thing. Maybe it's a sign of age.)
Eric is not alone in worrying about where we are and where we are heading.
When something can not continue forever, it won't. Change is coming and once unleashed, it is impossible to predict how far it will go. The ship of state has incredible inertia but forces are being aroused that will dictate the future in unlikely ways. We cannot afford our current course, people are angry and no longer dispirited, and the Ruling Class has lost their way.
Paradigms often shift in small steps, slowly accumulating until they shatter; November it starts.
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