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About theartfuldilettante

The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.

Kamala Can’t Win Without Extreme Election Interference, and That’s Exactly What’s Happening

The goal is to deny Donald Trump the White House and it will require mass election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris…

Everyone invested in a Kamala Harris victory in November isn’t making even the faintest attempt at taking her seriously as a presidential candidate. She’s not one because she has no reason to run for president, no vision, no interest in the job.

The whole point of this herculean, gravity-defying exercise we’re in the midst of isn’t to make Kamala president. It’s to deny Donald Trump the White House. The only way that can happen is for election interference on behalf of Kamala in ways that were once unspeakable.

We’re already seeing it with inexplicable poll numbers (literally, no one can explain them); a national news media that went from acknowledging Kamala as a perpetual screw-up to heralding her as a glamour queen; and an all-hands cleanup effort to remake her reputation from undeniably incapable to Barack Obama redux.

We’re entering a new phase where Democrats and the media will not only pretend Kamala’s last three embarrassing years in office never happened, but they will lie about anything and everything from here forward and to a degree in no way tethered to reality.

Once-great New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall this week asked a bunch of “historians” and “experts” at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and the like to envision a second Trump presidency. The result was the kind of unyielding, hysterical stream of horror fan fiction aspiring writers in high school post on internet forums at 3 a.m.

Sean Wilentz, Princeton: “The authoritarian imperative has moved beyond Trumpian narcissism and the cultish MAGA fringe to become an article of faith from top to bottom inside the utterly transformed Republican Party, which Trump totally commands.”

Laurence Tribe, Harvard: “All the dangers foreign and domestic posed by Trump’s cruelly vindictive, self-aggrandizing, morally unconstrained, reality-defying character … would be magnified many times over in any subsequent term.”

Timothy Synder, Yale: “Democracy depends upon example, and Trump sets the worst possible one. He has openly admired dictators his entire life. He would encourage Xi and Putin.”

These are the people unashamedly supporting a Democrat nominee who got no votes for the spot, who was installed via a bloodless coup, and who is currently serving in an administration that has indisputably weaponized the Justice Department to eliminate its primary political opposition. Or, as the left calls this behavior, “the fight for democracy.”

Trump “would encourage Xi and Putin,” meanwhile Kamala as vice president watched Russia invade a sovereign nation and China float a spy balloon across the entire United States. Trump is “vindictive” while Kamala sits at the top of an administration that, for the first time in American history, criminally charged a former president. Trump voters are “cultish” while Kamala’s party bypassed the entire primary process and rallied behind her as the newly anointed nominee with no consideration for dissenting opinion.

Democrats in positions of authority and prestige will say anything, at the expense of their credibility, to make this election work for them. Their reputations don’t matter to them, so long as they win.

Kamala just proposed a “ban on price gouging,” which is another way of saying “price controls,” which is another way of saying “socialism.” Every serious economist on either the left or right says it’s an abysmal idea or, at minimum, concedes that it would lead to mass shortages.

Another election intervention required. Axios writer Emily Peck wrote Tuesday that while Kamala hadn’t actually detailed a formal policy on the ban, those fears about shortages are “just not how anti-price gouging policies work in the U.S.” Paul Krugman at the Times wrote that what Kamala “actually” meant was “legislation banning price gouging on groceries.” And while Krugman opposes just about every popular proposal put forth by Trump, he declared that in this case, “just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea.”

Up is down. Wet is dry. Kamala is taken seriously.

You haven’t seen anything yet. The election interference on behalf of Kamala is going to get so much worse. She can’t possibly win without it.

Eddie Scarry, The Federalist

10 Lies Liberals Tell Us

As Steely Dan might say, the things that pass for knowledge today, I can’t understand.  It’s all lies, falsehoods, and misdirection on tap, served fresh 24/7/365.

Lie #1: Joe Biden was a great president, a dedicated public servant who put country first and stepped aside so that Kamala Harris’s brilliance could save our democracy.

Well, that’s five lies all tied up in one bundle!  Joe Biden is easily the worst president in my lifetime, possibly ever.  He and his family got rich, not by serving anyone, but by grifting on his various political offices.  Slow Joe also didn’t step aside; he was kicked to the curb by his Democrat comrades after it became clear he was going to lose in November. And so now we have Kamala Harris, who was chosen as V.P. simply because she possesses ovaries and dark pigmentation.  And for the one millionth time, America is a republic — if we can keep it — not a democracy.

Lie #2: Man-made climate change will make the Earth unlivable for humans in (pick one) 5, 10, 39, or 5,000 years.

Ha, ha!  If you think our Creator would allow us, His/Her/Zey’s most ambitious, creative, and intelligent organism, to destroy our beautiful terrarium, then you’re either a fool or an atheist, possibly both.  Our most brilliant minds can’t predict tomorrow’s weather with precision, our weather records extend a mere blip into the nearly five billion years of the planet’s estimated existence, and the only reason the scam’s called “climate change” is because leftists gave up on “global warming” when the Earth inconsiderately stopped warming.

Lie #3: Democrats love black people.

Where to start with this one?  The president who ended slavery in America was a Republican.  It was the Democrat party who championed Jim Crow laws.  It’s Democrats who’ve historically come up with all kinds of handouts and special programs for blacks, not because they love them, but because they think African-Americans simply can’t cut it on a level playing field.  Folks, that’s racism of the highest order

As Steely Dan might say, the things that pass for knowledge today, I can’t understand.  It’s all lies, falsehoods, and misdirection on tap, served fresh 24/7/365.

Lie #1: Joe Biden was a great president, a dedicated public servant who put country first and stepped aside so that Kamala Harris’s brilliance could save our democracy.

Well, that’s five lies all tied up in one bundle!  Joe Biden is easily the worst president in my lifetime, possibly ever.  He and his family got rich, not by serving anyone, but by grifting on his various political offices.  Slow Joe also didn’t step aside; he was kicked to the curb by his Democrat comrades after it became clear he was going to lose in November. And so now we have Kamala Harris, who was chosen as V.P. simply because she possesses ovaries and dark pigmentation.  And for the one millionth time, America is a republic — if we can keep it — not a democracy.

Lie #2: Man-made climate change will make the Earth unlivable for humans in (pick one) 5, 10, 39, or 5,000 years.

Ha, ha!  If you think our Creator would allow us, His/Her/Zey’s most ambitious, creative, and intelligent organism, to destroy our beautiful terrarium, then you’re either a fool or an atheist, possibly both.  Our most brilliant minds can’t predict tomorrow’s weather with precision, our weather records extend a mere blip into the nearly five billion years of the planet’s estimated existence, and the only reason the scam’s called “climate change” is because leftists gave up on “global warming” when the Earth inconsiderately stopped warming.

Lie #3: Democrats love black people.

Where to start with this one?  The president who ended slavery in America was a Republican.  It was the Democrat party who championed Jim Crow laws.  It’s Democrats who’ve historically come up with all kinds of handouts and special programs for blacks, not because they love them, but because they think African-Americans simply can’t cut it on a level playing field.  Folks, that’s racism of the highest order.

And Democrats just love killing unborn babies, a statistically telling percentage of whom are black.

Lie #4: Diversity is our strength.

Sponsored

Nope, sorry, uniformity is our strength.  A team that’s chosen based on merit alone, and who plays according to one set of values and with a single goal in mind, always wins.  But don’t take my word for it; ask any recent champions of the almost three-quarters African-American NBA.  If diversity is strength, then the NBA is arguably one of the weakest b-ball leagues on the planet.

Lie #4: Gender is fungible.

People who think that taking hormones and having your penis or breasts amputated changes your sex are truly the saddest products of our failed education system.  They no doubt also imagine that having webbed feet makes you a duck, or sharpening your canines makes you a vampire.  It’s fun to pretend, like I do having a catch while wearing my Yankees jersey, sadly, that does not make me a Yankee.  Ninety-nine point nine percent of the human race is born male or female.  Period.

Lie #5: Life begins at birth.

During the process of conception, a live sperm unites with a live ovum, this within the vital body of a live woman.  This human continues to live — unless torn limb from limb and vacuumed out by an abortionist — until a live baby comes into the world.  There is literally no time, from the very moment of conception until birth, where an unborn human is not alive.

Lie #6: Fat is beautiful.

All humans of any size are precious and children of God.  That being said, I’ve been a skinny, just right, and borderline obese child of God.  And nothing is just right when you’re overweight and out of shape.  You’re easily fatigued, your clothes don’t fit you properly, and trust me: hardly anyone of the opposite sex is giving you a second look.  Although no one, including me, should hate himself for carrying extra poundage, it’s imperative to work toward one’s ideal weight, especially if you wish to live a long and active life.

Lie #7: No one is illegal.

If there’s no right or wrong, if all that follows this life is one long dirt nap, then OK, no one’s illegal.  But in a world such as ours, with an almost universal moral code and a multitude of written laws, much is illegal.  You can’t waltz into a foreign country without permission any more than you’d stroll into a stranger’s house and raid his fridge.  Or steal his car, assault his spouse, or molest his kids.  It’s one of life’s most difficult challenges to stay on the right side of the law.  And, frankly, some people don’t even try and should absolutely be called illegal.  And punished accordingly.

The Lie #8: The FBI is the pre-eminent law enforcement agency in the world, and they enforce the law without fear or favor.

This might seem true to people who’ve been in a coma for the last decade or consider themselves staunch Democrats.  But to believe this, you’d have to ignore (deep breath): the Feebs lying to FISA courts in order to spy on Donald Trump, sharing communications where they talk of insurance plans for stopping Trump, giving Crooked Hillary a pass on mishandling classified info and destroying subpoenaed evidence, wasting time and millions of taxpayer dollars on the Trump-Russia Collusion Scam, stuffing Hunter Biden’s laptop full of debauchery and criminality into the circular file, setting up a bunch of halfwits for a faux conspiracy to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, killing an old, disabled man in Utah for the crime of threatening Joe Biden on social media, and pawing through Melania Trump’s underwear drawer during the outrageous raid on Mar-a-Lago, all the while prepared to use deadly force to settle a records dispute.  A records dispute!

At present, Funny Business, Inc. is “handling” a robust investigation into the attempted assassination of former president Trump.  Expect an in-depth report on that incident sometime after the Feebs decide whether or not there’s any evidence of criminality on Hunter’s laptop.

Lie #9: Joe Biden and the Democrats have brought decency back into the White House.

I don’t know about decency, but it’s true that senile Joe and his lackeys brought a bunch of things into the Executive Mansion: Dylan Mulvaney, a man pretending to be a girl; a “mysterious” bag of cocaine; a transgendered person flashing his fake breasts on the South Lawn; six of the president’s seven grandchildren, the youngest born of an affair between a stripper and Biden’s felonious son being persona non grata; the selfish, spoiled, America-hating soccer star Megan Rapinoe; the lewd, obscenity-spewing rapper GloRilla; a pair of vicious German Shepherds, both fond of chomping on Secret Service agents; and, of course, Hunter, the president’s crack-smoking, sex-trafficking, illegal gun–wielding Biden Family bagman.  If that’s decency, you can keep it.

Lie #10: The U.S. economy’s great; you just don’t know it.

Perhaps this seems true to all the millionaire actors, athletes, newscasters, entertainers, and academics so fond of smooching Democrat derrières.  But for those of you like me, who have to pay bills and balance checkbooks, this is not the best of times, but the worst.  I mean, Burger Kings are going out of business.  Dollar Stores have had to come up with a new name since almost everything costs more than a dollar these days.  Personal credit debt is at a record high, not to mention our astronomic national debt.  How can anyone tell this particular lie without covering the smirk on his face?

It’s perhaps life’s greatest challenge to personally embrace truth and reject falsehoods.  I’ve struggled with that challenge, but at least I’ve made an effort.

Not so for the people peddling the lies listed above.

Image: Gage Skidmore via FlickrCC BY-SA 2.0.

Image: Gage Skidmore via FlickrCC BY-SA 2.0.

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The Israel-Muslim War

The Moslems invaded and ethnically cleansed the Jewish population were rebranded as Palestinians. The Muslims who had brutally purged the Hindu population of Kashmir became the ‘Kashmiris’. And the campaigns were reduced to somehow irresolvable territorial disputes between a majority and a Muslim minority.

But why are these territorial disputes irresolvable? Because they’re not about territory. Land can be negotiated, but a religious dispute in which one side’s religion tells it to kill the other cannot.

That’s why no matter how much territory Israel has given up, the fighting only gets worse.

Diplomats and the media blame Israel for not giving up enough territory, but where has a conflict between non-Muslims and Muslim terrorists ever been resolved except by force? Democratic elections, foreign aid, territorial concessions have been tried with no success.

The failures are never blamed on the Islamic terrorists only on those who resisted them. The terrorists were the oppressed and the onus was always on the oppressors to change that.

Locked into the same spiral of failure, civilized nations continue trying to appease their way out of a clash of civilizations. The pattern is right in front of them, but they refuse to see it.

After 9/11, those in the government and the defense community who knew it was a religious war told the rest of us that we had to keep quiet about it to avoid escalating the conflict. But lying about the War on Terror being a religious war did not fool them: it fooled us. Western nations committed to the lie until they could no longer see the pattern that was killing them.

There’s a good deal at stake in the question of pattern recognition for Israel.

Israel cannot win the argument by contending that it has been trying and failing to compromise with the so-called ‘Palestinian’ people who for some unaccountable reason won’t negotiate. A minimalist argument cannot defeat a maximalist position. Agreeing to peace negotiations did not give Israel the moral high ground: it was an admission of guilt that destroyed it. The Islamic refusal to compromise in the decades since validated their position and their terrorism.

The complete failure of the liberal establishment to see that has brought us to this point.

Appeasing and negotiating with Islamic terrorists does not discredit them when they in turn refuse to negotiate, make concessions or keep their word. It only discredits the appeasers and locks them into a disastrous cycle of concessions that empowers the terrorists, but never addresses the fundamental issue which is not territorial, national or socioeconomic.The core issue is religious. And a religious issue can’t be solved with land swaps.

To win the argument, Israel must reject the false claim that it is involved in a territorial and national dispute with a local ‘Palestinian’ minority and instead correctly define this as one of the flashpoints in a global religious war between Islam and the rest of the world. These flashpoints have already touched every single major power, America, Europe, Russia and China, and every continent, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, and every major and many minor religions.

Israel does not have to be alone in this fight. None of us do. We have to see the pattern.

Treating Islamic terrorism as a local problem doesn’t actually isolate it: it isolates us.

When we recognize that we are all in this together, that our problems are not local, but global, then we have some hope of standing together against the greatest conflict of this century.

The decision to tell the truth about the war we are in is both difficult and necessary. Israel is the canary in the coal mine in more ways than one. No major country has told the truth plainly and clearly. Decades of mumbling about “moderates”, “democracy”, “misunderstanding Islam”, “root causes” and “extremism” led us to one defeat after another in the War on Terror.

Time is running out. Telling the truth doesn’t guarantee victory, but living in a fantasy world ensures defeat.

There is no way to defend the cause of Israel (or any free nation) against Islamic terrorism without talking about Islam. Without seeing the larger pattern, every conflict will be local, Israel will be depicted as a bully beating up on a weaker Muslim minority, and no amount of photos of Israeli beaches and gay bars, Bedouin IDF soldiers and Hebrew U students in hijabs will change that. That brand of liberal ‘hasbara’ has been tried and failed because it is not the solution.

The liberal reading of the world is the problem. That is why liberal nations have fallen. No liberal nation has been willing to stand for its own people against the Islamic invasion. Why would it stand up for Israel? Tolerance, multiculturalism and integration, foundational to Israeli ‘hasbara’, are exactly why Western nations will not defend themselves and similarly reject Israel’s defense.

Israeli resistance to Islamic terrorism is not the subject of admiration in Europe, but humiliation. It serves as a bad example. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence on total victory turns back the clock to before Obama eliminated the entire idea of victory from our cultural vocabulary. The more Israel wins, the more it loses Western liberals who believe that victory is reactionary.

To win, Israel must reframe the conflict. Some half century ago, the Islamist-Marxist alliance reframed the conflict between Israel and its Arab Muslim neighbors from a struggle between one lone country standing up to a regional evil empire to a rogue state oppressing a minority group.

Israel must uncompromisingly reframe the conflict back to where it began. And there is more at stake than just its own existence. The future of civilization rests on whether we will all see the pattern, the great bloody wave rising above us, or whether we will go on pretending it’s a drop.

Oct 7 is not just in Israel, it’s in India, America, Russia, Africa and in Europe. Our governments have lied to us for too long and fooled us into not seeing the pattern that is killing us.

Unless we see the pattern, Islam will drown civilization in its own blood.

invaded and ethnically cleansed the Jewish population were rebranded as Palestinians. The Muslims who had brutally purged the Hindu population of Kashmir became the ‘Kashmiris’. And the campaigns were reduced to somehow irresolvable territorial disputes between a majority and a Muslim minority.

But why are these territorial disputes irresolvable? Because they’re not about territory. Land can be negotiated, but a religious dispute in which one side’s religion tells it to kill the other cannot.

That’s why no matter how much territory Israel has given up, the fighting only gets worse.

Diplomats and the media blame Israel for not giving up enough territory, but where has a conflict between non-Muslims and Muslim terrorists ever been resolved except by force? Democratic elections, foreign aid, territorial concessions have been tried with no success.

The failures are never blamed on the Islamic terrorists only on those who resisted them. The terrorists were the oppressed and the onus was always on the oppressors to change that.

Locked into the same spiral of failure, civilized nations continue trying to appease their way out of a clash of civilizations. The pattern is right in front of them, but they refuse to see it.

After 9/11, those in the government and the defense community who knew it was a religious war told the rest of us that we had to keep quiet about it to avoid escalating the conflict. But lying about the War on Terror being a religious war did not fool them: it fooled us. Western nations committed to the lie until they could no longer see the pattern that was killing them.

There’s a good deal at stake in the question of pattern recognition for Israel.

Israel cannot win the argument by contending that it has been trying and failing to compromise with the so-called ‘Palestinian’ people who for some unaccountable reason won’t negotiate. A minimalist argument cannot defeat a maximalist position. Agreeing to peace negotiations did not give Israel the moral high ground: it was an admission of guilt that destroyed it. The Islamic refusal to compromise in the decades since validated their position and their terrorism.

The complete failure of the liberal establishment to see that has brought us to this point.

Appeasing and negotiating with Islamic terrorists does not discredit them when they in turn refuse to negotiate, make concessions or keep their word. It only discredits the appeasers and locks them into a disastrous cycle of concessions that empowers the terrorists, but never addresses the fundamental issue which is not territorial, national or socioeconomic.The core issue is religious. And a religious issue can’t be solved with land swaps.

To win the argument, Israel must reject the false claim that it is involved in a territorial and national dispute with a local ‘Palestinian’ minority and instead correctly define this as one of the flashpoints in a global religious war between Islam and the rest of the world. These flashpoints have already touched every single major power, America, Europe, Russia and China, and every continent, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, and every major and many minor religions.

Israel does not have to be alone in this fight. None of us do. We have to see the pattern.

Treating Islamic terrorism as a local problem doesn’t actually isolate it: it isolates us.

When we recognize that we are all in this together, that our problems are not local, but global, then we have some hope of standing together against the greatest conflict of this century.

The decision to tell the truth about the war we are in is both difficult and necessary. Israel is the canary in the coal mine in more ways than one. No major country has told the truth plainly and clearly. Decades of mumbling about “moderates”, “democracy”, “misunderstanding Islam”, “root causes” and “extremism” led us to one defeat after another in the War on Terror.

Time is running out. Telling the truth doesn’t guarantee victory, but living in a fantasy world ensures defeat.

There is no way to defend the cause of Israel (or any free nation) against Islamic terrorism without talking about Islam. Without seeing the larger pattern, every conflict will be local, Israel will be depicted as a bully beating up on a weaker Muslim minority, and no amount of photos of Israeli beaches and gay bars, Bedouin IDF soldiers and Hebrew U students in hijabs will change that. That brand of liberal ‘hasbara’ has been tried and failed because it is not the solution.

The liberal reading of the world is the problem. That is why liberal nations have fallen. No liberal nation has been willing to stand for its own people against the Islamic invasion. Why would it stand up for Israel? Tolerance, multiculturalism and integration, foundational to Israeli ‘hasbara’, are exactly why Western nations will not defend themselves and similarly reject Israel’s defense.

Israeli resistance to Islamic terrorism is not the subject of admiration in Europe, but humiliation. It serves as a bad example. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence on total victory turns back the clock to before Obama eliminated the entire idea of victory from our cultural vocabulary. The more Israel wins, the more it loses Western liberals who believe that victory is reactionary.

To win, Israel must reframe the conflict. Some half century ago, the Islamist-Marxist alliance reframed the conflict between Israel and its Arab Muslim neighbors from a struggle between one lone country standing up to a regional evil empire to a rogue state oppressing a minority group.

Israel must uncompromisingly reframe the conflict back to where it began. And there is more at stake than just its own existence. The future of civilization rests on whether we will all see the pattern, the great bloody wave rising above us, or whether we will go on pretending it’s a drop.

Oct 7 is not just in Israel, it’s in India, America, Russia, Africa and in Europe. Our governments have lied to us for too long and fooled us into not seeing the pattern that is killing us.

Unless we see the pattern, Islam will drown civilization in its own blood.

Diplomats and the media blame Israel for not giving up enough territory, but where has a conflict between non-Muslims and Muslim terrorists ever been resolved except by force? Democratic elections, foreign aid, territorial concessions have been tried with no success.

The failures are never blamed on the Islamic terrorists only on those who resisted them. The terrorists were the oppressed and the onus was always on the oppressors to change that.

Locked into the same spiral of failure, civilized nations continue trying to appease their way out of a clash of civilizations. The pattern is right in front of them, but they refuse to see it.

After 9/11, those in the government and the defense community who knew it was a religious war told the rest of us that we had to keep quiet about it to avoid escalating the conflict. But lying about the War on Terror being a religious war did not fool them: it fooled us. Western nations committed to the lie until they could no longer see the pattern that was killing them.

There’s a good deal at stake in the question of pattern recognition for Israel.

Israel cannot win the argument by contending that it has been trying and failing to compromise with the so-called ‘Palestinian’ people who for some unaccountable reason won’t negotiate. A minimalist argument cannot defeat a maximalist position. Agreeing to peace negotiations did not give Israel the moral high ground: it was an admission of guilt that destroyed it. The Islamic refusal to compromise in the decades since validated their position and their terrorism.

The complete failure of the liberal establishment to see that has brought us to this point.

Appeasing and negotiating with Islamic terrorists does not discredit them when they in turn refuse to negotiate, make concessions or keep their word. It only discredits the appeasers and locks them into a disastrous cycle of concessions that empowers the terrorists, but never addresses the fundamental issue which is not territorial, national or socioeconomic.The core issue is religious. And a religious issue can’t be solved with land swaps.

To win the argument, Israel must reject the false claim that it is involved in a territorial and national dispute with a local ‘Palestinian’ minority and instead correctly define this as one of the flashpoints in a global religious war between Islam and the rest of the world. These flashpoints have already touched every single major power, America, Europe, Russia and China, and every continent, Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, and every major and many minor religions.

Israel does not have to be alone in this fight. None of us do. We have to see the pattern.

Treating Islamic terrorism as a local problem doesn’t actually isolate it: it isolates us.

When we recognize that we are all in this together, that our problems are not local, but global, then we have some hope of standing together against the greatest conflict of this century.

The decision to tell the truth about the war we are in is both difficult and necessary. Israel is the canary in the coal mine in more ways than one. No major country has told the truth plainly and clearly. Decades of mumbling about “moderates”, “democracy”, “misunderstanding Islam”, “root causes” and “extremism” led us to one defeat after another in the War on Terror.

Time is running out. Telling the truth doesn’t guarantee victory, but living in a fantasy world ensures defeat.

There is no way to defend the cause of Israel (or any free nation) against Islamic terrorism without talking about Islam. Without seeing the larger pattern, every conflict will be local, Israel will be depicted as a bully beating up on a weaker Muslim minority, and no amount of photos of Israeli beaches and gay bars, Bedouin IDF soldiers and Hebrew U students in hijabs will change that. That brand of liberal ‘hasbara’ has been tried and failed because it is not the solution.

The liberal reading of the world is the problem. That is why liberal nations have fallen. No liberal nation has been willing to stand for its own people against the Islamic invasion. Why would it stand up for Israel? Tolerance, multiculturalism and integration, foundational to Israeli ‘hasbara’, are exactly why Western nations will not defend themselves and similarly reject Israel’s defense.

Israeli resistance to Islamic terrorism is not the subject of admiration in Europe, but humiliation. It serves as a bad example. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence on total victory turns back the clock to before Obama eliminated the entire idea of victory from our cultural vocabulary. The more Israel wins, the more it loses Western liberals who believe that victory is reactionary.

To win, Israel must reframe the conflict. Some half century ago, the Islamist-Marxist alliance reframed the conflict between Israel and its Arab Muslim neighbors from a struggle between one lone country standing up to a regional evil empire to a rogue state oppressing a minority group.

Israel must uncompromisingly reframe the conflict back to where it began. And there is more at stake than just its own existence. The future of civilization rests on whether we will all see the pattern, the great bloody wave rising above us, or whether we will go on pretending it’s a drop.

Oct 7 is not just in Israel, it’s in India, America, Russia, Africa and in Europe. Our governments have lied to us for too long and fooled us into not seeing the pattern that is killing us.

Unless we see the pattern, Islam will drown civilization in its own blood.

Puppet with a Purpose

Is Kamala incompetent? No. She’s a puppet with a purpose. The purpose of any Communist economic plan is to destroy the middle class. That way, the impoverished masses — faced with continued inflation and now shortages, brought about by the price controls she’s supporting — are dependent on government authorities for everything. You know — like it was under COVID. Only permanently, this time.

By the way, she will do it all with executive orders. Congress will be irrelevant, and she will ignore the courts, like Biden did. If Kamala weren’t the puppet, it would be someone else. Obama and the other oligarchs/statists in his network (America’s Politburo) are in charge. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s as plain as daylight.

Regarding the upcoming election season, headlines declare: “The Nation Decides”… Seriously?

The Oligarchy decides. The regime and its media decide.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, Michael Hurd Ph.D. on LinkedIn, @DrHurd on TruthSocial

Nine Things to Look Forward to at the DNC

Brace yourselves — the Democratic National Convention is upon us! While this means the country’s main political party seeking to advance the cause of joy… and vasectomies and stuff.

The Babylon Bee has obtained an exclusive itinerary for the DNC and can confirm the following list of must-see moments everyone can look forward to:

1. The ceremonial lighting of a police precinct by Tim Walz and wife: A time-honored Democrat tradition

2. A 3-hour workshop on how to pronounce “Kamala”: Say it right, you racist!

3. Sacrifice to Moloch: The god of the DNC demands innocent blood.

4. Kamala’s dramatic first appearance by falling out of a coconut tree: She’s so charming!

5. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar narrating a special tribute to the brave Hamas paragliders of October 7: Their heroic acts will never be forgotten.

6. Chuck Schumer serving delegates delicious raw cheeseburgers: Chuck’s secret recipe!

7. TAMPON CANNON!: Staffers dressed as abortion pills will fire free tampons into the audience. Delightful!

8. AOC tragically dying once again at the mention of Jan 6: She’s died so many times already. Because of MAGA.

9. DNC leaders wondering if there’s still time to change candidates again: It’s never too late for another coup.

Don’t forget to tune in every night so you don’t miss out on all the latest shenanigans!

Babylon Bee

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, made a surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, taking the stage to thank President Joe Biden after he was reportedly shoved out of the race a month ago.

“This is going to be a great week, and I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden, who will be speaking later tonight. Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you. Thank you, Joe,” Harris said.

“Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation. People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here united by our shared vision for the future of our country, and this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward,” Harris added.

“With optimism, hope, and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear, and let us always remember when we fight, we win,” the vice president continued.

WATCH:

VIDEOS AT LINK……………

Several on X, formerly known as Twitter, called out Harris for being “weird” and laughing.

X-POSTS AT LINK…………………..

Harris has been handed bad news from three polls showing she is losing support.

Two of the polls put her behind former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, and a third put her behind the Republican presidential candidate.

Two polls of potential Pennsylvania voters, one by Cygnal and one by Emerson College, gave Trump a one-point lead in the key state with 19 Electoral College votes.

A separate poll from the Napolitan News Service gave the former president a one-point lead across the country.

After Joe Biden quit the race and gave Harris his support on July 21, Harris quickly became the Democratic Party’s front-runner for the presidency. At first, this gave Democrats a clear poll boost.

In more than a dozen national polls, Harris did better than Trump, and she became the favorite to win in November with many of the biggest bookies.

“Between August 12 and 14, RMG Research polled 2,708 likely voters across the United States for Napolitan News Service, which found Trump leading Harris by 46 percent to 45 percent. When undecided voters leaning one way were included, Trump’s margin extended to 49 percent against 47 percent, compared to the last RMG poll a week ago, which put both candidates on 49 percent,” Newsweek reported.

“A Cygnal poll of 800 likely voters in Pennsylvania, conducted on August 14-15, found 44 percent would back Trump in a presidential contest versus 43 percent for Harris and 5 percent for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump increased his polling by 2 points since the last Cygnal survey in July, while Kennedy saw his support fall by 4 points,” the outlet added.

It showed that Trump had a one-point lead over Harris, with 49% of the vote to 49% for Harris. This went up to 51% vs. 49% when people who aren’t sure but lean toward one candidate were added to that candidate’s pool.

When Kennedy was taken into account, Harris and Trump were tied with 47% of the vote, while the independent candidate had 3%.

According to the poll, voters under 40 were more likely to support Harris than Trump (61% to 36%). However, Trump had a bigger lead among voters 50 to 69 (57%) than among voters of any other age.

When it came to Protestant voters, Trump was ahead 58% to 40%, and when it came to Catholic voters, Trump was ahead 60% to 39%.

Eighty-four percent of atheist and agnostic voters chose Harris over thirteen percent, and 56 percent chose Harris over 39 percent of people who didn’t say what religion they followed.

“This is going to be a great week, and I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden, who will be speaking later tonight. Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you. Thank you, Joe,” Harris said.

“Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation. People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here united by our shared vision for the future of our country, and this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward,” Harris added.

“With optimism, hope, and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear, and let us always remember when we fight, we win,” the vice president continued.

WATCH:

VIDEOS AT LINK……………

Several on X, formerly known as Twitter, called out Harris for being “weird” and laughing.

X-POSTS AT LINK…………………..

Harris has been handed bad news from three polls showing she is losing support.

Two of the polls put her behind former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, and a third put her behind the Republican presidential candidate.

Two polls of potential Pennsylvania voters, one by Cygnal and one by Emerson College, gave Trump a one-point lead in the key state with 19 Electoral College votes.

A separate poll from the Napolitan News Service gave the former president a one-point lead across the country.

After Joe Biden quit the race and gave Harris his support on July 21, Harris quickly became the Democratic Party’s front-runner for the presidency. At first, this gave Democrats a clear poll boost.

In more than a dozen national polls, Harris did better than Trump, and she became the favorite to win in November with many of the biggest bookies.

“Between August 12 and 14, RMG Research polled 2,708 likely voters across the United States for Napolitan News Service, which found Trump leading Harris by 46 percent to 45 percent. When undecided voters leaning one way were included, Trump’s margin extended to 49 percent against 47 percent, compared to the last RMG poll a week ago, which put both candidates on 49 percent,” Newsweek reported.

“A Cygnal poll of 800 likely voters in Pennsylvania, conducted on August 14-15, found 44 percent would back Trump in a presidential contest versus 43 percent for Harris and 5 percent for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump increased his polling by 2 points since the last Cygnal survey in July, while Kennedy saw his support fall by 4 points,” the outlet added.

It showed that Trump had a one-point lead over Harris, with 49% of the vote to 49% for Harris. This went up to 51% vs. 49% when people who aren’t sure but lean toward one candidate were added to that candidate’s pool.

When Kennedy was taken into account, Harris and Trump were tied with 47% of the vote, while the independent candidate had 3%.

According to the poll, voters under 40 were more likely to support Harris than Trump (61% to 36%). However, Trump had a bigger lead among voters 50 to 69 (57%) than among voters of any other age.

When it came to Protestant voters, Trump was ahead 58% to 40%, and when it came to Catholic voters, Trump was ahead 60% to 39%.

Eighty-four percent of atheist and agnostic voters chose Harris over thirteen percent, and 56 percent chose Harris over 39 percent of people who didn’t say what religion they followed.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, made a surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, taking the stage to thank President Joe Biden after he was reportedly shoved out of the race a month ago.

“This is going to be a great week, and I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden, who will be speaking later tonight. Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you. Thank you, Joe,” Harris said.

“Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation. People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here united by our shared vision for the future of our country, and this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward,” Harris added.

“With optimism, hope, and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear, and let us always remember when we fight, we win,” the vice president continued.

The U.S. Has a Problem of Too Much Law. Here’s How We Solve It | Opinion

The “rule of law” sits high on the altar of American culture as a core national value. Law in America is as pure as law can be—impartial, precise, and therefore unquestioned, like the 10 Commandments. The mandarins of law debate fine points such as judicial deference but almost never ask doctors, teachers, employers, or civic leaders whether law supports or hinders them.

But Americans in their everyday activities see a different reality. Law is so dense that it is unknowable, and so complex that even large companies with huge legal staffs can’t comply—more like the 10 Million Commandments. Instead of protecting against abuse, law has become tangles of tripwires that are gamed for selfish purposes. Instead of enhancing freedom, law causes Americans to be fearful and defensive.

The stark discrepancy between legal orthodoxy and legal dysfunction is why the new book by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze is so important. In Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, Gorsuch and Nitze make a long-overdue announcement—The legal emperor has no clothes.

Starting in the 1960s, the rule of law was transformed into an instruction manual. Instead of defining an open field of freedom, law replaced freedom. A small-town magician giving magic shows for children in local libraries with a pet bunny must now comply with the same rules as a circus, including getting a federal license, informing the agency in advance if the bunny travels, and developing a 28-page “disaster relief plan.” The magician got off easy compared to the family orchard in upstate New York, which keeps 13 clipboards to keep track of some 5,000 regulations. Too much law, as Gorsuch and Nitze described, has a similar effect as no law. People in power can exercise arbitrary power, as highlighted in their book:

—A fisherman scrapping out a living was convicted under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act—a financial records law—for misplacing three out of 72 marginally undersized fish. Eight years later, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction, but by then he had lost his income, his home, and years of health.

—When tech wunderkind Aaron Swartz hacked into an academic library and purloined articles from the 1940s without paying, prosecutors offered a plea bargain of several months in jail. When he refused, prosecutors increased the charges so that he might spend half a life behind bars. He later died by suicide.

The abuses of power in both these cases also reveals a philosophical abscess of modern law—the assumption that law should be enforced automatically, as if it were a software program, without application of human values. That’s why there’s a sense of pervasive unfairness.

Law’s quest for universal uniformity is crowding out our freedom to do things differently, or live our values. A Catholic foster child agency with a century of successful placements of needy children was cut-off from public referrals because its religious beliefs prevented it from working with gay married couples.

In Over Ruled, Gorsuch and Nitze focus on how too much law enables abuses of authority. But replacing human responsibility with legal compliance also causes endemic failures in schools and other public activities. It’s the American version of central planning. Aides in nursing homes focus on paperwork instead of what elderly residents need. Employers don’t give job references and candid reviews for fear of a lawsuit. Schools and public agencies are largely unmanageable. Gold-plated building codes make “affordable housing” unaffordable. Getting a permit for a transmission line to Midwest wind farms can take a decade or longer.

For understandable reasons, Justice Gorsuch does not step over the line of separated powers to tell Congress and the president how to fix all this law. But it is not hard to glean the foundational principles that Justice Gorsuch believes should guide reform:

—Law must be knowable, not a trap for the unwary. This requires realigning law with intuitive norms of right and wrong conduct.

—Regulation should focus on avoiding public harms, not imposing one-size-fits-all uniformity on social activities.

—Legal enforcement must be proportional to the harm, not applied arbitrarily to ruin people for foot faults. Officials who abuse their power must be accountable.

—De-regulation is appropriate where law is not protecting any realistic public harm—such as requiring months of training to be licensed as a barber or hairdresser. But most regulatory micromanagement is cured not by deregulation but by simplification—replacing red tape with human responsibility and accountability.

Over Ruled is a powerful indictment by a sitting Supreme Court justice of a modern legal system that resembles a jungle instead of a framework for freedom. The message is loud and clear—American law is overdue for a spring cleaning.

Philip K. Howard is an author, attorney, and chair of Common Good. His new book is Everyday Freedom.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

To Reduce Political Violence, Fight Statism

To Reduce Political Violence, Fight Statism

by William Rampe | Aug 14, 2024 | POLITICS

The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 — which killed one and seriously injured two bystanders — had a sobering and reflective effect on the political scene. While investigators are still determining the shooter’s motives, it is essential to note that the shooting follows an upward trend in political assassination attempts over the last few years.

This trend will continue as long as the state continues to occupy its predominant position in society. While the motives and backgrounds of actors have differed, most possessed an existential dread over the policies of their intended victims. To stop this type of violence, we have to first reduce the political anxiety of the American people.

This anxiety arises from the belief that the opposition poses such a threat — to democracy or religious liberty, for instance — that those who hold these values must take action to stop it. Although those who use this rhetoric rarely call for violence against their opponents, one could argue that the rhetoric itself condones violent action.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald made this point regarding Trump’s critics in a post on X: “If Trump is Hitler, who will build concentration camps for his critics and never permit another U.S. election — all of which they claim — why would they lament this attack and pray for his recovery?”

Greenwald is correct that hyperbolic language about Trump’s threat contradicts their condemnation of violence. However, using strong or combative language is sometimes necessary to reflect the seriousness of a political issue. Politicians at all levels have passed legislation that violates people’s individual rights; without a free press capable and willing to denounce these actions in strong terms, democracy cannot function.

As Vox’s Eric Levitz argues regarding Trump’s deportation plans, “Many undocumented immigrants were brought to the U.S. as children and know no other home. It seems reasonable to say that Trump presents a threat to their freedom.” The same goes for those who claim that President Biden’s gun control policies “attack the fabric of American liberty.”

Although both sentiments are somewhat exaggerated, they reflect that public policy affects fundamental aspects of people’s lives. Understandably, people would respond dramatically (and occasionally violently) to political decisions.

To some, this conclusion implies that violence will always exist in politics as long as people hold strong political values. This idea is true to some extent. Before the Civil War, there was no compromise over slavery that both sides would find morally acceptable, making conflict inevitable.

However, the majority of political contentions do not invoke the same moral questions as slavery did. Instead, they involve arbitrary impediments to the economic and social lives of citizens regarding issues that do not involve the rights of others.

The growth of government intervention in economics through an increase in total regulatory restrictions, the restrictions placed on parents attempting to choose the right school for their children, and prohibitions on drug use are just a few examples of the statist idea that federal, state and local governments should control personal choices. These restrictions inevitably lead to anger and anxiety in politics because they force citizens to enter the political realm — whether this involves town halls, school board meetings or protests on the street — to fight for their ability to make these decisions.

This politicization of personal choice is the essence of statism. In “The Roots of War,” Ayn Rand explained statism’s results: “The degree of statism in a country’s political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another.” 

These contentions would still occur in a free society, but they would be restricted to existential issues involving the rule of law and national defense, not disagreements over zoning or books in school libraries.

Indeed, the blame for political violence lies with those who commit it. However, the tensions created through the politicization of all areas of life inevitably lead to polarization that lays the foundation for violent acts to occur. The only method through which a society can reduce the chances of violence is to limit the state’s reach over individual choices.