Month: November 2020

Camaraderie is Key

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I mentioned during my post-election-night post, that after 9pm I was on a zoom video conference with eight conservative friends and friends of friends.  And I’ve got to say that was more fun than I’ve had in a good long while.  It was energizing and enjoyable and interesting.  And I think it makes sense to tap into that idea going forward.  Sure, it’s great to reach out to folks all over the country and that is what I do with this website but it makes sense to combine that with local networks of people.

I haven’t figured out how to grow that idea.  Maybe I can come up with some kind of template to help people recruit their friends and associates.  I’ve been thinking about having a get together of my local group.  Problems with the COVID panic here in New England makes it difficult.  All kinds of difficulties exist that restrict what people can do but it occurred to me that a zoom party might be something easy.  And I’d like to start by just throwing it out there that if you haven’t thought of having a get together by computer it might turn out to be a lot of fun for you and your friends too.

What makes sense is to start with some kind of basis for the get together.  It doesn’t have to be anything really important or even political.  In fact, if it’s something trivial that might be all the better but I think you should have at least some kind of excuse.  I always try to coordinate food and drink to add that aspect to the event and make it feel a little more like an actual get together.  As far as the duration I would say make it open ended but if things are running out of steam then call an end.  And you may find that a few people have to leave but others want to keep going.  That’s fine too.

As far as number of people I’m guessing that between five and fifteen might be a good guess as to practical range.  Fewer than that is more of a private conversation and more than that might get unmanageable as far as people talking over each other.  But these are only guesses on my part based on what I saw with eight.

As far as frequency, I’d go with the P. T. Barnum adage, “Always leave them wanting more.”  Too frequent occurrences will exhaust the topics of conversation and the appetite for this sort of thing.  There should be enthusiasm for the event or there’s no reason to have it.  But I think the revelation that a get together, even a virtual get together, is fun will spark interest in continuing the practice and hopefully when the lockdowns end will move on to real occasions where people on our side gather and socialize.

I haven’t determined whether the He Man Woman Hater’s Club is still a copyrighted phrase.  If not, I think it would capture the spirit if not the substance of what I would want my organization to be about.  But that is a minor point.  The main thing is to get people talking and enjoying life in these troubled times.

Analyzing the Trump Method – Learning How to Win

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Watching as President Trump rallies his forces to fight the legal battle that the Democrats have forced on him reminded me just how different he is from the losers in the Republican party that preceded him.  And one of his pithy designations stands out as a marker.  He called Jeb Bush “low energy.”  And that is how I can segregate Donald Trump from the rest of the “conservatives.”  He is anything but low energy.  It is his dynamism that allows him to defy gravity.  When the other conservatives allow themselves to sink down in the quick sand Donald Trump powers up and out.  Basically, he is not afraid of tackling a challenge.  He is undaunted by hard work and not afraid metaphorically to get his hands dirty.

Another thing about him is he looks for ways to take advantage of structural weaknesses that his enemies try to hide beneath a façade of strength.  This speaks to the experience of a lifetime dealing with crooked politicians and their business associates.  He knows a stacked deck when he sees one and he knows how to use the rules of the game to his own advantage.  These things speak to intelligence and experience.

Another characteristic is that he is not an idealist.  He decisions are based on observable fact not theory.  If something has been tried and failed, he learns from that.  He’s adaptable and can roll with the punches.  This speaks to a flexibility that allows less important factors to be subordinated to higher order imperatives.

And finally, he is driven by his desire to win.  His egoism drives him to conquer obstacles of every kind, whether they’re individuals, organizations or collective barriers that stand in the way of his goals.  To this end he has assembled a team of people who work to achieve the objectives he has identified.

When I look at this list of traits what I see are the traits that I would characterize as the qualifications of a survivor.  Individuals that have these traits will survive in good times and bad.  They will thrive and rise to the top in good times and they will survive and hold their own during adversity.

This is what we need to emulate if we want to preserve ourselves, our family, our friends and the things we believe in.  We need to be energetic and adaptable in the face of adversity and hostility from the society that is endeavoring to stamp us out.  We will need to learn the rules of the game and use them to our advantage in advancing our agenda and hindering our enemies.

And finally, we need to have the pure willpower to endure the hard work and endless disappointments that await us in a struggle that basically has no end.  My generation will not see the end of this struggle.  I doubt my children will see it won.  But I have grandchildren and they are worth fighting for.  I want them to know what freedom is.  And I can settle for seeing incremental progress.  We can start by beginning the hard work of building institutions and organizations that are entirely on our side.  No more Fox News, no more Boy Scouts, no more Weekly Standards.

So, here’s to President Donald J. Trump.  Here’s to the first President of the new America.  It’s being created inside the old and it will be born in hard work and pain.  But it needs to be done and it will allow us to once again be free.  So, think about the traits you’ll need to go forward.  Decide if you have the right stuff.  Because otherwise you might as well join the hive and be comfortably absorbed into the collective and eventually painlessly euthanized.  That’s the choice.

04NOV2020 – Post-Election Day Thoughts

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Groggily crawling into the light this morning required that I re-orient myself in the aftermath of the surreal experience that was Election Night 2020.  I spent from 9pm to 1am on a zoom with a great bunch of people on our side of the political divide.  I’ll gladly admit that was a whole lot of fun.  I much preferred discussing the incoming results with them than listening to the talking heads on the networks blather on about their demented opinions.

I’m very disappointed that we didn’t have a definitive result last night.  Taking that out of the equation makes election night kind of a phony description.  It would be more accurate to call it the beginning of the ballot counting.  Well, what can you do?  Progressives can’t help but ruin anything they touch.  But what was very clear last night was that any state that is controlled by the Democrats like Virginia and Pennsylvania made sure to stop the vote counting if it looked like President Trump was about to win the state.  The obvious conclusion is that they are using the delay to rig the results.  So that means four very key states, PA, VA, MI and WI will attempt to use manufactured Democrat voting ballots to fraudulently win those states for Biden.

It will be very interesting for me to see if President Trump has the wherewithal to block this fraud.  I have no idea if he can.  I sincerely hope he is successful.  That would be the best outcome for the current situation.  If he fails Joe Biden and ultimately, Kamala Harris will end up as President.

And so, let me get to the crux of this essay.  If President Trump prevails then we know what he has to do to begin repairing the damage already done to our country.  I and every other writer on the Right has been expounding on that for the last four years.  What needs to be determined is what are we going to do if he is unsuccessful?

And the answer is to cultivate our own gardens.  We are going to have to woke-proof our lives.  We will be forced to come up with work arounds and local solutions to all the problems associated with living in the cultural Marxist state that a Biden administration will entail.  And don’t think it won’t be extreme.  Look how repressive the social media and other Silicon Valley companies have been under the Trump administration.  I can only imagine that the deplatforming will become even more pervasive.  And the laws that the Left will try to get through Congress and the courts will be pretty bad.  First and Second amendment attacks are going to be horrendous.  Theoretically the Supreme Court should be there to prevent that from taking place but John Roberts is an awful man and a real enemy to the conservative side.  We are going to see some gut-wrenching defeats under his tenure on the Supreme Court.

And for all those reasons I think it’s more important than ever to have places we can go to talk and trade notes on what helps and what doesn’t.  Our voices will disappear on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and all the other hostile platforms.  We’ll need our own spaces to get any news out and lend moral and other support to our side.  I’ve painted a pretty bleak picture of what will happen if Biden wins.  But really you should remember that this isn’t something that should make brave people quail.  Think of what the Poles endured under the Soviets.  Freedom is a quality of the mind not the local laws.  If we have to go underground then that’s what we do.  And then we find out who the free and the brave really are.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;”

I say it’s us.  What do you think?

04NOV2020 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:

Time’s noblest offspring is the last.

Bishop George Berkeley

[(According to W. Cleon Skousen, the first four empires are the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Empire, and the (Western, Eastern, and Holy) Roman Empire) the fifth was believed to mean the British American colonies] photog

Pre-Game Jitters and An Election Day Open Post

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Note:Updates are added at the bottom of the post over the course of the day.  

Well here we go.  No matter how confident you may feel about the results of the upcoming elections you’re probably a little nervous about what will be going on for the next week or more.  And so am I.  I’m fairly certain the President will be re-elected relatively easily but fairly certain and sure are not the same thing.  Also, based on the actions of the woke lunatics infesting the cities around the country I’m pretty sure there will be at least a certain amount of bedlam and violence happening, especially if the polls show Trump winning.  As soon as that happens these creeps will go ballistic, especially in their strongholds like Portland and Seattle.  I expect there will be a certain number of murders and lots of arson and looting for sure.  And the Democrats and their army of crooked lawyers and judges will sow confusion and attempt to outright steal any states that aren’t strong enough to defend themselves.  And the Supreme Court will be the epicenter of the battle and John Roberts is a spineless loser who will do his damnedest to hurt our side.

But what I think is good advice is to try to keep the excitement level a couple of notches below maximum, so instead of eleven dial it back to seven.  It will be a long night for sure and it might even be a very long week of distressing news regardless of how well the election goes.  The world is full of very bad people and they will be looking to rattle our side as hard as they can.  And of course, the media is going to spin everything they can as negatively as they can for as long as they can.

I’m off this week and so as a way to keep morale up I intend to keep this as an open post going all the way through election day and even beyond if it is warranted.  I’ll try to combine election results, links to important or entertaining news along with my always witty and penetrating insights.  Anyone who has comments is, as usual, welcome to chime in with relevant or entertaining discussion.  I’m especially interested to hear about local conditions where you are.  Anything you find interesting about things going on during the election is exactly what I’m looking for.

So, let’s hope it ends like it did in 2016 with a river of progressive tears washing away the mounds of inaccurate polls and their howls drowning out the words of the talking heads trying to explain how they got it so wrong.  But even if it is a long confusing time of disputed election results and screeching progressives threatening to summon the military if their claims about disputed results aren’t honored immediately and unconditionally, remember to keep calm and look at the big picture.  There is no guarantee that elections will work in our favor every time or even at all.  The important thing is to be looking at how to prevent the Left from impacting you, your family and friends.  That’s something you can work on when we’re winning or losing.  And be willing to share a laugh or a kind word with anyone on our side that you meet here or elsewhere.

Best of luck to President Trump and the other folks on our side who are about to get on the roller coaster that is Election Day 2020.  And best wishes to all of us.  And as an old tv show used to say, “be careful out there.”

 

11:30 A.M. Update – Just got back from voting.  My little town turned out in phenomenal numbers.  The lines were epic.  But it was truly fun getting out and doing something useful.  One amusing event happened in line.  About two people behind me in line was this twenty something kid with a sort of goth persona; dyed black hair, black clothes, and the palest skin I’ve seen in years.  As we got close to the front of the line a middle aged woman comes out of the exit door and the young guy yells out have you voted for Joe Biden today.  She made a face like he had said something vile and exclaimed “Hell no!”  I almost burst out laughing but just chuckled a little instead.  I’ll have to say that restored my faith in humanity.  Even here in the belly of the beast, New England, there are plenty of good people left.

12:54 P.M. Note:  I’ve been sent an invite for a 9 pm zoom to serve as a remote election party.  Camera Girl has agreed to bake some pizza pies for me so I can have a reheat-able food available as the long night wears on.  She also plans to studiously ignore the goings on.  She is one of those benighted people who takes no interest in politics.  She claims I am responsible for taking care of that.  Ah well, she is making the pizza after all.  What social provisions is everyone else doing for this  momentous event?  Is it mostly a solitary one for you? 

3:22 P.M. – News Headline – Pelosi Calls Amy Coney Barrett an ‘Illegitimate Supreme Court Justice”

Can you imagine any normal person being called illegitimate by Nancy Pelosi.  At this point I don’t think Pelosi even qualifies as a living human.  As far as I can tell she’s now one of the undead.  The only question is whether she can qualify as a vampire if her sustenance is gin instead of blood.  Please Nancy stay in your  crypt, your scaring the children and Halloween is officially over.

7:03 P.M. – Trump wins Kentucky.  No surprise there.

7:33 P.M. – So far all the numbers are what you’d expect.  Some networks have already called VA for Biden with 0% counted.  But that’s probably a safe state to call for the Dems.  The interesting ones for us will be the Carolinas and Georgia.  If those go well it will bode well for the rest of the night.

7:55 P.M. – I was listening to Fox News but there are just too many progs there to make it enjoyable.  If anyone knows of a better live discussion let me know.

8:02 P.M. – SC was called for Trump.  Not a big surprise, but encouraging.

8:09 P.M. – Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois and Massachusetts just got called for Biden with the usual 0%.  No surprises.

8:18 P.M. – Fox is saying that Trump looks like he is winning in Florida in unexpected places (Miami/Dade).

8:40 P.M. – Florida seems like it may be an easy win for Trump.

9:40 P.M. – The betting odds have now shifted to Trump.

10:10 P.M. – Everything seems to be going our way.  Fingers crossed.

10:51 P.M. – It looks like PA is shutting down the counting probably because Trump is so far ahead.

1:33 A.M. – So the crooked state officials are withholding the totals in PA and several other locales.  We’ll have to wait until the daylight to see how these criminals try to steal the election.  To be continued.

9:55 A.M. – Shennanigans seemed to have ensued.  Lawyers will have to sort this out.  But without a doubt MI looks like it will be needed.