The FBI orders…
…the Sanford police not to give Zimmerman his gun back.
If something happens to him as a result, I assume the family can sue the FBI?
This has gone beyond a show trial.
By the way, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Obama will never dump Holder. The guy is golden, exactly and precisely what Obama wants, the perfect lackey, mind-meld alter ego, what-have-you.
Of course, I have little doubt that if Holder had to be let go, Obama could find another willing legal beagle eager to do his bidding. But never another so perfect, or so willing, as Holder.
No more wondering. We truly have become a banana republic. We can now only wonder if this is a temporary or permanent condition.
Many joking comments at that linked article to the effect that Holder wants the gun for the Fast and Furious program.
Neo,
The article says DoJ is doing the ordering.
This Civil Rights division investigation sounds scary. I know you said the ACLU won’t touch this, but this is as clear a challenge to civil liberties as there is.
I was out shopping today thinking about this case. What I thought about was little old ladies.
Little old ladies depend on their neighbors. (You can easily substitute anyone from the wide range of people who depend especially on their neighbors, eg, a disabled person.)
Little old ladies need neighbors like Zimmerman to watch out for them and be vigilant about the neighborhood, especially a neighborhood suffering a rash of crime. Take away or neutralize neighbors like Zimmerman, and you take away their peace of mind. You jeopardize the vulnerable and weak of the community.
southernjames explained well how his decision-making has been impacted by the Zimmerman case and government-led lynch mob.
What man now in his right mind will take the enormous risk to himself and his family of guarding the little old ladies in their neighborhood? What wife in her right mind would allow her husband to take such a risk?
Someone should just loan Zimmerman a gun.
Steve: “Someone should just loan Zimmerman a gun.”
Joining a militia isn’t a bad option for him right now.
Re the ACLU and the Zimmerman verdict:
http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/statement-anthony-d-romero-not-guilty-verdict-trayvon-martin-trial
They’re cheerleading the witch hunt.
No worries: Zimmerman can just buy another one without much fuss. NICS check and cash ‘n’ carry.
GZ can obtain a gun through a private sale. Its still legal. I would bet there are plenty of people in FLA who would be willing to sell him one of the firearms in their collections.
“Little old ladies need neighbors..”
The elderly do need neighbors who watch out for them, to assist them with something as simple as shoveling the walk, mowing the lawn, or walking the dog at night. No reason to stop now. Do not let the thugs in DC dictate how you live your life.
Obama needs Holder to sell pardons in return for donations to his library when he leaves office. Holder has lots of practice from his time with the Clinton DOJ.
We are inching closer to the tipping point.
If I were Zimmerman, I would be on the road to Idaho, or somewhere close by.
Nice of them to both disarm Zimmerman and announce it to the angry masses. Any chance the DoJ is interested in the guns legally/illegally owned by the New Black Panthers, who have put a bounty on Zimmerman? Not only is this not surprising, I was expecting them to find a reason to bar him from ever owning a gun again. You know that Zimmerman can’t be allowed to win. Not gonna happen.
As for little old ladies, my parents have a few contiguous neighbors who are avid hunters, but my mom decided to arm herself after being mugged 1 1/2 years ago. The gun wouldn’t have prevented the mugging, but it was a wake-up call that she was vulnerable and seen as an easy target.
Oh, well, Stalin needed his Lavrenti Beria.
Where is the push-back? from anyone who has any power to do anything?
/crickets
I thought about calling into the Holder/DOJ hotline to claim that George Zimmerman tutored black kids and defended a black homeless man beat up by cops because he needed to create a defense against racism charges before he stalked and killed a black choir boy. If you believe that you are probably Eric Holder.
The level of corruption in the White House and its DoJ is truly alarming. So then, if their role in actively stirring up protesters to riot over the Zimmerman verdict is criminal, who arrests them? Who arrests the DoJ? I need to know because I want to put them on speed dial for the remainder of this presidency.
parker: “The elderly do need neighbors who watch out for them, to assist them with something as simple as shoveling the walk, mowing the lawn, or walking the dog at night.”
We can do things without fear. But what can we do about those predatory looking young men loitering about with an avid interest in their home?
I just so happened to read this post by Francis W. Porretto before I saw this one:
Tea Leaves By Twilight
Read the whole thing.
Once you’ve read that, I strongly–strongly–recommend reading The White Book by Robert S. Oculus III.
You can read it for free online here, or download a free PDF here. (Choose “slow download”. It only took a few seconds for me.)
}}} the perfect lackey
I would have gone with “drooling sycophant” but that’s more my style….
😀
Steve: “Someone should just loan Zimmerman a gun.”
Hell, I think we might ALL need to stock up.
Im with Beverly: What, if anything is being done to stop this crap and what can we citizens do about this?
Then again it could all be a lot of smoke.
Krqauthammer:
“While Attorney General Eric Holder told the NAACP he would continue to investigate a federal role, that could simply be his way of punting the question to a time when temperatures are lower. Moreover, he made a point of turning his NAACP address into an attack on stand-your-ground laws, thereby deflecting attention to legislation, which is the proper role of government, and away from continued persecution of a defendant already acquitted, which is not the proper role of government.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-zimmerman-case–a-touch-of-sanity/2013/07/18/35f30c00-efdd-11e2-a1f9-ea873b7e0424_story.html
The enforcement arm of the organized crime syndicate officially referred to as “The Executive Branch,” which is amusingly entitled “the Department of Justice” has not actually disarmed Zim. The syndicate’s enforcer is just refusing to allow him to have THAT gun back.
Zim can and should obtain another one, via private purchase, which is still legal in Florida.
And, I think the people, including myself, who do believe we are reaching the “tipping point,” and who cherish the 2nd Amendment need to purchase at least one firearm privately, off the books, for cash. This needs to happen now, and not 6 months or a year from now – because, since the 2012 election, events seem to be moving quickly. Faster than I expected. It is no longer rational to place any reliance upon “the rule of law,” coming to our aid.
Yes, we need to keep trying to fight the good fight, and try our best to fix this country via the electoral process. However, while hoping for the best, we have to, as individuals, prepare for the worst.
So I think we are going to see more and more cash transactions, and verbal agreements, based on a handshake and trust — with nothing recorded, nothing reported, nothing in writing, including no emails. Informal, face to face, networks. Off the grid.
For example, in light of the Crime Syndicate weaponizing the IRS to attack enemies of that syndicate, I will still attempt to make donations to the type of political organizations which were targeted. But I will do so via hand delivering cash, in person. And they won’t get my name on a list, and aside from my spouse and (trusted) close friends, nobody is going to know about it.
Another example. I will continue to be a “neighborhood watch” type of person, keeping an eye out for the vulnerable “little old ladies” around me — that will never stop. But it will be by informal, verbal arrangements — nothing official, nothing recorded, nothing in writing.
Hard cash transactions for things like my auto mechanic, store purchases, etc., are going to increase too, in this Brave New World. No way to get off the grid (a log cabin in the forrest is not in the cards) — but we can try to at least reduce our exposure and decrease the “bits” of info that can be compiled about us…..
In fact, I think it would be a good idea to try to befriend a former Soviet who immigrated to the US. Get tips and hints on black market transactions, bartering, flying under the state’s radar, etc.
Yeah this all seems real stupid and paranoid – and if I deserve to be accused of wearing a tin foil hat, so be it, and I hereby denounce myself.
But think about it. IF we have, in fact, reached the tipping point, and IF we are, in fact, sliding into Banana Republic status with all that name entails…..this is what it is coming to, isn’t it?
In view of the recent rioting, wilding, random racial attacks, and black flash mobs it might be time to revisit John Derbyshire’s “talk” for which he was savaged.
http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire#axzz2ZSC9swL6
What if the whole point of this show trial was to make people into racists, white and black? That’s what the Democratic party needs–blacks united as one bloc against the other “racist” side.
Ironically, there is no reason to be ashamed for being white after this decision. Zimmerman IS A HISPANIC. In every facet of life, he would check off the Hispanic box, and unlike Liz Warren, he’d be doing so correctly.
lacune,
The real enemy is Marxists.
Racial strife is their political mechanism for a divide and conquer strategy, a means to an end.
southerjames: “Yes, we need to keep trying to fight the good fight, and try our best to fix this country via the electoral process.”
This goes to a criticism I keep harping on with the Tea Party. The fight has to be won on the ground in terms of an insurgent proselytizing popular social-cultural movement spearheaded by activists. That’s where the Tea Party especially and the Right in general need to be investing in order to claim the initiative and go on the offense.
The general will of We the People needs to be won.
The political part will fall in place from there. The enemy won’t give up his political power easily and will fight dirty to hold their ground, but once the power of the people is marshaled, the rest will follow.
Eric,
“The fight has to be won on the ground in terms of an insurgent proselytizing popular social-cultural movement spearheaded by activists.”
Isn’t that exactly what the left has done? And among the under 40 crowd and low-information voters, hasn’t that fight already been won?
Hasn’t “the power of the people” already been marshaled, by the left? Isn’t that demonstrated by Obama’s election in 2008 and then confirmed in 2012?
Given the media controlling the narrative with the low-information voter and, the continued indoctrination in our schools and, the Republican party’s craven and repeated capitulation and, the left’s criminality and, the demographic trends in American society… upon what basis do you propose that we have any shot at winning a fight, that’s already been won?
The only thing that’s going to awaken America is brutal reality.
Eric,
There needs to be grass roots organization. I had thought that the Tea Party activists, who were so successful in the 2010 mid-terms, had lost their momentum or mojo or something when 2012 rolled around. Or perhaps were so unhappy with Romney, the organizers and leaders simply decided to sit it out. Or maybe the MSM sliming of tea party types as being racists was so successfully embedded in the minds of the low infos, that people felt embarassed joining a group. I just didn’t know.
Now I do. Turns out all my assumptions were wrong.
It is now becoming more and more apparent that the election was instead, flat out stolen. As it will be in 2016, when the Left’s chosen successor (probably Hillary) will get “elected” (quote marks intentional). [Off topic, but once that happens and she is able to replace a couple of the current elderly justices on the SC, kiss the 2nd Amendment bye bye – Heller and McDonald WILL be reversed in short order – back on topic….]
Bombshell after bombshell slowly leaks out about this criminal syndicate…..in spite of their cover-up efforts, blatant lies (“oh it was a few folks out in Cincinnati;” “oh, gee they also targeted liberal groups!” Riight), aided and abetted by their co-conspirators in the MSM, and generally inept GOP doing the investigating….
The opposition was shut down, shut out, silenced, and never had a chance to do the organizing, fund raising, get out the vote efforts, communicating, etc. Heck, some lady who started a organization to try to put a stop to widespread voter fraud — I think it was called “True the Vote,” was not only harrassed by the IRS, but also by outfits like ATF! Somebody trying to STOP voter fraud was treated like a domestic terrorist. Hmm.
There will be no TRUE consequences suffered by anyone for this. Oh, maybe a few people will be thrown under the bus, just for show. But the government, corrupt to its very essential and most innermost core – will just keep keepin on.
Z is not charged with anything so he can go buy another. Also the other gun he surrendered is not evidence in any potential case so that should still be returned. When he surrendered for his political arrest he was carrying an FN Five-seveN (yes, that is the way it is written, see link) and 3 20 round mags. That’s 60 5.7x28mm angry bees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_Five-seven
Geoffrey Britain: “upon what basis do you propose that we have any shot at winning a fight, that’s already been won?”
Because the game ain’t over til it’s over. And activists know the game never ends. (Although an extinction level event tsunami economic total collapse could end the game.)
As the bard said, And the first one now will later be last, For the times they are a-changin.
It’s a micro-example, but I’ll cite again for the umpteenth time the victory by Ivy League ROTC advocates in 2011, led by pro-military Ivy League student activists, and this quote from when the 1st year of their campaign.
Columbia Spectator, February 3, 2003:
In most of our major American war victories, we actually lost our 1st battles and spectacularly so. the COIN surge turned around the Iraq mission (before Obama fumbled it away) when it looked hopeless.
The ROTC student advocates at Columbia were told repeatedly that their goal of ROTC return to Columbia was impossible. They decided, yeah well, fudge it, we’re going to play to win anyway.
Activism is Marxist but Marxism is a method as well as an ideology. The game is Marxist, but that doesn’t mean only Marxist ideologues can win it.
And you know, the Marxist game favors the insurgent. If the Left is in power, that means the Right is the insurgent. Advantage Right, but if and only if the Right chooses to be activist and play the game in earnest. You can’t fake it. You have to play the game to win.
To call Holder a “Legal Beagle” is to gravely misunderestimate the man.
Don Carlos,
It’s also very insulting to beagles.
Eric,
Orwell observed that, “Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.” So in principle, I agree that, it ain’t over, till it’s over.
That said, while the attitude of “never give up” is essential, it does not a winning strategy make, nor is, ‘lets do the same thing as the left’. Not when organizing a smaller, aging demographic is the sole ‘market segment’ available to persuasion.
In a discussion with a neo-Nazi, would you listen? Or would you immediately discount his assertions as blatant racist bias, as soon as you learned that he was a Nazi? Extend that question to the general low-information voter and realize when you get into a discussion with a ‘typical’ liberal, i.e. ignorant yet certain they know what’s going on and thoroughly indoctrinated into the memes of the left… that most liberals believe that conservatives are selfish, greedy racists.
Why would anyone accept a selfish, anti-social racist’s arguments?
The point being that the portion of the American public open to persuasion is limited and declining. Academia has indoctrinated generations, establishing the attitudinal ‘filters’ through which all information is processed.
“Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across the truth. Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as if nothing had happened.” Winston Churchill
The mass media ensures that the information that the indoctrinated are exposed to, supports the narrative and contradicts it as little as possible.
Most American’s that are going to awaken without a ‘Tsunami’ event have already done so.
To reject leftist/liberalism requires a MAJOR shift in one’s world-view, about as fundamental a change as possible. Few do so and of those that do, it generally takes years to make that transition.
There is however one type of conversion that happens quickly; the mugged by reality liberal.
It is my contention that with all the many factors at play that we have discussed on this blog, ad infinitum, that only when America is thoroughly and brutally mugged by reality will it start to awaken.
We are in the process of watching a coup. There is no legal basis for Holder to order Zimmerman’s gun not to be returned. At this point, he is completely innocent of all charges. This is strictly a political decision with no legal backing.
Couple this with Obama decisions to ignore black letter law he finds inconvenient, history of attacking foreign countries on his own initiative for as long as he wants, and his propensity to criticize the other two branches of government in an effort to marginalize them and we have the building of an autocracy. When Obama is gone, we need specific legislation to rein in an out of control President and to provide standing for someone to challenge illegal acts in the Supreme Court.
“In most of our major American war victories, we actually lost our 1st battles and spectacularly so . . . .” (Eric @11:36)
“That said, while the attitude of “never give up” is essential, it does not a winning strategy make . . . .” (Geoffrey Britain @12:15)
Actually, “never give up is in fact an eventual winning strategy;
Winston Churchill’s exhortation to never give up aside, the vaunted Army of the Roman Empire is just such a case in point. Remembered in history as an undefeatable behemoth, in fact the Roman army lost more battles than it won. They made the ultimate win their strategic goal and refused to allow tactical failure to interfere with that goal. Lose a battle? Return with a larger and stronger force. Lose that battle return, yet again, with an even larger and even stronger force. Hannibal’s crossing the Alps was a Carthaginian attempt to beard the Roman lion in its den. Rather than respond with the attitude of “We’d better let those Carthaginians alone. What if they try this again and do it successfully?” they responded with the attitude “How dare they invade our own sovereign turf. After multiple defeats at the hands of the Carthaginians, the Romans won.
Let me channel Cato: Nanny state delenda est!
southernjames,
Overcoming erected institutional obstacles is part of the game. Do think the Marxists started in control of the USG? They infiltrated and consolidated in a mechanical process. They didn’t copyright that process. Even if they did, so what. Steal the blueprint and pirate it. More, improve the process and make it your own.
Hell, ‘changer’ activists like David Horowitz are trying their best to spoonfeed the Right on playing the activist game, yet no takers. What?!
To draw again on the Ivy League ROTC analogy, specifically Columbia, which was the central battleground, the Columbia University Senate was created in the wake of the Vietnam War protests in which ROTC was effectively barred at Columbia. A generally known, and I believe even codified, purpose of the CU Senate was to block the CU administration from reinstating ROTC by fiat. The CU Senate is mostly faculty, with students and administrators.
The consensus was that even if every CU trustee and CU admin lusted for ROTC, it would never pass the CU Senate.
But the CU ROTC student advocates took on the challenge, played the game in earnest, and worked the process. In 2011, the CU Senate that would never ever accept ROTC voted overwhelming for ROTC. (FYI, the process included an overwhelming CU Senate vote against ROTC the 1st time the campaign broke the ice into the CU Senate in 2005.)
You just have to play the game, use defeats as building blocks, and work the process.
The appearance of indomitable invincibility and inevitability of those in power is often an illusion, which is a feature of the Marxist game. Heck, it’s a feature of the history of human civilization.
The Left is only unbeatable as the Right claims the Left to be.
“Or perhaps were so unhappy with Romney, the organizers and leaders simply decided to sit it out.”
They got the causality backwards in terms of candidate choice. The candidate follows the general will, the general will doesn’t follow the candidate. Whether or not the ultimate Nov elections were lost via fraud, the initial choices of Romney and McCain reflect the rational calculation of the GOP leaders reading the electoral tea leaves.
So change the tea leaves of We the People if you want better candidates. Don’t expect the candidates to change We the People. The President of the US is chosen by the people, not the Messiah given us by God.
In politics, not every last American citizen needs to be converted into a true believer to win the contest of We the People.
The general will of We the People is only essentially a narrative. Only a critical mass of the people are needed plus the critical nodes (eg, media; eg, the Columbia Spectator endorsed ROTC return something like 7 years in a row; the CU ROTC advocates worked the media, too) to compete for We the People. Enough of the rest will fall in line.
Heck, it’s not as though every colonist endorsed the Revolution nor did every northerner oppose southern secession. We the People doesn’t work like that.
It’s a process of steps. The foundation of change needs to be set in the ground game. When the foundation is ready, you’ll have the power to change the institutional party and the government.
It’s not easy nor quick, especially with legal-rational bureaucratic entrenchment, but the point is, the price of entry needs to be paid.
The Left paid the price and did the work to claim We the People.
If the Right is unwilling to pay the price and do the work, why should they deserve to claim We the People?
One American Ivy League university is not all of America, but I believe that if an insurgency of Columbia ROTC student advocates starting with no more than their own faculties and beliefs were able to fight their cause up from the grassroots on College Walk up through the CU Senate that was designed to bar ROTC return, the game can be won in America, too.
Finally, you know those annoying fold-out tables with flyers, petitions, sloppy hand-printed posterboard signs, and pushy student activists that are ubiquitous in college common areas trumpeting the Leftist cause du jour?
That is *exactly* how the CU ROTC campaign started. 8 years and many steps later, their student successors were still playing the ground game, but had added a sophisticated lobbying effort with the CU senators. By then CU alumni and faculty ROTC advocates had joined the ROTC campaign under student leadership.
No, you can’t win it all at one bite. But you have to start somewhere. Then work it.
Geoffrey Britain,
Your comment about being “mugged by reality” is precisely the reason that never give up is the ultimate winning strategy. Reality will out (eventually); never giving up gives that “mugging” of the confirmed liberal time to occur. Read about Neoneocon’s own conversion from the liberal left; it might have been more gradual that some, but it was an awakening to the reality around her that eventually took place.
Geoffrey Britain,
If the Right can muster enough activism to play the game, absorb the inevitable crippling blows, adapt, return to the offense, and play the game to the hilt, then we’ll be able to find out what works.
Otherwise, nothing guarantees defeat like a forfeit.
Like I said, I draw inspiration from the Ivy League ROTC campaign. They were told their goal was impossible, too. The discouragements given them were a lot like yours.
What is there to lose anyway? America? Isn’t the Right saying they’ve already lost America? Seems to me then, the Right has everything to gain and nothing to lose by playing the game.
Me: “Otherwise, nothing guarantees defeat like a forfeit.”
A half-assed effort can pretty much guarantee defeat, too.
“Actually, “never give up is in fact an eventual winning strategy” T
I’ll grant you that no strategy can win without that attitude. That said, tell the 300 Spartans that ‘never give up’ is a winning strategy. Yes, the Greeks later won at the Battles of Salamis, Plataea and Mycale but the same Roman legions you cite later ended Greek independence and its civilizational contributions.
Nor, despite their ‘never give up’ attitude did the Romans last because internal factors led to susceptibility to “the barbarians at the gate”. And, as long as human nature supports greed, selfishness and criminality, there will always be ‘barbarians’ at civilization’s gate.
Arguably, those same internal factors are at play today in America; Gibbon said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end:
1st, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, the worship of affluence);
2nd, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor
3rd, an obsession with sex;
4th, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, & mere enthusiasms presented as creativity;
5th, an increased desire to live off the state.
Sound familiar?
I do agree that ‘never give up’ will eventually be a winning strategy but only because the leftist/liberalism is fundamentally anti-reality.
Eventually liberals will discover what they have ‘bought’. That is because socialism unavoidably leads to the tyranny of the regulated state and gradual PC categorization of ALL thought, speech and behavior as either forbidden or mandatory. Coercion, which socialism is, being necessary to theft.
I have read neo’s conversion, it parallels my own story, we share that in common.
Eric,
I agree that forfeiting the game is not an option.
We’re discussing the tactics necessary to strategy not whether we should resist.
Hey Jean,
I see you might do some guest posting at Legal Insurrection! 🙂
Besides your blog that’s another one I read every day. I never comment there though.
Years ago, arguing topics that were much less important, I naively believed in the power of truth: that if you could present truth, then reasonable people would revise their views to accommodate reality. I believed that a negative outcome that was an obvious consequence of a bad idea was its own argument against that bad idea. But after years of windmill tilting, I found that people are blockheaded idiots: that no amount of facts to the contrary will change a hard-held opinion based on nothing but hot air, and when confronted by a bad outcome as a result of a bad idea in action, it’s not because the bad idea was a bad idea, it’s because the bad idea was not implemented correctly, or soon enough, or some other factor prevented the bad idea from working like it obviously will if tried again or continued.
“Never give up, never surrender” is a part of my personal philosophy, but practically speaking, I just do not see how the battle for the future of the US is a winnable contest at this point for us. We can quibble on certain details, but we have been outfoxed. We are the bad guy to a growing majority of the nation, and I seriously doubt they are going to listen to facts or learn from disastrous outcomes.
Geoffrey Britain,
Never give up might not have saved the 300 Spartans, but had the Greek world given up as the result of Thermopylae, the decisive battle at Salamis would never have occurred.
In extolling the never-give-up strategy I was speaking intra-culturally. Certainly all civilizations have an evolution; a beginning, a middle and an end with which I’m sure you’ll agree. You note that the Greeks were eventually subsumed by the Romans. Never-give-up clearly doesn’t eliminate such an evolution, but it may forestall It, condition it or change it. Now the Greeks were overcome by a bureaucratically superior culture and larger forces, but they were not defeated by a failed ideology based upon cultural division and class envy which is the only weaponry of our current leftists.
This country has one incredible powerful force working in its favor; the non-violent transfer of power. In fact that is the ability to invent a new regime through other than armed uprising and imperial assassination. Purely and simply that, IMO, makes us unique in the annals of the civilizations of the world.
As Churchill noted, one can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve exhausted all the other possibilities. Forfeit does not permit us to run that gantlet, and perhaps we have yet to exhaust those other options. You write: “Eventually liberals will discover what they have ‘bought’.” I agree. Even if hard-core leftists remain unconvinced because they refuse to accept the failure of their “theology,” I’m sure that enough others will recognize this failing to which you refer to make a difference (think “Detroit” here), but never-give-up is a prerequisite for that to happen.
Also, your citation of Gibbon above brings to mind almost this exact same conversation on this site from over two years ago. Kolnai and I parried about precisely these ideas in a thread which, of all things, targeted English as a national language. This was also a debate which Kolnai and I took off-site to a lengthy e-mail conversation.
FYI here is the link if you are at all interested, (but you must read the comments about one third of the way through to get to this topic).
http://neoneocon.com/2011/03/14/pushing-english-as-the-official-language/
The president just interrupted Mark Steyn [filling in for Rush] to give yet another mini speech on Trayvon (now he’s saying that he IS Trayvon, or at least could have been, 30 years ago).
Had to turn it off; it was ruining my lunch break…
This is incredible…
Kyndyll,
“if you could present truth, then reasonable people would revise their views to accommodate reality.”
That is a rational thought, but human beings are primarily emotional creatures. I’m in financial services, and one of the long-held beliefs is this field is that investors make rational decisions in their own interest. Daniel Khaneman has decisively shown that this is entirely incorrect.
We are all emotionally beings prone to making emotional decisions. Has one had a bad experience at a restaurant. It could have been a one-time occurrance but we’ll never eat there again. In his book Bias Bernard Goldberg highlights a study that show people rate the competence of physicians by whether they wear a white or a blue lab coat.
IMO the great error that right of center folks commit is that they try to sway emotions with rational thought. That’s like trying to turn a Phillips-head screw with a crescent wrench.
This is why I have, on several occasions veered away from arguing with other commenters with facts (e.g., Mitsu) and have focused on attacking the false premise of the argument and why the premise is false. This reduces the leftist rebuttal to either name calling or to a “because I said so” response. As you point out, they will still not admit defeat of their argument, but it makes it much more difficult for them to claim victory.
Near where I live, you can go to the “hood” and buy a gun with EBT (food stamps) cards. Getting illegal firearms are not difficult.
I fully expect a pardon for Holder as one of the last things Barry does on his way out.
Roman,
I believe that one can only be pardoned after one has been convicted of something. I don’t think the administration, the media or the gutless RINOs will ever let it get that far.
He is at it again but even worse. Now, that punk could not just have been his son, but Obama now says Trayvon is him 35 years ago. They have morphed into one menacing being.
ANd he will not let up with the false narrative that Martin was attacked because he was black in his relentless pursuit of making racial hatred. He is spouting it again.
Obama is figuratively using MMA and pound and ground fighting against innocent Zimmerman and innocent white America.
Martin saw Zimmermans gun and was reaching for it and told him he was going to die.
I am so glad that Zimmerman got to the trigger first or this would have been a tragedy.
How do you make a so called president of the United States shut up. He is as bad as Al Sharpton but without the personal stylist.
He does not want peace in America. He wants America in pieces.
They want a shooting race war, it is getting close:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/07/it-begins-trayvon-supporters-leave-nasty-notes-instead-of-tips-for-florida-waitresses/
Stuff like this is going to spread and get worse, his comments today throw fuel on a fire.
T Says:
“I believe that one can only be pardoned after one has been convicted of something. I don’t think the administration, the media or the gutless RINOs will ever let it get that far.”
T, that may be true, but I don’t believe Richard Nixon was charged formally and certainly not convicted of anything. I would not put it past this administration to try anything. It could wind up as a court battle into the next century.
kit:
If Martin had gotten to Zimmerman’s gun first and killed him (or killed or brain-injured him from continuing to pound his head on the concrete), it would have been a tragedy but the vast majority of us would never have heard about it. The story would have been confined to the local Sanford papers. Zimmerman’s family and friends would have borne the brunt of the tragedy, but it would never have become a cause celebre.
Roman IS correct.
Ford pre-pardoned Nixon.
It was a BIG event.
Darrell…
That story — which may well be a hoax — should NOT be amplified.
To do so is entirely counter-productive.
Those 300 magnificent bastards held off a force of 300,000 …three hundred thousand …against one of the most successful fighting forces of the Ancients: the Persians …and laid the groundwork for the Persian’s ultimate defeat …for long enough that we still tell a tale as history that should have passed into legend only.
Even in death, victory.
And the conquering Rome that came later, became essentially a Grecian culture, salted and flavored with the Judeo-Christianism that merged into what we call the West.
We – the West – remain essentially that Grecian culture.
So I think those Spartans yet rest easy in eternity as they view with satisfaction the outcome of their valor.
.
.
.
For it is only the passing weakness whose source is the immorality of an effete, dissolute, and dissipated elite and an Academy composed of buffoonish caricatures of intellectuals that rejects our foundational Grecian cultural truths, that the West is suffering its first losses since Grecian culture came to rule the entire world of Man.
The core is strong. Because it is based upon self-evident truths.
It is the head that needs chopped off.
…we can grow another head.
Folks, I must strongly recommend that you take pains and plans to survive through the upheaval so typical of currency breakdowns.
The Left has erected a policy matrix that it can’t finance.
Period.
Stop.
Do NOT wring your hands in despair.
Instead, figure out how to keep your body and soul together — and out of the social blast zone — when the Federal government has to lop off HALF of all of its spending.
Our government is only going to balance its budget once the world refuses to take any more of its IOUs.
That event will be a traumatic crisis as painful as losing a major war.
During such times, it’s common for the ENTIRE old order to be swept away. For America, that would most likely take the form of a revolt at the ballot box. (1932, anyone?)
Such a ‘restructuring’ would open a wide window for drastic change — almost like a national bankruptcy.
ANY government that prints 45% of its budget into existence is burning a short fuse.
Is it any wonder that Bernanke is bailing out?
All of the structures that empower the President will fade away like the final scenes from Lord of the Rings — when he can’t pay — when Uncle Sam becomes a dead beat.
Ultimately, gutting the tax base and splurging on cronies will tell.
And time is a LOT shorter than you think. Look at the hot money flowing into real estate, crude oil….
In the markets, everything moves slowly — then all at once. Just ask the Lehman Bros crew.
One of the reasons why I wasn’t as in love with guns as some of my fellow compatriots were, was merely the idea that external weapons can be taken from you and as a result you lose power in battle.
It felt strange to me that a warrior or fighter would lose power by not having an external weapon. Something about that didn’t ring with a universal truth.
It’s like thinking a car or plane will lose its ability to carry stuff or fly, because the windshield or paint job was stripped off.
Roman,
“I would not put it past this administration to try anything.”
We are in agreement.
Yes, Ford pre-pardoning Nixon effectively ended the Watergate scandal.
davisbr,
I yield to no one in my admiration for Leonidas, the 300 Spartans and the 700 Thespians who remained with the Spartans to the bitter end.
Nor was their sacrifice in vain. They literally saved western civilization from being stillborn. Had they not delayed the Persians for that critical 7 days, the Athenians would not have had time to rally their fleet, evacuate Athens and plan for Salamis.
Yes, Rome did adopt much of the Greek culture, though not its perhaps most important areas of math, logic and philosophy.
Civilizations do rise and die and when its their time to die, ‘never give up’ does not save the day. I’m not suggesting that our time has come because 1/2 this country still embraces the values that made it great. And perhaps a 1/3 more are duped liberals.
I am suggesting that we are, at best conducting a holding action and that until reality intrudes, we are unlikely to reassert enough political power to effect substantive change.
…and to that elaboration GB, I fully agree.
🙂
Geoffrey Britain-
“I yield to no one in my admiration for Leonidas, the 300 Spartans and the 700 Thespians who remained with the Spartans to the bitter end.”
My old history professor used to kid that the only reason we usually mention the 300 Spartans, is because the Thespians were just playing dead. Only us nerds chuckled.
T –
I just re-read our discussion, which fellow neoneocon stalwarts Wolla Dalbo, oblio, and others joined, for the first time in, well, some time.
It’s funny, until recently I’d been working on my dissertation for so long that most of the historical details I displayed knowledge of back then have evaporated into the Ether of Decayed Learning. Reading my own comments was like reading those of a vaguely familiar friend who happens to be my past self. Not that I don’t still have The Historical Blues for America – I just don’t have the time to read books like Goldsworthy’s anymore.
In any case, and to come back to the topic of this thread, Parker and I hashed this out, somewhat testily, in a thread a few months ago, and my general stance remains basically the same as it was way back when:
Never give up, as an attitude, is really the only choice there is – Parker likes to say, “The worse they can do is kill you,” which is damn right. If we do give up, then they can do far worse: enslave us.
But at the same time, I believe as a matter of what you must forgive me for vaguely calling “the tendency of things at present” that this country and its Constitutional structure are not going to survive.
I tend to be confused for a counsellor of resignation because of the second, historically pessimistic belief. My main retort is that we don’t give up on life simply because we know we’re going to die. Imperfect as the analogy is, it makes the possibility of a position such as mine somewhat clearer: there’s nothing inconsistent about believing the American republic is going to die and still fighting for its life anyway. I guess there’s something of the myth of sisyphus, or Goethe’s Prometheus in that sort of attitude. Defy evil and absurdity because it’s right and meaningful, and if we lose, we lose on our feet, not on our knees.
So the posture (in the non-pejorative sense) of “Never give up” is something I can wholeheartedly embrace. Tactics, as GB notes, are still open to debate, and the details of the strategy are as well (I would call it Operation Commanding Heights, after Arnold Kling’s phrase for the key stations of influence in society).
But I’ll leave it there for now.
“In the markets, everything moves slowly – then all at once.”
Definitely. Water, food, fuel, PM, ammo, family, friends, and cash outside a bank for the first few days of the panic. The slow motion train wreck of the last 40 years is slow motion except for that last inch before the derailment. That happens in the blink of an eye.
Convincing Leftists is not necessary, nor feasible.
The Left will convince Leftists that the Left is evil, sooner or later.
What an insurgency needs to do is to lay the foundation for the time when the people wake up to the truth, whatever “that” might be.
This is giving up some tactical fights for a longer term strategic advantage.
But one of the reasons why America is still in trouble, no matter who wins the civil war, is that afterwards the opinions of the victors won’t be unified. We will argue about the same kinds of things we argue here about… except we’ll have gotten used to using guns and force to get rid of our opponents. Honest debate? That will not exist during the civil war, nor after it.
Might makes right might exist though.
By the time a civil war starts, the people have already lost in some very important strategic aspects. That’s unavoidable. But if you avoid civil war, what then?
Such is the strategic situation that all options are horrible. Some are just more horrible than others.
Humans, soldiers, warriors, are thus taught in life to continue living regardless of the circumstances. To atone for sins and evils. To make their life worthy of what it cost to give them birth and life. To help others that are trodding the same path of pain and tears that the senior generation has already taken.
The Left teaches that humanity will become Pure and Perfect only when controlled by the Left’s Utopia. But we as humans, have no real way to tell whether this utopia rests in politicians or in our neighbors.
Eric, Marxist games favor the insurgents because Marxism was up against capitalist weaklings.
When the Marxist wins, the insurgents are purged and exterminated. We saw it in Cuba, as well as other places.
The Tea Party could have formed a foundation for an insurgency and was actually doing so, until the Left crushed them, almost completely. And nobody even knew that it had happened at the time it was happening.
In Marxism, the insurgency is only powerful when the target are good capitalists. When the targets are evil marxists…. the game changes.
Kolnai,
Nice to hear from you.
As Neo’s comment the other day about one of her own posts, these topics seem cyclical.
” . . . evaporated into the Ether of Decayed Learning.”
Such a marvelously painted thought can not be allowed to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Full circle on this post:
The Banana Republic of America!
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/07/19/michigan-judge-halts-detroit-bankruptcy-because-it-dishonors-obama/
Ymarsakar: “In Marxism, the insurgency is only powerful when the target are good capitalists. When the targets are evil marxists…. the game changes.”
I disagree on your 1st sentence. I agree on your 2nd sentence.
Regarding your 1st sentence, I disagree – the Marxists can be beat at their own game. But the surest way to be defeated is to forfeit the game.
This notion that the Marxists in power cannot be defeated at the Marxist game is false and self-defeating. I apologize for the harshness, but I believe the notion of an indomitable Left in power is no more than the rationalization of people who refuse to compete outside of their comfort zone.
Geoffrey Britain says he’s seeking a different game (different strategy and tactics), not forfeiting. But there is no other game, barring tipping-point economic collapse or the militias rising as one for total war. As long as we’re within political boundaries, not playing the Marxist game is the same as forfeit. Again, there is no other game.
The Tea Party movement wasn’t defeated from the outside. From an activist’s critical evaluation, the Tea Party movement stopped itself. Their critical error was to focus on the electoral process and marginalize their insurgent popular campaign.
The Tea Party movement should have been *all about* the insurgent popular campaign. Winning elections should have been no greater than a second-order effect.
Again, my view is based on the recent example of the Ivy ROTC advocates, particularly at Columbia, who played the Marxist game and defeated the campus Left.
The Leftists on the national level – where do you think they come from? You all realize that Holder and Obama are Columbia grads, right?
Regarding your 2nd sentence, I agree that Marxists in power are harder to defeat. But harder doesn’t mean impossible. It’s like facing a smart adaptive skilled committed opponent in war, sports, or business or any competitive arena. They may be the champions today, but the Marxist game never ends. You get your intel, figure it out, work the problem, and continue mission.
It’s a process of steps. The Tea Party thought they found a short-cut when they got members elected to Congress. There are no short cuts.
Was the Columbia ROTC movement opposed by the campus Left? Damn right they were. The campus Left fought to protect the hallmark victory won by the Left at Columbia in the 1960s. And yes, they fought dirty.
The key to the victory is the ROTC advocates were led by liberal activists who were naturally at ease playing the Marxist game. The conservatives among them, by and large, while they made valuable contributions in different ways, were out of their element and less helpful playing the Marxist game.
Indeed, the conservative advocates became so uncomfortable at times with the Marxist game that they even tried to pull back the liberal activists. Sometimes, the liberal student leaders were forced to pull rank on professors and alumni in order to make necessary moves.
Again, from my standpoint, the Tea Party movement defeated themselves. The Tea Party failure doesn’t speak to the dominance of Marxists. It speaks to the incompetence of the Tea Party.
How many liberal activists are among Tea Party leaders? Not dilettantes playing at activism, but real activists willing and able to compete on the ground against the real activists on the Left?
The solution is to find people on the Right – ‘changers’ like David Horowitz and Neo – who understand the Marxist game and for whom competing in it is in their comfort zone. Make them the leaders. Give them the resources they need. Then play to win.
This is what I said about the Thespians on my blog after reading Frank Miller’s comic and reading up on the battle.
Excerpt:
Ymarsakar: “One of the reasons why I wasn’t as in love with guns as some of my fellow compatriots were, was merely the idea that external weapons can be taken from you and as a result you lose power in battle.”
It’s like anything, the tool is only as good as the craftsman. Whether it’s clay for the potter, brush for the artist, the knife for the chef, the weapon for the soldier.
T,
I was about to respond to Kyndyll about the Left’s immunity to rational truth when I read your comment to him. Specifically:
My response to Kyndyll is that the Left doesn’t disregard truth. Rather Marxists are animated by ‘higher’ truths by which they evaluate everything else.
Thus, the logic-defying spectacle of Mitsu reducing obvious merits to mere opinions that he can then re-evaluate and assign “certainty” according to his ‘higher’ truths.
If Neo or Horowitz attempted to organize like the Tea Party did, the Left would shut them down in the same manner. They are no different, merely because they have a different pov or knowledge base.
They are different because their “different pov or knowledge base” means they would have adapted and overcame.
There is no evidence anyone was able to overcome the ATF or IRS or environmental groups.
All your evidence points to, Eric, is college students accomplishing things against the Left. The Youth Brigade, basically. Whereas the Tea Party was up against adult totalitarians, not cadets in training.
Where is your evidence that anyone would have been able to over turn the IRS and Obama’s counter insurgency operations?