Month: September 2020

Guest Contributor – War Pig – Comments on Antifa’s Announced Disruptions in Washington D.C.

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I see where Antifa and BLM are calling for the burning of Congress and SCOTUS over replacing RBG. They should remember a little factoid, to wit:

The Third Infantry Regiment (Old Guard) is mostly known for guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and performing ceremonial duties at the White House and Arlington National Cemetery. However, they are a fully trained, fully armed and equipped infantry regiment filled with motivated hard chargers. They will have something to say about burning down Congress or SCOTUS or the White House. They are fully capable of putting down an insurrection.

It would not be wise to provoke their use as infantry. A little reminder for the fools at Antifa and BLM.

And since it is Washington, DC, posse comitatus prohibitions do not apply. Trump does not need to even invoke the insurrection act. He can just order the Old Guard to saddle up in full battle rattle and stand by.

When the American Indian Movement occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs HQ in Washington, they strutted about showing Winchesters and such and declaring they would never move until certain things were fixed to their liking. Nixon, being a clever sort did not call out the Old Guard. He just called in the Rangers to look things over. The rangers observed and allowed themselves to be seen observing. Ranger patches in full view.

Seeing that, the protesters held a quick meeting, declared “victory”, and left for home. Rangers do not play well with others. If you want to influence hearts and minds, call the Green Beret. If all you want to do is break sh*t and hurt people, call the Rangers.

This of course would be more of a job for the Old Guard than the Rangers. The Old Guard are expressly allowed to defend the capital with no martial law being declared. Since DC is a federal city most laws are a shade different there. Besides, the Rangers are currently employed elsewhere.

My Thoughts on the Various Possible Outcomes of the Upcoming Election

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First item, full disclosure, I believe President Trump will win the election decisively enough that even the massive fraud the Democrats plan won’t be enough to change the result.  So that’s my prediction.  But I am realistic enough to know that I don’t have all the answers.

Second item, full disclosure, there is almost no result that could occur that will plunge me into despair.  When Barack Obama was elected, I was devastated to think that the American people would allow cultural Marxism to take over the government voluntarily.  Since then I have become a lot less naive about how this country is broken up politically.  I’ve also come to terms with how unreliable even “conservative Republicans” are at respecting the agenda of their constituency.  So even outcomes that put the Democrats fully in charge of all branches of government at both the state and national level will not drive me to desperation.  So here are some thought experiments on possible outcomes and their effects on the country and my reaction to them.

What are the possible outcomes, broadly speaking? There are five categories that the results break down into.  I’ll start with the easiest cases and work my way up from there.  The two most common outcomes are either the Democrat clearly wins or the Republican clearly wins.  Those are the outcomes that will have the least chance for irregular actions by the candidates or their proxies.  Nothing much needs to be said about how those successions are performed because they are the routine occurrences that we see every four or eight years in our country.

The next pair of outcomes is one or the other of the two candidates wins but by a very small margin in one or more states and the two parties litigate the results in the state and federal courts.  This is the outcome we saw in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore over the Florida count.  That time it went to the Supreme Court which decided that allowing local jurisdictions to tamper with the ballots was an unacceptable process.  Twenty years ago, this was a much less polarized country and the appearance of propriety was important even to the Democrats back then.  If this election gets hauled into the courts and ballots are counted by political hacks no one is going to be satisfied that an honest count is being performed.  This will surely increase the level of polarization to positively stratospheric heights and surely will push us into uglier and uglier collisions for the foreseeable future.  In these two cases whichever party wins the election the new president will effectively have half the country dead set against him.

And then there is the fifth outcome.  In this scenario a close election results in a breakdown of the system.  Both sides contend that they won and the impasse moves into an insurrection in which both sides use extra-legal actions to seize power in Washington and begin some level of armed conflict.  This one is a complete mystery.  We’ve never seen this happen and it could be as bad as it gets.  Let’s not forget that the nuclear arsenal is out there and our enemies would take advantage of a civil conflict to damage us in any way they think they can.

Now let’s look at my reaction to each of these outcomes.

In outcome one President Trump wins a clear victory.  I celebrate by spending the holidays listening endlessly to leftists crying and screaming that the world has come to an end.  Life goes on and there is hope for improvement.

In outcome two Biden wins a clear victory.  I start living life as independently of the established governmental controls as I am able.

In outcome three President Trump wins a bitterly contested victory.  I celebrate by spending the holidays listening endlessly to leftists crying and screaming that the world has come to an end.  I anticipate a future breach between the red and blue states and begin making plans to find a safe haven.

In outcome four Biden wins a bitterly contested victory.  I anticipate a future breach between the red and blue states and begin making plans to find a safe haven.

In outcome five I try to figure out the safest place in the country to avoid my family being overrun by a war.

As you can see, I think the only outcome that lets me continue a normal life is a decisive victory by President Trump.  Anything else indicates a country that will no longer operate the way it was supposed to.  And because a virtual insurrection is already occurring, I can anticipate that things will get much worse after any of the other scenarios mentioned.

But I don’t see any reason to despair.  Resolution of the present impasse is the inevitable end of this struggle.  Trying to avoid it will simply allow the Left to take the initiative to settle it on their own terms.  This has to happen so let it happen.

Just use your head.  Don’t paint a target on yourself and be aware of the people around you and of their loyalties.  Be prepared to help and protect your family and friends during times of unrest and actual danger.  If something very serious is anticipated be prepared to get away to a safe haven on very short notice.  Don’t disbelieve your own eyes and ears.  When normal patterns break down anomalous behavior is to be expected.  Have emergency supplies and plans.

And relax, don’t panic, you’ll get through this.  We are not opposed by geniuses.  Just dishonest men.  Know your enemy and you can avoid the harm they intend you.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Died

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I thought she would retire in April but she decided to die in office.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies-at-87

This will be an interesting situation for President Trump and especially some senators.  Susan Collins is supposedly in a tight race in Maine and she is always a potential weak link whenever a Supreme Court seat is in question.  Will the senate wait until after election day?  We’ll know pretty soon how they will play this.  From what I’ve heard Trump will pick a conservative woman to replace her.

Well more drama.  Sure, why not?

 

Additional Voices at Orion’s Cold Fire

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Recently I was able to add posts from War Pig and Charlemagne Really on the blog at the same time.  And this reminded me of how refreshing it is to get other voices up on the site.  It also attracts different readers based on the topics and points of view.

And that has made me more determined to get more guest contributors.  What I’m interested in is finding people to write about different interests like hunting, fishing, camping, sports, gaming, different music, and even people of different ages and (gasp) maybe even a woman or two.  And I am even interested in people whose politics may even be a click left or right of mine.  Now one thing I’m not looking for is the woke folk.  They need not apply.  I don’t want anyone who thinks America needs to confess its sins and grovel to the BLM crowd, no interest in that stuff at all.  But I am aware that the kids are way to the left of me and I think it’s worthwhile to have a dialog with someone moderate but who isn’t screaming fascist at anyone wearing a MAGA hat.

I am trying to find some of the folks who have hobbies that I think people are interested in.  One fellow is a gun enthusiast and I know that will spark a lot of interest because it’s fun and it’s also practical.  And there are some others out there that might be willing.  There’s no big commitment and the writers of course own their material and can even pull it from the site if they so desire at a later date.

So if you or somebody you know wants to share some interesting information or has an essay on why Joe Biden may very well be one of the beasts from Revelations then by all means have him leave a comment on this post or send an e-mail to orionscoldfire@charter.net

Now, of course, I will review the post first to make sure there isn’t anything in it that I can’t allow.  I keep the site at the PG-13 level and I’m careful to keep sacrilegious and really offensive stuff off the site.  And I’m not interested in discussing anyone’s theories on who the smartest or the stupidest people in the world are.  While aware that no two people are exactly equal in anything, I don’t see the advantage in telling anyone that he is smarter or dumber than me.  What I do want is for the government to stop telling me who I have to hire, rent to or live next to based on their latest intersectional guilt trip.  I think the laws we’ve always had allowed a dramatically wide range of people to live and work together on a level playing field and in my mind that is a just society.  So, while I admit that identity politics may currently be the only way for white people in America to protect themselves from the Marxists, I don’t think that people of various races and ethnicities are incapable of cooperating in a place like the United States.

Okay, enough preaching.  Send the writers to me and I’ll provide them with a friendly place to speak.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – Comments on American Military Capability

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Proposition: The United States has technological and tactical superiority but it must maintain these if it wants to avoid the consequences of being a super power in decline.

True. When you fight the United States, you are not fighting our Army, or our Navy, or Air Force or Marines, you are fighting them all at once, along with their technological superiority. Your Sukhoi fighters may be close to our F-35 in capability, your submarines sneaky, you may even have an aircraft carrier, although I hesitate to call what China and Russia have aircraft carriers. Your army may number in millions and you may have as many or more tanks. But to fight the USA you are fighting an interlocked and integrated system. You have to get past the eyes and ears of our satellites, AWACS and Hawkeye aircraft. You have to prevent our electronic snoop aircraft from hearing you. In the weeks before the actual confrontation, when posturing is the mode, our Rivet Joint aircraft in conjunction with other reconnaissance will have compiled a complete electronic order of battle on you. We did it to Saddam, which is why we were able to target his command and control structure so precisely. We are constantly updating the electronic order of battle on both China and Russia. Especially China.

 

Even though our forces are interlocked, if you manage to blind one source they can act independently. No communist or former communist government will trust its military to take initiative, as motivated and initiative-taking officers could threaten the political structure back home. Commies and other dictators always fear a coup more than the enemy. In training the Saudis to be an effective fighting force, we had to overcome the basic totalitarian structure which feared its best leaders. Trying to train troops at platoon level to overcome, improvise and adapt is hard when for years they have been trained by rote and varying from the rigid structure one degree was not tolerated.

 

The ability to take initiative when an opportunity arises is one reason why Israel has kicked Arab ass from day one. Even outnumbered several to one, with nations attacking from all sides the Israelis manage to seize tactical opportunities their opponents dare not try for fear of reprisal from their superiors.

 

Some nations can out range us (for now) with tube artillery, and they may have more artillery but nobody, and I mean nobody, ally or foe, can mass and control artillery fire like we can. Add in that with the possible exception of the Israelis, nobody does close air support and long range strategic air strikes the way we do, either. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have only made us better at conventional war; (other than Israel), what military right now is more experienced and blooded?

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 17 – A Piece of the Action

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Another comedic episode!  The Enterprise travels to a world that was visited a century earlier by an early human space vessel that never returned to Earth.  And since the world is almost a hundred light years from Earth, the radio messages from the original flight have just reached Earth.  Now Kirk must determine whether the earlier contact has had any detrimental impact on the inhabitants.

They contact the planet and are instructed by a local leader named Bela Oxmyx where to transport for a meeting.  When Kirk, Spock and McCoy arrive they are taken prisoner by Oxmyx’s men who are dressed as prohibition-era gangsters and armed with Thompson machine guns.  While traveling to Oxmyx’s office they are waylaid by a carload of rival gangsters who spray machine gun fire at them.  We are shown that this world is a replica of 1920’s America and organized as a constant war of gangs fighting it out for supremacy.  When they get to Oxmyx’s headquarters we find out that the earlier ship had left a book on 1920’s gang history and the inhabitants of this world have adopted it as a textbook on how to organize their society.  Oxmyx demands that Kirk provide him with a supply of phasers to allow him to conquer all his enemies and take over the whole planet.  Kirk refuses and the three of them are taken prisoner.

After that the story is a series of escapes and captures by Kirk, Spock and McCoy from Oxmyx and his rival, Jojo Krako, as they attempt to figure out a plan to repair the damage done to this world’s culture.  Eventually by using a show of force with the Enterprise’s phaser weapon set on a wide area stun setting Kirk convinces the mob bosses that they are outmatched and must knuckle under to the Federation.  He sets up Oxmyx as the head boss with Krako as his lieutenant and ends the violence between the gangs.  And to make it seems legitimate to these criminals he demands 40% of the “action” from the mobsters that will be collected annually by a Starfleet vessel.

Alright so that’s the plot but it’s just an excuse for a costume farce.  And as that it’s enjoyable and somewhat funny.  Once Kirk figures out that he’ll have to deal with the gangsters on their own terms he adopts an awful New York accent and starts using the gangster slang.  “We’ll put the bag on Krako;” “put him on ice;” “we won’t give you the heaters;” and “we’ll give you a piece of the action.”   Once he adopts this persona, even stealing some clothes from the mobsters for himself and Spock, Kirk (Shatner) hams it up and even attempts to get Spock to talk the slang with limited success.  And, of course, these slips by Spock are for laughs which actually work.  Later on, we get Spock critiquing Kirk’s lack of skill driving a manual transmission automobile, which is also kind of funny.  And the other bit is Kirk trying to convey instructions to Scotty over the communicator in this patois.  Inevitably he has to translate it into normal English for Scotty.  But when Scotty finally has one of the mob bosses on the Enterprise, he attempts to use some computer-based research into the period slang by threatening the boss with a pair of concrete galoshes.  The mob boss looks contemptuous and asks him if he means cement overshoes.  Scotty looks crestfallen but gives him his Scottish “aye.”

As I’ve made clear previously, I consider any Star Trek episode that plays it for laughs as a welcome change.  When the characters are actually allowed to make their characters somewhat three-dimensional it provides something to keep our interest.  Nimoy playing Spock playing a gangster is probably as good as Spock is going to get.  Even the very end of the episode goes for laughs.  Back on the ship McCoy admits that he lost his communicator on the planet.  Kirk acts alarmed and says based on this race’s cleverness at reverse engineering things eventually they would come after the Federation and “want a piece of our action!”  There is a fair amount of “Bowery Boys” style fight scenes that give Shatner a chance to embarrass himself but this episode is basically rated based on the success of the comedy.

I’ll call this an 8 // 4.