Some Non-Random Musings on the Current Scene
N.B.: I frankly DGARA about foreign affairs, except where developments might have a local effect because of “feddle gummint” stupidities or deliberately malicious intent (toward citizens) in policies. So, by “current scene” you can expect me to comment on what was once quaintly known as “the home front,” for the most part.
Today’s topic: Censorship, “feddle gummint” skulduggery, Sharyl Atkkisson, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and a possibly appropriate citizens’ response.
By now, anyone with at least one firing neuron who’s not been living under a rock knows that our dear “gummint” placed spying software on Sharyl Atkkisson’s computers. Anyone in denial about the runaway skulduggery in effect in nearly every agency of the “feddle gummint” is either delusional or a part of (or expects to benefit from) the underhanded, nefarious, unscrupulous behavior that seems to now be the norm for “feddle gummint bureaucraps.” Heck, even the WaPo is “viewing with alarm” the appallingly stupid, criminal “feddle gummint” spying on a journalist.
If the feds can do it to her, they can do it to you. “Evidence” of “computer crimes” on ANYONE’S computers is now subject to The Sharyl Atkkisson Caveat: if the feds can plant things on her computer, who’s to say they didn’t plant stuff anywhere else they wanted to?
From now on, any claims by the “feddle gummint” to have found “evidence”–of ANYTHING–on a citizen’s computer should be loudly and raucously mocked.
Citizen response? So far, just the usual “view with alarm” stuff like the WaPo article. Sound and fury, etc. What would be appropriate, I think would be for a “vigilance committee” of patriotic hacker citizens to engage in a “Manhatten Project”-style effort to crack open every government computer system possible and flood the net with everything they want to hide from us. Snowden? He should be so far back he wouldn’t even be visible in the rear view mirror. Of course, it could happen that _some_ secrets could be minimally detrimental to national security, but I seriously doubt there are many such. Most “national security” secrets are more than likely just bureaucratic turf building/protecting.
Sadly, I do not have the skills necessary to make a contribution to the effort, and nor do I any longer have an audience/readership to influence toward that effort, since my work to remake this blog into nothing more than exercise space for “the voices in my head” has borne fruit. *heh*
In further mind-boggling abuses of rights supposedly protected under the First Amendment, while a student who is a Sikh has rightly received a pass on carrying a knife (“ceremonial dagger”) in pubschool, for religious reasons, Christian students who carry or read their Bibles, share their faith with other students or who are seen or heard praying or even just expressing opinions informed by their faith are continually oppressed. (Sure, schools pretty regularly lose in lawsuits over this, but the push against Christians practicing their religion in a pubschool setting is regularly, improperly, assaulted).
And cognitive dissonance never sets in with the left, because. . . it requires cognition? *sigh*
Reality-Based Fantasy, or Lies, Damned Lies and Politics
One of the things that most disturbs me about politics nowadays is the consistent brutality politicians and Hivemind Podpeople (but I repeat myself; Mass MEdia Hivemind Podpeople are just political operatives with bylines *sigh*) perpetrate upon language and reason by means of corrupting terms. For example, there are very (very) few “conservatives” who espouse anything even remotely resembling conservative values or policies, and there are even fewer “liberals” who have any even remote connection to liberal values or policies. (Democrats who continually try to poison democracy by vitiating voting integrity commit vile calumny of democracy by claiming “democratic” principles, for example.)
My mind was “tainted” as a lad when both my extended family of pastors and theologians and historians, and my readings of Aquinas, Mill, and many others led me to think that calling things by honest terms is really the only way to approach finding true things, and that finding that which is true is a Very Good Thing.
Nowadays, in politics, The Hivemind (in all its forms), in the groves of Academia Fruitcake Bakeries, etc., lies in the form of words used to cloak their opposites are the norm.
Consider a fair definition of “speech codes” often in effect on so-called “liberal” campuses, nowadays,
“. . .a “speech code” [is] any university regulation or policy that prohibits expression that would be protected by the First Amendment in society at large. Any policy—such as a harassment policy, a protest and demonstration policy, or an IT acceptable use policy—can be a speech code if it prohibits protected speech or expression.
“Many speech codes impermissibly prohibit speech on the basis of content and/or viewpoint. An example of this type of policy would be a ban on “offensive language” or “disparaging remarks.” Other speech codes are content-neutral but excessively regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. A policy of this type might limit protests and demonstrations to one or two “free speech zones” on campus and/or require students to obtain permission in advance in order to demonstrate on campus.”
As against such statements as these from the prototypical classic liberal, John Stuart Mill:
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. . .
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them…he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Mill, in his essay, “On Liberty” expands on the very principles the Founders sought to carve into the law of the land. Interestingly, Edmund Burke, the prototypical English conservative recognized that the Founders were expressing their understanding of the rights of individuals within the framework of conservative values. (“Conciliation with the Colonies,” March, 1775)
GENUINE liberalism and GENUINE conservatism BOTH hold free speech to be a cardinal liberty, due protection by the state. So-called “liberals” nowadays most certainly do not (though they lie and say they do), and many so-called “conservatives” today are not much better.
One can simply list fundamental individual rights and go down the list checking off those that so-called “liberals” genuinely demonstrate support for or that so-called “conservatives” genuinely attempt to protect and find little in the way of liberal efforts to support expression of individual rights or conservative efforts to protect existing expression of individual rights. What one is more likely to find is both camps saying they are doing so while really simply trampling individual rights in the process of creating privileged classes.
I really tire of these lying scum. One suspects such behavior would only be amenable t amelioration by means of citizens’ vigilance committees bringing back tar and feathers. Like that’s gonna happen. . . *sigh*
Pejoration of Language is Inevitable
But why does it always seem to stem from illiterates and liars?
Illiterates, for example, tear down useful words and phrases through simple ignorance and sometimes stupidity. An example from something I read recently will illustrate this point: “[I]t’s the exception that makes the rule.” This corruption was obviously drawn from the old adage, “The exception proves the rule,” which actually means, “The exception TESTS the rule.” The writer of “the exception. . . makes the rule” never bothered to learn what the original adage actually said and so his corruption makes at least some sort of (non)sense, based on his poor literacy.
Worse are those who wittingly corrupt words, terms and phrases to mean something opposite of their once common senses. Take for example a self-proclaimed “liberal democrat” whose words and deeds prove him to be a tyrannical statist bent on corrupting democracy.
That’s why I so often call out and condemn both illiterate and disingenuous abuse of English. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” as it were.
Hey! King Putz!
As they say, read between the lines, bubba:
Lerner’s Email Backups
Well, it’s more credible than anything the IRS has come up with so far.
The IRS is Run by Incompetent Liars
That the IRS is run by incompetent liars is now a well-established fact, but it matters not, because most Americans just DGARA.
The “dog ate my email” flap? “Once [a “Lois Lerner *cough* crash *cough*] _may_ be happenstance. Twice [destruction of backup data on ONE of THREE required servers] _may_ be coincidence. Three times [destruction of data on the SECOND of THREE required backups] _is_ enemy action.” Four times (the last required backup) is spiking the ball in the end zone, and doing the same thing for SIX MORE employees under investigation is nothing less than the IRS thumbing its nose at the American people. Watch as IRS Commissioner John Koskinen blows a raspberry at the American people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5XJxfT5dL8
And what, if anything, will the People do about it? Nada. Zip. Zilch. A big zero with the rim kicked off. Whine and bitch and moan on social media. Ditto to their congresscritter, if said People are really serious, active and engaged.
*yawn*
IOW, Nada. Zip. Zilch. A big zero with the rim kicked off.
Anyone focused on bringing pressure on their STATE legislators to compel a national convention to redress the wrongs heaped upon citizens by the “feddle gummint”? Such a convention MUST be carefully monitored by concerned, literate patriots, though, or it WILL be hijacked by asinine leftist-statist traitors to liberty.
My suggestions for such a convention?
- Abolish the IRS. Extirpate it root and branch. Completely eliminate the 17th Amendment and substitute the FairTax mechanisms, with the specifics of what is taxed, how the tax is levied and collected and THE SPECIFIC RATE embedded in the Constitutional amendment, untouchable by acts of Congress or Executive fiat.
- Specify executive orders to effect laws NOT AS SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS to be acts of treason.
- Require that each act of Congress deal with ONE specific subject, be without more than TWO specific references to previous laws, be no more than TWO pages in length and be published abroad for comment by the People for a period of six months before being sent to the President to sign.
- Sunset all federal laws that are more than 10 years old. Create a separate branch of the federal government to review all laws coming up for sunsetting to approve for referral to Congress to re-authorize or to disapprove and simply ashcan. Members of such branch of the federal government shall be appointed by the States, according to whatever process each State shall determined (direct appointment, whether by governor or legislature or both acting together, direct election by The People, whatever). Each person holding such office may serve only one, one-year term in any ten-year period. (Yeh, yeh, needs work. Jerry Pournelle’s done some thinking along these lines.)
- Strengthen the Bill of Rights for every citizen NOT employed by the “feddle gummint” and exclude “feddle gummint” employees from ALL protections afforded therein whenever they act with the force of the federal government. ESPECIALLY, make federal government employees PERSONALLY responsible for any actions that violate any citizen’s rights and make them subject to both criminal and civil action even if they were “following orders”. No more Nuremberg defenses for feds. Period.
- ESPECIALLY strengthen the First, Second and Fourth amendments to reflect that the Founders actually said about those amendments! (Ex: “keep and bear arms” to mean, as the Founders clearly and unambiguously understood MILITARY arms).
- NO government employee–at any level or in any position (including legislative or executive branch) to make one dime more in total FAMILY income than the average family in the area where they work or that they represent. Period. After leaving office, or position of federal employment, any FAMILY income in excess of the incomes “earned” during their federal tenure shall be taxed at a 90% rate directly from income (the only remaining “income tax” on the books) for a period of ten years.
- Peculation by government employees, whether directly or as bribes from crony capitalists, shall be a capital offense.
- Clarify the “interstate commerce” clause to be as the Founders’ discussions of the clause intended: to FACILITATE interstate commerce, not act as a thin pretext for the federal government to encroach on free trade between individuals and states.
- Get then “feddle gummint” out of the charity business entirely. (The “general welfare clause” abuses have gone on far, far too long).
There are others, but this would be a good place to start.
Celebrating a Much-Discriminated-Against Minority
International Men’s Day
Eat my shorts, NOW.
“Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide.” — James Burnham
Re-“printing” this from January 20th, 2010.
It’s interesting to me that simple common sense is so completely forsaken that such things as this can even gain an audience in a Western society:
Muslim police say Islam not to blame for terror attacks
Muslim police officers have rebelled openly against the [British] Government’s anti-terrorism strategy, warning that it is an “affront to British values” which threatens to trigger ethnic unrest.
The plain fact of the matter is that so-called “radical” Muslims are at the dead solid center of Islam. It is those vanishingly few genuine “moderates” who are apostate Muslims, heretics, deniers of Islam and its prophet, the Butcher of Medina, and his diktat of hate, intolerance and jihad against any who refuse to embrace his cult. Those who are genuine followers of Mohamed are either open jihadists or enablers pretending to be “moderates” while practicing al taqiyah and acting as enablers for their openly jihadist brothers in arms.
Anyone who can allow such behavior as that linked above by police officers in a Western society is simply an active participant in societal sabotage, an enemy of the West and of human rights, decency and honesty.
h.t. Atlas Shrugs
Slight update:
Note another practice permitted–yea! encouraged–by the “prophet” that closely resembles the outright lying that characterizes taqiyyah is the Muslim practice of kitman. Kitman is quite similar to the most common lies told us by politicians, academicians and Mass MEdia Podpeople here in the West. It is lying by omission, telling a part of the truth in such a way as to remain “factual” while still committing a lie. Decent people in the West find such behavior reprehensible, but MOhamed taught such behavior as being not just permissible but in many cases desirable. Most such cases with Muslims are, of course, desirable when dealing with non-Muslims (although Mohamed also allowed lying to fellow Muslims in some cases. Try to get a Muslim to admit that).
One place kitman and taqiyyah are most effective in bamboozling stupid people in the West is on the very nature if Islam, “the religion of peace”. Of course, the “peace” of Islam is simply the religious, social, cultural, legal, and behavioral submission of a slave to a master, but Islamic apologists don’t want to (and so do not) go there, and roundly condemn anyone who does (because truth is anathema to these scum). Regularly cited by these liars are the so-called “peaceful verses” of the Koran (yeh, yeh, Islamic apologists have insisted that “Qu’ran” is more respectful. Eat my shorts.). What they do not want you to know is that not only are the so-called “peaceful verses” outnumbered at about 7-3 by the verses advocating violence, but that Mohamed’s own exegetical principle, which scholars call “abrogation,” dictates that any “apparent” conflict between his sayings is to be resolved by a saying uttered later taking precedence, abrogating an earlier, conflicting saying. Interestingly enough, the “peaceful verses” came early in Mohamed’s career as a con man, while the verses advocating violence against unbelievers came later.
That is why I hold the opinion that a more accurate descriptive of Islam is “Islam: Hate Cult.”
Surrender to Islam on any front by the West is stupid, immoral and suicidal.
Have you ever had a Muslim “friend”? If so, only one of two things obtained:
1. The Muslim who was your friend was an apostate or
2. The Muslim who was your “friend” deceived you, because Mohamed was adamant that his followers could not have friends who were unbelievers, and it is universal Islamic doctrine that his words are eternal, unchangeable, inerrant and infallible. (Koran 5:51, 5:80, 3:28, 3:118 and many others.)
Self-Made Morons: Giving the Gift of Laughter
UPDATE:
I’m really late to this thing, and I don’t really have anything to add, but that’s never stopped me before, so why now, eh? 😉
The book that’s the subject of the kerffuffle mentioned below has won the 2014 Compton Crook Award, arguably one of the awards most insulated from influence by the agenda-driven GHH crowd. It’s a reader-driven award for best sci-f/fantasy first novel by an individual author
http://www.bsfs.org/bsfsccw.htm
So, some guy wrote a (pretty good, IMO) space opera/first, et al, contact novel and someone else obviously trying to influence some upcoming awards (one of which the novel had been nominated for) wrote a “review” wherein she openly admitted she hadn’t really read the book, just cherry-picked things that offended her. (Apparently she wrote another that was even more over-the-top, but it seems to have disappeared from all the places links point to. Wonder why. Not.)
The review’s here: Fire with Fire: The Most Interesting Man in ALL TEH WORLDS (The book’s here or here, in case you want to make your own comparison to what the reviewer who DIDN’T read the book has to say about it.)
Here, perhaps this will push your curiosity button. One of the things that sends the “reviewer” around the bend was this cherry-picked sentence (quoted in more context at the “review”):
Downing shook Corcoran’s wide, strong hand.
Yeh, that’d give me the willies too. I would greatly prefer to shake a “narrow, weak, limp-wristed” pussy metrosexual paw. Yep. Oh, wait. That’s not me; that’s the po’ widdle baby who cherry-picked things to be offended at and who refused to read the whole thing before “reviewing” it. Might run into another scary “wide, strong hand”!
*feh*
To the po’ widdle baby who apparently “thinks” she has a glittery hoohah, but who obviously has simply spent too many hours playing with her autolobotomy kit, I have only this to offer: life won’t get any better until you put down the autolobotomy kit and stop sniffing the unicorn farts, buttercup. (Yeh, yeh, I’d offer this at the offending post, but I’m not wasting even a throwaway email address on obtaining a login there.)
As to Gannon’s book, well, below the fold, mmmK?
Continue reading “Self-Made Morons: Giving the Gift of Laughter”