All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
(In response to a man who asked Disraeli “What is the difference between a misfortune and a calamity?”)
If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity.
Benjamin Disraeli
I dragged this potted plant inside from its sommer home on Camera Girl’s kitchen porch where it gets the sun it craves.
Getting both the leaves and the bottom of the trumpet in focus is usually a very difficult proposition. So this approach is a good workaround for that kind of shot. Once again, the post processing in the Affinity Photo software is not up to the standards I expect with Capture One. But it’s a start.
While trying to finish the counting of an election that happened last Tuesday the city Board of Elections outraged the front-runner and anyone else who thought this would be a straight forward process. They announced that they had mistakenly included 135,000 test vote records in an initial tally and now need to go back and straighten everything out.
Uh huh. Sure that’s what you’ll do. Anyway, since it’s all Democrats who cares anyway? But the law and order candidate Eric Adams who was in the lead by a lot is very unhappy with what’s going on and since he’s a black man I have to assume that the rules of critical race theory demand that the next mistake goes in his favor.
Hilarity is sure to ensue and who knows maybe this breathes new life into the campaign hopes of Paperboy Love Prince.
Stay tuned for the blow out finish.
My first part in this series of posts was a love song to the kind of Fourth of July celebration we had when I was a kid. And that was fun to think about and write. But the heart of this exercise was a thought I had about the underlying reason for the holiday. All of this crap about Juneteenth being Independence Day got me thinking about the document that declared our independence.
I know it’s old fashioned to still think about a country that’s founded on the cause of equality. After all, equality or as it is now called equity is the cudgel that the Left uses to deprive us of our rights. And it is very fashionable on the Dissident Right to condemn all things associated with Enlightenment political thought. So be it, I’m a reactionary.
But when I look at the text of the Declaration, I see that it was a list of grievances that free men were making against their government and a statement that they weren’t going to take it any longer. And the more I read into it the closer and closer is the analogy to the situation we currently find ourselves in. Let’s look at it.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
If we decided to end our association with the Blue States, I think I would be very hard put to find better words than those found in the introduction to the declaration. I’d borrow the whole thing.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Other than the use of the words, “colonies” and “King of Great Britain” this section of the document, called the preamble, is also almost word for word the best thing that could be written to describe why we would want to escape from the clutches of the Left. Who could hope to write a better justification than this, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”? It’s perfect. We are being deprived of the things that make life worth living. We are treated as criminals and third-class citizens in our own country and we are tired of it.
I’ll pick a few of the grievances the colonists listed to show a little of the similarities to today’s grievances. Obviously not everything jibes in this list because we are not in a sparsely inhabited wilderness.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
(In our case this would equate to allowing Antifa and BLM to burn, loot and murder our neighbors)
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
(In our case this would be weaponizing the FBI and Justice Department to prosecute us for trumped up charges.)
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
(Nothing needs to be changed on this one)
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
(Nothing needs to be changed on this one.)
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
(Ask the guys who are rotting in jail whose only crime was being in Washington D.C. on January 6th.)
And the conclusion:
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Once again, switch out words for Great Britain and British Crown and decide what the new country will be called and you can use the whole darn thing.
What I think I want to show with this analysis is the reasonableness of wanting to escape from the Left. The parallels with 1776 are obvious. All the same natural conditions exist for rebellion. They are reducing us to serfs and we’re not used to such an existence. We know what it is to be free and we want freedom back.
What isn’t equivalent is the level of difficulty in escaping from our masters. George III was a peevish nobleman across what was then a very wide ocean. We are trapped in a barrel with a badger. We can’t run and we can’t hide.
In the third installment I’ll talk about what our quest for freedom could look like.
Mask up! Mask up!! The Delta Variant is coming! The Delta Variant is coming! The Delta Variant is coming!
It’s wonderful to behold. This article by a smug loser whose brain is about the same size as the COVID virus browbeats her fellow Angelinos into covering their mouths and noses in the 115 degree heat of the Southern California summer. And they wonder why their infrastructure is collapsing and the few intelligent Californians are rushing for the exits. Let’s hope the whole state goes back under lockdown just in time for Governor Haircut to be bounced out of office. And hopefully they put in an even more clueless woke progressive that will hasten the day when California is completely devoid of human life. Maybe the scorpions and rattlers will be able to live in peace in the Golden State.
Seriously, these people are remarkably dense. But they are making it much easier for normal people to vote with their feet.
What is the question now placed before society with the glib assurance the most astounding? That question is this—Is man an ape or an angel? My lord, I am on the side of the angels.
Benjamin Disraeli
I am grateful to the Haters of America for putting their new Independence Day in June. I’ve always loved July as the finest time of the year. And not just because my birthday is slap dab in the middle of it or because it is the hottest and therefore the time when we in the north feel most vitally alive.
But also, because the Fourth of July was every young boy’s idea of the perfect holiday. You had it right in the middle of your summer vacation (back then we had all of June, July and August off). It included playing with and watching fireworks, eating huge amounts of barbecued food, corn on the cob and watermelon and drinking lemonade. We would go down to Coney Island and swim in the polluted waters of Lower New York Harbor and then watch the fireworks display that the city put on for us proles. It was a mighty fine time to be had by all and sundry. I can remember neighbors that typically spent most of the year yelling at their neighbors’ kids coming out and sitting on their porches and stoops and talking about the weather and the baseball teams and acting almost human. We didn’t really think about the patriotic aspect of it. After all we were boys and therefore barely human. But I am grateful to the Cloud People and Antifa and BLM and the illegal immigrant lobby and the LGBTQ Mafia and everyone else who hates the normal everyday things that America stood for. I’m grateful that I no longer have to share the Fourth of July with them.
And of course, the Fourth of July stands for more than just fireworks and hot dogs. But I wanted to start out with those things because they are the things that make it more than just important. They make it fun. And heaven knows we need as many things that can make us happy right now as we can get. I’m having the family over for a Fourth of July barbecue and the weather isn’t going to cooperate. After days of 90° weather, it’s going to be in the 60’s and cloudy. But that just means we’ll be able to have a baseball catch and play horseshoes without getting completely drenched in sweat.
We’re going to have a great time. After the barbecue I know Camera Girl will have desserts, splendiferous desserts. Ice cream and whipped cream will abound. And there will be Italian Cheesecake and maybe even pastries. And I’ll show my little 2 ½ year old granddaughter fireflies in the yard for her first time. And we’ll even shoot off a few small fireworks and then maybe watch some of the big stuff in the sky.
And I guarantee there will be not a whisper of white privilege or white rage or reparations or Juneteenth or Critical Race Theory. But there will be a little history lesson where I’ll find out if the boys all know what the Fourth of July commemorates.
And just to end this part of the post on the right note I’ll include some words that probably are more relevant today than they’ve been since shortly after they were written.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
They almost sound topical. We’ll take a swipe at it next.
A friend on the Old Boy network sent me this today:
“I was once willing to give my life for what this country stood for. Today, I’d give my life to protect my family from what this country has become.”
Right on, brother.
The left loves chaos. They thrive on it like ants on honey. Chaos and unlawfulness and lack of common sense is a part of their grand design. Then they put up a strong man (NOT Biden) and we have Germany, 1933, all over again. Fascism. As much as the left claims Trump is a fascist, they are the true fascists. They sic their brown-shirt militias (BLM, Antifa) on any area that does not kowtow to their plan, except for areas such as Texas who can hold them at bay.
They have said repeatedly they are coming for our guns, and they mean it. An armed citizenry is the best protection from them and they know it. Having been around the world a few times, I have seen what historically happens to a disarmed populace. It ain’t pretty. Our founders were wise beyond measure in enacting the 2nd Amendment. An armed citizenry not only guarantees failure of an invasion from without, but prevents a takeover from within. Yamamoto and the Soviet generals alike disregarded trying to invade and occupy the USA as we had “a gun behind every blade of grass”. 100 million armed Americans as guerilla fighters makes every land force look weak by comparison. 24 million of those Americans are veterans, fully schooled in guerilla tactics and IEDs. Over 350 million guns just in legal hands that are known. Depending on whom you ask, Americans have between 4 TRILLION and 14 TRILLION rounds of ammo for those guns.
Nobody wants to try that force on for size. The US military decimated both the Viet Cong and the NVA Army. We only lost because of gutless politicians who started the war, then chickened out. Militarily, Vietnam was a great victory for us. Politically, we were undone by cowardly and bought politicians and a US media who even then was coopted by the Marxists.