I feel like this fine essay deserves more time and words than I probably can dedicate to it. But since I disagree with about half of it, I will try to explain what I disagree with and why.
To start with: Massie. The decision to censure Schiff and the resistance to wearing a mask are not the same issues or even the same principles. Adam Schiff has demonstrated repeatedly that he will leak confidential and classified information for political advantage. He's not unique in American legislative history in that regard, he just happens to be a particularly blatant and loathsome partisan. And that behavior must be punished. The censure measure frankly is over-mild in my opinion, it certainly is non-kinetic. It is, in fact, the kind of political answer to a political (and probably legal) problem. It is the LEAST that Massie could do to support it. Failure to do so, yes, should result in his removal and installment of a wartime congressman.
We are in a unique time, but not quite unique circumstances. It has become clear that a cabal of people have been running this country and its policies without the framework of the Constitution. These people must be rooted out and exposed...and ideally destroyed. If they are not, then this country is dead and all we have instead is not a government by the people for the people, but a government of the elites for the elites. In other words a boring old Oligarchy not dissimilar from other nations and city states of Europe and Asia. This has been the case for longer than we imagined. It's certainly the case the JFK was not legally elected but was installed via vote rigging and it's also clear now that his assassination was engineered by government agents to install a more pliant and corrupted executive. What is unique about our time is that the information is out, that the head of the hydra has been exposed, even if only slightly, by the election of Donald Trump...and his removal from office by extra-legal means.
That's the issue. Are we a nation giving its consent to be ruled in accordance with laws or are we serfs held down by the threat of force alone? If we are not willing to fight on those terms, then may your chains rest lightly on you. You will not be the first slaves in history, nor the last. And indeed, in a cosmic or eternal sense, it may not matter. What may matter to God is how to faced these challenges and if you warped yourself in dealing with the blows and hardships of life, political and otherwise.
So you have to decide if you want to fight or kneel. I think anyone suggesting we not fight or that fighting 'isn't who we are', that the culture war 'makes them uncomfortable' is in fact empowering the Uniparty, the Oligarchs and demoralizing the citizens who are in opposition to them. If people are told they shouldn't even fight legislatively, they will never fight militarily. Optimates or Populares. Speech is the spark and the flame of freedom.
Spread the word, sure. But the word is 'fight' and not 'appease'.
And fighting means fighting to win. They are fighting to win. We'd damn well better do the same unless we want to end up in a figurative or literal gulag.
I respect what you write here. I interpret it as a call to stiffen our resolve without abandoning our principles. Think of it as strength through virtue. However, there is a limit if virtue is not to become extinct. When principles have been pushed too far, events will come to shove. I can see a point in the not too distant future when a humble and principled opposition to insane beliefs and policies will have to be abandoned, because it is now and will ever more be taken for weakness and exploited mercilessly by an unprincipled opposer. At that point, hoping that virtue will win without kinetic conflict is forlorn. Unless virtue retires pathetically hors de combat there will therefore, at that point, be winners and losers. Long before we get there, irrationality and tyranny must get the message that virtue will fight to win dirty if cornered, and that corner must be unmistakable and in clear view. With that in mind, I am with you!
Nice post. This reminds me of an early 2017 long series of Tweets that delved into the Weather Underground and how the leftist elites supported their terrorism, leading to essentially no punishment and most of the perpetrators got absorbed into leftist academia such as Bill Ayers. The Tweets had a kind of hysterical undercurrent, but it's core point was correct: that the left and the right have fundamentally different tactics and strategies. The left relies on lies, distractions, long, drawn out affairs where people lose interest (hence lawfare), the long march through the institutions etc; the right relies on truth, hierarchy, swift justice, use of force, transparency. This is why when well-meaning people on the right say "oh, just mimic leftist tactics, embed yourself in leftist institutions and institute a march through the institutions the other way!" they fundamentally misunderstand the differences between the psychology between the left and the right.
Count me in. Our own long march would be a difficult struggle. We will need legitimacy, absolutely. And the left will try to delegitimize everything we do. And they will probably succeed if they have sole control of the media. IMHO we would need to do something about that.
Massie is sticking to higher principles while Schiff and company depose Presidents and overthrow the Republic - speaking of said Republic we’re not facing the end, its dead as Rome’s. Deader.
You’re looking corpse and saying it’s looking grim, no it’s DEAD 💀.
🇺🇸💀RIP.
Now shall we attempt to save the nation and its 330 Million People, or continue to bang the Drum of principled conservatism?
The main principle of conservatism being FRAUD masked by Preening cowardice?
Massie is a coward and is pathetically probably afraid of Schiff.
"...there is a lot of work being done on substack to build a ready made counter-narrative..."
This is something that IMO MUST BE DONE. You are absolutely right.
I was reading the John Carter post you linked to me and something occurred to me. He wrote,
"A huge segment of the population is fully hypnotized, their minds putty in the hands of the WEFites."
It is really that huge? It's easy to forget that half of Americans voted for Trump in two elections. And most of the others are in one way or another living on money from the government so they vote to get more money from the government. How do we know where the Overton window really is? Because the left tells us where it is. They could be lying; it's what they do.
Maybe WE have been the victims of the left's disinformation narrative more than we realize, in that we believe that we are a small minority in the middle of a sea of leftism/wokeism/Marxism. All the more reason to coalesce a strong counter-narrative and find a way around the MSM to put in the forefront of the minds of Americans, it would seem.
Force and Legitimacy
I feel like this fine essay deserves more time and words than I probably can dedicate to it. But since I disagree with about half of it, I will try to explain what I disagree with and why.
To start with: Massie. The decision to censure Schiff and the resistance to wearing a mask are not the same issues or even the same principles. Adam Schiff has demonstrated repeatedly that he will leak confidential and classified information for political advantage. He's not unique in American legislative history in that regard, he just happens to be a particularly blatant and loathsome partisan. And that behavior must be punished. The censure measure frankly is over-mild in my opinion, it certainly is non-kinetic. It is, in fact, the kind of political answer to a political (and probably legal) problem. It is the LEAST that Massie could do to support it. Failure to do so, yes, should result in his removal and installment of a wartime congressman.
We are in a unique time, but not quite unique circumstances. It has become clear that a cabal of people have been running this country and its policies without the framework of the Constitution. These people must be rooted out and exposed...and ideally destroyed. If they are not, then this country is dead and all we have instead is not a government by the people for the people, but a government of the elites for the elites. In other words a boring old Oligarchy not dissimilar from other nations and city states of Europe and Asia. This has been the case for longer than we imagined. It's certainly the case the JFK was not legally elected but was installed via vote rigging and it's also clear now that his assassination was engineered by government agents to install a more pliant and corrupted executive. What is unique about our time is that the information is out, that the head of the hydra has been exposed, even if only slightly, by the election of Donald Trump...and his removal from office by extra-legal means.
That's the issue. Are we a nation giving its consent to be ruled in accordance with laws or are we serfs held down by the threat of force alone? If we are not willing to fight on those terms, then may your chains rest lightly on you. You will not be the first slaves in history, nor the last. And indeed, in a cosmic or eternal sense, it may not matter. What may matter to God is how to faced these challenges and if you warped yourself in dealing with the blows and hardships of life, political and otherwise.
So you have to decide if you want to fight or kneel. I think anyone suggesting we not fight or that fighting 'isn't who we are', that the culture war 'makes them uncomfortable' is in fact empowering the Uniparty, the Oligarchs and demoralizing the citizens who are in opposition to them. If people are told they shouldn't even fight legislatively, they will never fight militarily. Optimates or Populares. Speech is the spark and the flame of freedom.
Spread the word, sure. But the word is 'fight' and not 'appease'.
And fighting means fighting to win. They are fighting to win. We'd damn well better do the same unless we want to end up in a figurative or literal gulag.
I respect what you write here. I interpret it as a call to stiffen our resolve without abandoning our principles. Think of it as strength through virtue. However, there is a limit if virtue is not to become extinct. When principles have been pushed too far, events will come to shove. I can see a point in the not too distant future when a humble and principled opposition to insane beliefs and policies will have to be abandoned, because it is now and will ever more be taken for weakness and exploited mercilessly by an unprincipled opposer. At that point, hoping that virtue will win without kinetic conflict is forlorn. Unless virtue retires pathetically hors de combat there will therefore, at that point, be winners and losers. Long before we get there, irrationality and tyranny must get the message that virtue will fight to win dirty if cornered, and that corner must be unmistakable and in clear view. With that in mind, I am with you!
I'm with you!
Nice post. This reminds me of an early 2017 long series of Tweets that delved into the Weather Underground and how the leftist elites supported their terrorism, leading to essentially no punishment and most of the perpetrators got absorbed into leftist academia such as Bill Ayers. The Tweets had a kind of hysterical undercurrent, but it's core point was correct: that the left and the right have fundamentally different tactics and strategies. The left relies on lies, distractions, long, drawn out affairs where people lose interest (hence lawfare), the long march through the institutions etc; the right relies on truth, hierarchy, swift justice, use of force, transparency. This is why when well-meaning people on the right say "oh, just mimic leftist tactics, embed yourself in leftist institutions and institute a march through the institutions the other way!" they fundamentally misunderstand the differences between the psychology between the left and the right.
Anyway here is the long series of Tweets re-posted in essay format: https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/
"Who’s with me?"
Count me in. Our own long march would be a difficult struggle. We will need legitimacy, absolutely. And the left will try to delegitimize everything we do. And they will probably succeed if they have sole control of the media. IMHO we would need to do something about that.
I read your opinion and with the exception of the Massie/Schiff perspective I agree wholeheartedly.
As to Massie's principles you are correct, however I think the two situations are quite different and require different results.
Massie was being fined due to illegitimate farcical dogma where he was made to bow and show allegiance to the COVID/CHINA/DEMISOCIALIST religion.
Schiff on the other hand was breaking the law, and congressional rules, and more importantly instigating a soft coup against the Commander in Chief.
The two are not the same.
I still think Massie and soft twenty are completely wrong and I hope they have an opportunity to rethink their decision.
We’re “blind and toothless “
And castrated.
But we have our principles.
Let them have their teeth, Eyes, balls, and the grimy illegitimate victory. And our kids.
Let us have our principles.
What outfit you with again?
Them’s ain’t fighting words, pardner.
Unless this is the Chaplain, wrong COA, let’s get back to basics.
We are exactly the teeth in eyes crowd, and if we’re not the precious American peeples will get someone who is...
Sorry to be the NCO here, I actually think if you get tossed into the 💩 soup you’ll be fine.
If
You
Live
It’s gonna be tough to live doing all these tortured moral gymnastics in yer head.
The one that shoots first wins.
The other one is dead.
Don’t think. Shoot.
Massie is sticking to higher principles while Schiff and company depose Presidents and overthrow the Republic - speaking of said Republic we’re not facing the end, its dead as Rome’s. Deader.
You’re looking corpse and saying it’s looking grim, no it’s DEAD 💀.
🇺🇸💀RIP.
Now shall we attempt to save the nation and its 330 Million People, or continue to bang the Drum of principled conservatism?
The main principle of conservatism being FRAUD masked by Preening cowardice?
Massie is a coward and is pathetically probably afraid of Schiff.
"...there is a lot of work being done on substack to build a ready made counter-narrative..."
This is something that IMO MUST BE DONE. You are absolutely right.
I was reading the John Carter post you linked to me and something occurred to me. He wrote,
"A huge segment of the population is fully hypnotized, their minds putty in the hands of the WEFites."
It is really that huge? It's easy to forget that half of Americans voted for Trump in two elections. And most of the others are in one way or another living on money from the government so they vote to get more money from the government. How do we know where the Overton window really is? Because the left tells us where it is. They could be lying; it's what they do.
Maybe WE have been the victims of the left's disinformation narrative more than we realize, in that we believe that we are a small minority in the middle of a sea of leftism/wokeism/Marxism. All the more reason to coalesce a strong counter-narrative and find a way around the MSM to put in the forefront of the minds of Americans, it would seem.
:lol: