I think the correct response is to respectfully ask Governor Walz to go pound sand where the sun don’t shine. The first thing that should be done is to cut off all federal police funding to Minneapolis and institute a DOJ investigation into the civil rights violations inherent in a city knowingly allowing a mob to terrorize American citizens based on their racial identity.
Category: Current Events
The Consent of the Governed
The Fourth of July is an especially relevant time of the year to discuss the idea of a government’s legitimacy. After all it was the Founding Fathers’ dissatisfaction with George III’s unaccountability to his American subjects that led to the founding of our country. Such slogans as “taxation without representation is tyranny” show that the colonists were acutely aware that they did not possess any mechanism to make their wishes known to their king. Parliament may have been at that time much less powerful as a democratic force in the British monarchy than it currently is but it did represent the common Englishman at the highest levels of government.
The principle involved is that consent of the governed is necessary for a government to be considered legitimate. Whether that consent is grudging or enthusiastic is a matter of degrees and in either case recognizes that the governed concedes to following the laws provided by the ruler. In the ancient world before democracy was a thing often the legitimacy of the ruler was wrapped up in divine right. This assumed that the king was of the same people as those ruled and his relationship with the culture of his people was deep and meaningful to them. In such a situation the people would endure quite a bit before they would revolt because they assumed that their gods had their best interests in mind and so they trusted in their greater wisdom, even when the results were brutally hard.
But when the ruler was a foreign conqueror, an emperor of some other nation then consent was the choice between slavery and death. But even that is consent. It is recognition of the balance of power. It is choosing life over freedom. And to the extent that you want to spare your children it is a long-term agreement.
In the modern era representative government provides much more scope for consent. The formation of a strong middle class has made democratic governments more stable and produced a society where the governed feel that their leaders are accountable to their needs. But with the introduction of socialism and communism in the late 19th century forces have been unleashed on democratic societies that empower the most radical and least disciplined portion of society and turns it into a tool that can be manipulated by demagogues and even powerful elites that see it as a weapon with which to subjugate the middle class.
We are in such a situation now. The Constitution with its enumerated Bill of Rights is being ignored by the elites and their toadies in the government. We are being stripped of freedom of speech and religion and the right to bear arms. What is occurring is a coup d’état facilitated by the elites and empowered by the mob against a middle-class people too habituated by order and stability to react as forcefully as is warranted.
What remains to be seen is when or if the American people withdraw their consent. If they don’t then they’ll become a conquered people no better than the Roman citizens who slowly by degrees became serfs indentured to the Roman nobles and then Germanic chieftains who owned them.
But if instead they come to their senses, they can pretty quickly re-establish their rights. When a court, even the Supreme Court clearly breaches the Constitution it’s time to start ignoring the decisions of that court. It’s time to withdraw consent from that government.
If a state declared itself no longer bound by clearly unconstitutional laws it will be very difficult for even the mighty United States federal government to uphold that law. Much of the enforcement of even federal laws depends on the good will of state and local law enforcement. Without that good will it becomes a struggle just to know if the law is being broken. And if the State government is actually hostile to a law it could become virtually impossible to enforce. And if the federal government is under the leadership of a conservative president it would be simple for enforcement of unpopular laws to fall completely by the wayside. A really far thinking conservative could dismantle whole departments of the federal government whose only job it is to harass the American people with all sorts of bureaucratic restrictions on their liberties.
So, it remains to be seen if the present American nation has as much courage as their colonial predecessors. Patrick Henry said, “give me liberty or give me death.” We can get away with just pointing at the Constitution and saying, “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to bear arms, leave me alone.”
Which way do you think it will go?
Loading ...The Fourth of July Is All Ours
Independence Day is a movie that I have spent a goodly number of hours mocking. And rightly so. One of my favorite targets is that truly annoying paeon to globalism when President Whitmore declares that because all of humanity is under attack and the final battle will be fought on July 4th that from now on the Fourth of July will no longer be an American holiday but will be the Independence Day for the whole world.
I think it’s interesting that instead of that reality we live in a world where a large swath of Americans is now rejecting the Fourth of July as being racist and therefore un-American. Just as the American flag is now racist and to be avoided so too is our Independence Day. To the Left, the true Independence Day is Juneteenth. This goes along with their idea that America wasn’t founded in 1776 but in 1619 when slaves reached the colonies.
I think that’s great. It suits me to a tee. I prefer not to have to share the Fourth of July with these losers anyway. It goes along with all the other things which now are forbidden to them but we can celebrate exclusively and joyously. Christopher Columbus, Magellan, Henry Hudson, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Andrew Jackson, Lewis and Clark, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Alva Edison, The Wright Brothers, Theodore Roosevelt, John J. Pershing, George S. Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chuck Yeager, Neil Armstrong, Ronald Reagan and countless other great men who created a new world that inherited the Renaissance civilization from Europe and brought it to unparalleled heights in the formation of the United States of America. These are the people we read about in our history classes before the revisionists vilified them and replaced them with nobodies that fit better into the race and gender categories that they hoped to fill in their false history of our founding.
And I look forward to passing along all the details of how our country was actually built. And I won’t care about cataloging some of the darker incidents of our story. The cruelty and the war; the greed and the foolishness of some of the pages in our story. These things are human and looking at the whole course of human history I can say without fear of contradiction that the American chapter is the brightest and best part of the whole story.
So, rejoice my fellow Americans. And be glad that only true Americans now celebrate the Fourth of July and honor the lives of all the great men who built this land and made possible this most remarkable nation in all the history of humanity and anywhere on God’s green Earth. Gather together with your friends and family and grill some steaks or barbecue some burgers and dogs and eat your potato salad and watermelon and drink your beer and lemonade and have a baseball catch with the kids and jump in the pool and sit around and have some ice cream and watch the fireworks. And remember the Fourth of July when you were ten and tell your kids or grandkids about it.
I find it liberating to no longer make believe we are one people with a changing understanding of “who we are.” In reality we are one nation, the American people, that still believes all the things we always believed. And alongside this nation there is a hodge-podge of outsiders who do not want to belong. They have formed a coalition for the sake of trying to disinherit the Americans by convincing us that we are evil undeserving racists. But they have shown their hand too soon and the mask is off. They hate us and they are not part of us. We owe them nothing and we no longer have to accommodate them. They are a separate thing from us and deserve none of our sympathy or consideration. The only thing they require is our caution to avoid being harmed by their malice.
So, enjoy the Fourth and flaunt your happiness about it with your fellow Americans, especially in front of those who despise this country and its true history. It’s your holiday and your birthright.
Tuning In and Tuning Out – Part I
During a recent discussion I was having with a friend, I was told to stop worrying about the culture wars because, “It’s not ideological, it’s just the globalists pitting people against each other to maximize their profits.” I couldn’t convince my friend that this wasn’t very comforting. Knowing that the Elite that offshores our jobs and the rabid Leftists who want to destroy everything normal and wholesome in our live aren’t really ideological allies is cold comfort because despite their differences they have managed between them to destroy the United States of America.
But one good comes from the realization that the old America is gone. You no longer have to try to fix the country. There are just two things you have to do. You have to look for the good things that are out there and tune into them and strengthen them. And you have to tune out the bad things and insulate yourself from them and do whatever you can to weaken them.
Easier said than done. Try if you can, to figure out how to do those two things. Think of examples from your daily life. For instance, during the recent riots my employer decided to have managers engage their direct reports about injustice toward blacks in America. So, I’m listening over the computer to a Canadian telling us that he hadn’t heard of “Juneteenth” before. And then he wanted to know if we had any thoughts. Well, what I wanted to do was tell him that since the rioters had looted and burned down the downtown areas of numerous American cities, I no longer cared about their centuries-old tribulations. But that would have been unwise if I wanted to keep getting a paycheck from them. What I did do was tune this nonsense out. I actually spent the time while this sermonizing was going on checking my e-mail and replying to some comments on this site. And because of that I felt better.
And as far as tuning in, I spent time last week reading a couple of authors from our side of the political spectrum. Larry Correia, the author of the Grimnoir series was the leader of the revolt of science fiction authors against the social justice school of science fiction. He led the Sad Puppies movement that revealed the Hugo Awards as the social justice fraud that it really is. And he writes fantasy stories that are 100% free of political correctness and social justice whining. And Jason Anspach and Nick Cole’s Galaxy’s Edge series is a military science fiction breath of fresh air in a world of Star Wars gender confused losers. Enjoying those books and spreading the word on them is my way of tuning in to a part of the world that I want to strengthen. And because of that I felt better.
In that way, I can endure the endless betrayals of John Roberts and the other traitors to America that daily sully the news with their crimes. I can endure the cowards on the supposed right and the thugs and lunatics on the Left and the corporatist parasites who work to sell off what is left of the nation. I concentrate on what is good and do my small part to pass the word along. And I work to help the people in my locale who are on my side. I first off, help my family and my friends. Then I work outward to my acquaintances. And that can be fertile ground. I’ve found like minded people at work where I never expected it. It can open up your circle of friends dramatically. Making new links and building new friendships is exciting and makes life better.
Your life is very valuable. Your happiness is also valuable. When the Leftists commit their atrocities, your misery is part of their victory. Your unhappiness weakens you and it weakens our side collectively. And, conversely, when you are happy it strengthens our side. That’s part of the logic of this shutdown. The unhappiness and loneliness it breeds is demoralizing. But if you can tune out the psyops propaganda then they lose and we win.
So, come on. Strike a blow for our side. Call a friend and set up a party or a poker game. Or just get in touch with an old friend you haven’t spoken to in an age and say hi. Send a good book or a link to a good article (maybe this one) to someone who is on our side of the fence. Contribute to President Trump’s re-election campaign.
And tune out the nonsense from the other side. Ignore the doom and gloom. Stop worrying about the elections. Stop worrying about the COVID stuff. Stop worrying about the House and the Senate and the Supreme Court. None of those things are helped by you worrying. Sure, you can convince people on our side to vote and you can make sure you do too. But you aren’t going to turn any tides by yourself so stop worrying.
There, don’t you feel a little better already? I do because writing this is my way of tuning in.
All Outrage and No Fun Makes photog A Dull Boy
In the immortal notes and lyrics of George and Ira Gershwin:
“Summertime, an’ the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’ an’ the cotton is high.
Oh, yo’ daddy’s rich and yo’ ma is good-lookin’
So hush, little baby, don’ you cry.”
While statues of Lincoln freeing the slaves are being pulled from their pedestals maybe cotton fields aren’t the acceptable subject of song, especially with all that yo’ and mammy going on in the lyrics. But here at Orion’s Cold Fire we appropriate culture with a rakish grin and a tip of the cap.
Anyway, we are bearing down on July and anyone who has been hanging around here for more than a year knows that July is my sacred time. I live to have a week or two off during the hottest, sunniest, least wintery time of the year. It must be my Mediterranean heritage. Relaxing in a country environment during this time of the year with no work responsibilities is as close to heaven as I am ever likely to get either before or after death (being an irredeemable sinner).
Because of the COVID hoax I will be deprived of the annual pleasure of seeing all of my relatives this summer which is tragic. But I refuse to let this insanity cancel this most joyful time of the year and I intend to fulfill all my usual rituals and revel in all the things I enjoy. I intend to grill up a barbecue and eat watermelon and corn on the cob, enjoy potato salad and lemonade. I’ll watch old movies and listen to music that evokes memories of the best of times. I will photograph birds and bugs and flowers and I will sleep in a hammock under a tree and listen to the music of the wood thrush and the song sparrow (or at least a blue jay and a mourning dove). And for a few days I will ignore BLM and antifa and Nancy Pelosi and even my soulless boss.
But what I will not ignore is OCF and the good folks who come here to see what crazy things I’m talking about next. I will have things to say and reviews of things I like. I will share photos and anything else I think might be interesting. Things may slow down a little but there won’t be a gap. What hopefully will be missing is outrage. At this time of the rolling year I think it is more than desirable to forsake the doom and gloom that is so all encompassing in our daily lives and look for the good and happy and fun. I will seek out the traditional sources of wholesome happiness and sling them at you folks with both hands. I will accentuate the positive. I will be jolly if it kills me.
And so, this is my intention. It is possible that some new atrocity will preclude all this. If the Jacobeans come marauding down the highway and torch the Compound then most probably my plan for revelry will evaporate. Bad weather could throw a damper on my plans or illness could ruin it. But I wish everyone out there a very happy high summer, especially you folks in the northern latitudes. This is the time we look forward to during all those short snowy days and long frigid nights of winter.
26JUN2020 – OCF Update
As we head into the heart of the summer and the upcoming Fourth of July holiday I figured I’d just put together a note on how things will be going. I’ve been extremely busy at the day job. This unfortunately cuts into my blogging time. I’ll be putting up a review of Larry Correia’s book “Hard Magic.” I enjoy Larry’s Monster Hunter books and I can already say that the review will b extremely positive. Larry has a knack for writing an enjoyable fantasy story.
I’ll have the chance to test out that new 200-600mm lens I bought and hopefully get some good photos of birds and critters.
I have some political posts that I’m working on and we’re bound to have some new BLM atrocities on the 4th so stay tuned for more to come.
Is It Possible the Flynn Persecution is Finally Over?
The Appeals Court ruled by a two to one vote to order U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to stop torturing General Flynn and dismiss the case. Of course I’m waiting for Sullivan to appeal to a higher court or just to defy the order. We’ll have to wait to see if this is the end but it’s surely a step in the right direction.
This may be a good test for what kind of judicial and bureaucratic disobedience we’ll see in the future. With the Supreme Court defying the Constitution at every turn and the Deep State in open revolt I won’t be surprised by any illegal actions taken by our enemies. But it certainly will open a lot of eyes that have been sleepwalking for years.
Anti-White Lives Do Not Matter to Me
For the first half of my life I had hoped that eventually black Americans would become reconciled with their country and we would reach a point where we wouldn’t have the periodic race riots and looting/arson sprees that seem to be occurring more and more frequently.
I no longer believe that to be true. There will never be a time when a black underclass will not be ready, willing and able to erupt in a spasm of destructive rage that destroys everything in their reach and allows the race hustlers to extort more loot from the frightened people of this country. It’s as simple as that.
How we eventually end this stalemate where we have to interact in this horrific dysfunctional relationship is currently unknown to me. Maybe we split the country or maybe we figure out a way to end the black privilege that allows them to commit mayhem through some strict enforcement of the laws. That is a mystery to me.
So, if this insanity will continue into the foreseeable future, then the most important thing for me to figure out is how to avoid being where the rioters are going to be. By extension I want to make sure none of the people I care about are anywhere near the rioters either.
So, what should I do? Here’s my checklist:
- Live far away from large cities. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a city in Oklahoma or in New York. Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City? Of course. But even Salt Lake City or Boise probably have their slums where the denizens are smoldering over some perceived slight that they imagine white people have inflicted on them. Give all these cities a wide berth.
- Don’t live in blue or purple states. Because in these states, even if you’re far from the slums, the government will allow the rioters to come to your town to destroy your way of life. Look at Minnesota. The governor there wouldn’t even stop the rioters from hopping into cars and going out to the suburbs to terrorize the people out there. The government in these states seem to take pride in punishing the non-black citizens by allowing them to be harassed.
- Don’t send your kids to the public schools. Don’t let the state propagandize them and torture them into thinking they’re the problem. Allowing this to happen is like crippling them.
- Tell your children the real truth about how the system is rigged in this country and how they can avoid being victimized by the next round of rampages. Explain to them that the Democrat party gins up this outrage every election cycle to ensure a good crop of black votes. Let them know that there are many people who buy into this white self-hatred but they themselves don’t have to.
- Find like minded people to associate with and avoid as much as possible the company of the anti-white individuals. Make a point of doing business with folks that you know are like-minded. And in addition to patronizing tradesmen like plumbers and electricians, which is a no-brainer, look at retailers. I’d pay a hefty premium to give my business to someone I like rather than give Jeff Bezos the money.
- If you’re religious find a church where the pastor doesn’t spend his time preaching the gospel of social justice according to Saint Al Sharpton. You’re better off starting your own church rather than let your children be indoctrinated in self-hatred by some atheist clergyman who wants to atone for some ancestor who owned a slave or something.
Our elites have adopted the Black Lives Matter agenda. More precisely they’ve decided to impose it on their serfs, namely us. They themselves will just continue living in their gated communities with their private security out of reach of the arson, looting and mayhem that they’ve reserved for us. They have adopted the Black Lives Matter mantra. And that mantra says, “Only Black Lives Matter.” If you say blue lives matter or white lives matter or even all lives matter, you will be denounced as a racist. So, don’t be foolish enough to think that any of this has anything at all to do with equal treatment. That is the last thing they want. What they want is immunity from the law. In fact, they want their own law. And rest assured under that law everything you have won’t be enough to provide reparations for whatever alleged sins your ancestors committed against their ancestors. And that is assuming that your ancestors were even in the country before 1865 which mine were not.
The lives that matter to me are those of me and mine and my friends. They can be white, orange or purple but to me they are the ones that matter. The lives that don’t matter to me are Anti-White lives. Let the antifa and BLM thugs burning down the country worry about their own lives. White or black, I no longer consider them countrymen. They are my enemy. Their lives matter to me not at all. As far as I’m concerned, they can go to hell.
A Well Needed Shot in the Arm
Over the weekend I was attending a family event that kept me off the internet for almost the entirety of Friday and Saturday. The events of last week, the rioting and the Supreme Court betrayals had soured my outlook severely.
It was a very enjoyable gathering and I had a lot of fun with my family. But that didn’t relieve the gloom I was feeling for the events going on in the larger world. Saturday night after most of the attendees had left I was sitting down in front of the television with my host for the weekend and we saw that President Trump’s rally in Tulsa was taking place so we tuned in.
And from the very start my mood improved and I was laughing at all the stories he was relating about how the fake news twisted the events of his West Point appearance and all the other anecdotes he had for the speech. And the two of us agreed that we had to get to one of these rallies. It was just too much fun not to get involved in.
And another thing I noticed was that just watching the President glibly controlling the stage reminded me why the idea of Creepy Uncle Joe debating President Trump was laughably absurd. Watching any of Biden’s recent television appearances or commercials makes it painfully obvious that he can no longer string together a coherent English sentence.
Of course, I didn’t become giddy from watching the rally. I still feel that the Supreme Court has proven itself hostile to the Constitution. I recognize that it almost certain that it will take, at the least, civil disobedience by state governments to protect us from unconstitutional laws. It will be necessary to live in a red state to hope to avoid being subjected to the progressive straitjacket of laws and social bullying that schools, government agencies and suppliant corporations supply.
But it’s easy to become discouraged. It’s easy to forget that this is a President who perseveres over whatever catastrophe is thrown at him; pandemics, race riots, biased judges, a biased Supreme Court, rogue intelligence agencies, biased and dishonest media organizations, you name it. He shrugs it off and he keeps pushing forward. But it’s important to reflect on the President’s strength and resilience because it is just those qualities that allow him to rally his constituents and thereby discourage his enemies.
So, thank you Donald Trump for a boost, a shot in the arm, a reminder. In a country where bureaucrats, judges, politicians, media talking heads and academic experts will tell you that your opinions are outmoded and outnumbered by the Cloud People and their allies, the Rioters, it’s good to know there is one man who is unafraid and undeterred by all these liars and losers. He speaks up for us and he speaks up for himself and with him running the country we still are able to keep a modicum of freedom, a little bit of our dignity and as it turns out, even a good chunk of our sense of humor. Thank you President Trump.
20JUN2020 – OCF Update
Apologies, as I’ve been without internet access for the last 24 hours. I will try to reconnect today at some point after I re-enter “civilization.”