Tag Archives: Progressives

NOT SO SUPER…

America appears to be at its weakest condition both nationally and internationally (if the two can be considered separately), if not ever, certainly since the Civil War. We’re entering the last few months of the most questionable Presidency in our history, during which the actual levers of power and communication seem to be in the hands of unknown people other than the erstwhile president, Joe Biden. Major changes in our international relationships have taken place in the same period, including significant failures both military and diplomatic. Our greatest enemies have formed new or stronger alliances against the U. S. or its allies, and our economic position is under daily assault, also both domestically and internationally.

Our financial structure is groaning under the weight of excessive borrowing and debt. Even as the cost of INTEREST in the federal budget has exceeded One Trillion Dollars per year, the Biden-Harris regime is planning deficit spending that will take our total debt to over $50 Trillion in another 10 to 15 years! Even without the Marxist welfare plans they have, deficit spending is now such a habit in federal budgeting that the concept of balance income and expenses at the federal level is so politically distant that the risks to solvency AND OUR ABILITY TO DEFEND OURSELVES, are far away behind a fog-bank of self-service and electoral enrichment.

Our Navy, for example, is at its smallest, least-modernized status of the past 50 years. Our latest aircraft are so expensive that fleet size has been curtailed, as are, sadly, some of the advanced technologies, themselves. Piece by piece, we have reduced the number of defense contractors, and thus the competitive pressures that yield the best innovations and quality. Many armaments depend on materials and chips, in particular, that must be imported. It is questionable whether the U. S. could sustain more than a week or two of all-out war with either Russia or China. Indeed, we are strained to provide arms to Ukraine and Israel at the same time.

And our allies, solid and ephemeral? The Biden regime has disturbed them at every turn. The inexplicable retreat from Afghanistan, after pouring treasure and people into that odd, horribly expensive balancing act of inexplicable purpose, has other nations wondering about trusting the U. S. when the chips are down for their countries. Why didn’t we hold Baghram Air Force Base? Because the Chinese Communists told Biden they wanted us out of there? They didn’t want the U. S. able to strike from a few hundred miles instead of several thousand? What should India think… or Pakistan? Or, anyone else?

We’re no longer the “arsenal of Democracy…” more like the arse-holes of Democracy. We’ve been sending our treasure and our best young people to other lands to instill a form of government and ostensible freedom, that we don’t want, ourselves! Indeed, one of our major political parties delights in encouraging demonstrations and riots that tear at the roots of our society as if they prove how wonderful and “free” our system is. It is, apparently, a message that 70 MILLION aborted Americans can’t transmit.

A majority of Americans no longer trust our basic institutions of government and society, including even medicine and higher education. One political party constantly tells us how crass and dismal our history is, how the high-falutin ideals of our founding are really lies told by enslavers, how religion is part of the lies we have been told, and how children can be helped to change their genders. It is difficult for citizens to keep their mental footing.

Marriage is crumbling. There is no more significant pillar upholding Western / American civilization than strong, committed, life-long marriages. Those on the left, opposed to religion, particularly Christianity – and the farther Left the more virulently opposed – look to government laws and regulations as the only source of ethics or, even, morals. Satisfying government bureaucrats, so-called “experts,” is the goal of anti-religionists. Satisfying personal, conscientious beliefs and oaths of honor, is the abiding guideline of those raised in a religious environment, in families strengthened by the same sort of personal honor. There is nothing stronger or more life-affirming. No civilization or culture can survive or grow without a commitment to LIFE. The growing commitment to anti-life, anti-marriage and anti-growth in America, is a recipe for doom. We are reinforcing this trend with our mendacious economics, as well.

The left, placing its entire hopefulness in the hands of government, cannot trust in individuals or their ethics. The private economy is a mystery to leftists / socialists / Communists and Democrat liberals. They call themselves “progressives” so as to avoid anyone mouthing those other names. They believe that welfare and massive government spending will somehow make individuals smarter, stronger, more productive and more moral. Having rejected spiritual life, entirely, Progressives place no trust in any individual’s motivation to do what is right or beneficial. Consequently, Progressive, far-left Presidential administrations will, and always have, diverted resources away from Defense and into domestic “free stuff.”

On Mayday, 2010, a major water main bringing water from the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts to the Greater Boston city and regional system, burst at a gigantic valve in the town of Weston. It created a major water emergency. Governor Deval Patrick issued directives for people to boil their water until further notice. Made eminent sense. At the same time, the MWRA brought truckloads of bottled water to key distribution points. One might think that boiling water would be a function that most humans in the United States could handle… even in 2010. Fights broke out over the bottled water distribution, fights that made the news. Amazing. Even for such a simple emergency situation: the recommendation to boil tapwater before cooking with it or drinking it, large numbers of people expected government salvation without delay. They wanted enough bottled water to take baths with, not just for consumption. It seemed weird.

What is likely to happen when Americans are forced to sacrifice? What if we must fight all-out war? What if the economy, $35 Trillion in debt, collapses and foreign countries won’t accept payment in devalued dollars? Would people find a way to persevere as they did during the Depression? Or, during World War II? Would we be capable of boiling our water if an enemy has contaminated water supplies? One wonders. What if we lose the internet, GPS, cell-phone service or electric power for long periods? Are we tough enough to survive? Smart enough?

Say it ain’t so, joe!

When Barack Hussein Obama entered the White House, millions of Americans were hopeful that a new chapter of the American story was being written: our first “black” president and his wonderful opportunities to heal old racial divisions and wounds.  It didn’t work, obviously, but the hope was there.  Obama’s foreign policy was sold as “minimalist,” or the harder to comprehend, “leading from behind.”  The operating theme, though, throughout the West Wing, was summed up as “Don’t do stupid shit.”

Obama thought the war in Iraq, for example, was stupid, as were other actions in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen, among others.  One might speculate if his concerns were national or Islamic, but the directive applied: Don’t do stupid (stuff).

As cute as it sounded in its simplistic wisdom, the directive didn’t seem to take, generally.  If the admonition were backed by real intent, it might be assumed that the new administrators were well-advised to not do stupid stuff anywhere, foreign or domestic.  Yet, within a few months the somewhat narcissistic new President felt compelled to opine on the arrest of his friend, Louis Gates, in Cambridge, Mass.  Although proper police procedures had been followed, including asking Mr. Gates to leave the house, a potential crime scene, Gates resisted sufficiently that he was taken into custody until facts could be ascertained.  To some, particularly Gates, a Harvard professor, the arrest was racially motivated: white cop, black suspect.  Obama, when queried by a reporter, declared that it was racial and that the “police had acted stupidly.”

Don’t do stupid (stuff), Mr. President.  Hadn’t you heard that directive?  Obama’s very thin veneer of racial healer dissolved, if it ever really existed in the heart of someone who didn’t respect the U. S. Constitution, to which defense he had so recently sworn.  Along with dozens of Cabinet and other appointments, like Eric Holder as Attorney General, the ability of the chief administrator to do stupid (shit) was never again in question.  From the A. C. A., to opening the southern border, gifting the Queen of England with a DVD of his own speeches, passing “stimulus” legislation to finance “shovel-ready jobs,” to making Hillary Clinton a Secretary of State, even his selection of Joe Biden as V. P., stupid stuff became the hallmark – if not the bulwark – of the Obama administration.  The Paris “accords” and the illegal Iran Nuclear Agreement, never mind removing Muhammar Qaddafi from Libya, the “Arab Spring” and Benghazi, are levels of stupidity that we need not plumb to confirm our Prudent assessment.

Joe Biden’s only flirtation with executive authority was his eight years as Vice President with Obama.  Contrary to the 2009 directive, Biden absorbed the active experiences of the Obama administration: do all the stupid stuff you can if it irritates Republicans and bitter clingers to guns and Bibles.

The miraculous victory of the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020, against all odds and voter registration statistics, simply unleashed a later version of the Barack Obama administration: Communism on the cheap, one could say.  The utter stupidity pattern is freshly released upon an hopeful public, ready for a non-abrasive, non-Tweeting, insider-friendly, nearly non-verbal President.  A few mistakes are expected of every new administration; signing 40 stupid, somewhat illegal Executive Orders is right in line with what millions of people were taught that Donald Trump had done.  Hey, it’s old Lunch-bucket Joe’s turn to be stupid – he and Kamala “won” the election – or the certifications, at least – and “elections have consequences,” as Biden’s Constitutional Professor of Stupid once declared during an earlier Republican irritability phase.  Joe has paid his dues, Democrats think, we think, for nearly 50 years, and he’s always wanted to be president, after all.  So, it’s like, his turn.  “C’mon, man.”

Given the inherent competition among politicians, there seems to be a race between Good Ol’ Joe and his nearly black benefactor of eight years’ duration.  So long as invisible Rasputins keep placing executive orders beneath the Presidential pen in 2021, Joe will win the stupid-shit race he imagines he’s in.  Among the 40 or so executive actions he’s already signed, Biden has reversed well over 100 policies that president Trump had put in place – policies that were working well and enabling a phenomenally dynamic economic expansion, while increasing national security: “America first.”  There are barely enough electrons available to catalog the “stupids” that Ol’ Joe managed to effect in only two months.  Congratulations, Joe!  Looks like you won another election.

Just winning, however, is never enough for “progressives:” they have a need to rub their opponents noses in the stupid (stuff) they do.  For his part, Joe is never to be outdone.  Indeed, he has decided to lie about the stupid stuff he does, even if he’s not completely certain what that is.  Do you suppose it’s his opinion that we’re ALL stupid?  Maybe.  Surely he wouldn’t appoint people to tell him to lie about stupid shit they talked him into, would he?  After all, if HE believes what he says is true it can’t actually be a lie, can it?

Say it ain’t so, Joe!  Say it ain’t so…

RACE? AGAIN?

Prudence says that America needs some fresh thinking about race.  Anthropologists can “describe” some 300 “races” using markers like blood-type concentrations, in a process that tries to use physiology to delineate human “types” or races.  It is largely a waste of time for most people since it cannot relate social activities, social actions, with physiological differences.

RACE is a construct for both safety and control within societies.. except, lately, a construct for hatred.  The most visual markers are employed – like skin, facial distinctions, hair, eye-color… virtually meaningless attributes in terms of how people ACT, but crucial when differing groups come together.  No training or understanding is required to distinguish physiognomy.  That is a matter of belief.

Prudence has thought long about the power and dangers of belief.  It can exist and guide the actions of millions of people without paying any heed to reality… to truth.  Just as faith is the engine for maintaining religious traditions, there are many other belief structures to which individuals can adhere that effectively replace reality with constructed, believed paths of action that guide whole lifetimes.  Belief can be so self-fulfilling that it becomes its own evidence of “truth.”  It’s commonplace.

Less common is honesty.  An honest person can be taught the error of his or her beliefs and it is this very effect that has held the United States together through slavery, Manifest Destiny, the Civil War, destruction of Native American culture, waves of immigration and the Great Depression.  Beliefs have changed, honing more closely to reality little by little… until the 1960’s.

It was under the aegis of “The Great Society” that we changed the role of government to one of, essentially, social engineering – unionized social services that Lyndon Johnson and other hubris-laden socialists believed could change the nature of both rich and poor people for the better.  Change has certainly happened.

Blacks, who were making sure, but uneven progress in the 1950’s, have regressed in the inner cities where federal and state policies have re-enslaved them for 3 generations.  Why such conditions continue, even as the drug trade flourishes in that population, seems a great mystery to progressives.  It must be the fault of Republicans.  Our incoming president has mentioned conditions in the inner cities, but no policy changes have been described.

It’s all a matter of belief.  Progressives have long held the belief that the most generous “safety-net” possible, especially now that welfare has been federalized, will cause people WE have taught to be irresponsible for themselves, to become responsible, self-sufficient citizens.  We have placed them in a system where the only way to “get a raise,” requires careful cheating – things like getting two EBT cards or SNAP allowances beyond one’s entitlement.  Or, to sell some drugs, perhaps.  There should be no surprise that blacks hate whites.  They believe that whites have kept them from opportunity, that we discriminate in a thousand ways, that we are racists and on and on.  Some of it is true.  But the policies that have done so are not those of most whites, who feel guilty about black’s condition, and who act a little nutty because of their guilt; they are the policies of progressives who believe socialism will make better humans than God has… despite all reality to the contrary.

One might infer that Prudence indicates that progressives may not be truly honest, else they could learn the error of their beliefs, lo these past 50 years.

A PROBLEM LARGER THAN RADICAL ISLAM!!

Omar-MateenThe following was originally published in the Westford CAT as a letter to the editor by Dennis J. Galvin of that town.
home phone : 978-692-3157 cell phone: 978-846-2635 cell email: galsix90@aol.com

June 27, 2016

Letter To The Editor

A PROBLEM LARGER THAN RADICAL ISLAM !!

Our nation recently experienced one of the worst terror attacks in its history. Yet, rather than coming together, with a firm resolve to respond, Americans find themselves bitterly divided over political agendas. There are three rails in American politics today. The conservative rail favors small government, strict adherence to the constitution and a free enterprise economic system. The liberal rail favors larger government, wide latitude in the interpretation of the constitution, and qualified support for the free enterprise system, provided there is a safety net. The third rail are the progressives. They are neo Marxists, who believe that American society is inherently flawed and must be torn down and rebuilt. Centralized re-education, social re-structuring, pervasive government indoctrination and rule by fiat are their answer. They see the constitution as biased toward certain classes and believe that wealth redistribution is the only way to achieve social justice.
Progressive ideology has played a significant part in bringing about our division. The mass shooting in Orlando Florida gives clear evidence of this. It was perpetrated by a self-avowed radical Islamist, supported by an ideology focused on destroying western civilization. Progressives distinguished themselves by their response to this incident. They fabricated a narrative to distort the intent of this ruthless killer, using his crime to attack American citizens, who do not agree with their agenda. Gun owners, Christians, straight men, were all accused of contributing to the conditions that led to this carnage. The leading national progressive, our president, became unglued over criticism of his leadership, attacking Republican candidate Donald Trump with a ferocity that should have been reserved for the terrorist ideology responsible for the killings.
This display is unnerving and it supports an assertion made by David Horowitz, a former member of the new left, now a progressive critic, who said that to understand progressives, one must remember that “the issue is never the issue, the issue is the revolution.” Horowitz warns that the only focus of progressives is their agenda. The implication: no matter what happens, with regard to the radical Islamic threat, progressives would sacrifice our security to advance their goals. The anemic response of our President to ISIS, his unwillingness to fully commit the nation to their destruction, and the renewed calls to curb the second amendment support this assertion. It would also explain his vehement public attacks on Republicans, rather than homicidal radical Islamists.
Horowitz’s implications are clear, progressives are so blinded by the correctness of their ideology, that they no longer feel an affinity for their nation or their fellow countrymen, if they disagree. All that counts is the cause, anyone who gets in the way must be destroyed. Offering a sobering insight into this mindset, Horowitz once said “ if you believed that you could bring about heaven on earth, what crime would you not commit and what lie would you not tell.” Such audacity threatens our freedom and our security. The aftermath of Orlando reveals that as a nation, we are facing bigger problems than just ISIS.

END