Category: Current Events

The ZMan Has a Post “The Haunting” About the Disruption of Sex Roles in Western Society

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http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=14329

ZMan talks about the present disruption that afflicts young men and women and how it has led to all the aberrant behavior we see today.  His conclusion is that the society we’ve allowed to evolve no longer functions to bring men and women together to form normal functioning families.  Well, that seems accurate. But it doesn’t go into what needs to be done.  I think it goes without saying that leaving things the way they are will only make the problem worse.  What needs to happen is for the society at large to incentivize young people to get married and raise families.  Lobby for government policies that make families affordable; school vouchers, tax deductions for dependents and a subsidy for married stay at home moms, tax benefits for companies that provide family benefits to their employees.  And on the individual front it’s necessary for all of us to start recreating traditional social organizations to provide a place for young people to meet.  If the churches and the old line fraternal organizations have been converged and destroyed it’s necessary to form new ones.  With the Supreme Court finally out of liberal hands perhaps it’s possible that the right of free association may resurface and we can again organize our personal lives to exclude the mentally ill and the disruptively abnormal.  I think we’re in a bad place but I think it will improve when we have more control over the anti-traditional forces that are continuously attacking the normal roles of men and women in a functional society.  Anyway, that’s my thought.

Counting My Chickens Before They’re Hatched

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An enormous amount of digital ink has been spilled in the last week or so about the coming Supreme Court vacancy and who might fill it and how that will play out.  And these are truly momentous questions involving nuances of political strategy that could change the balance of the Senate political make-up.  In other words, really hot stuff and absolutely chock full of fat-soluble vitamins.

But let’s jump the gun and talk about some really exciting things.  Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Senate manages to keep their act together and approve an actual conservative replacement for Anthony Kennedy.  And let’s further assume for the sake of argument that John Roberts isn’t the Manchurian Justice that he seemed to be during the Obamacare deliberation.  Then, what are the possible constitutional questions that could allow the new conservative majority to show its quality?  Let’s make a list.

  • I think the least likely early result of the new majority would be a test of Roe v. Wade. This is the thermonuclear case and I believe it will be a while before SCOTUS tackles something so controversial.  After all, energizing the female vote against Republicans during the beginning of a conservative court majority would threaten the ability of a very narrow Senate majority right before the mid-terms.  So I think this will wait at least a year or more.
  • I think the most likely early test of this new majority will be a revisiting of the gay marriage vs. religious freedom question. And here is where I think that the Court will score an easy victory.  I would be shocked if the Court does not hand a complete victory to religious tradespeople who object to being forced to participate in homosexual weddings.  In my estimation this will be a great morale booster for conservatives and a well-deserved rebuke for the brown shirts in the LGBTQ
  • Removing the Constitutional mandate for gay marriage would be a very bold move. Seeing that this would directly attack the precedent set by Anthony Kennedy just a few years ago it would represent a refutation of the narrative that has been developing in the Courts for the last twenty five years.  But I think it would be the smart thing to do.  Unlike Roe v. Wade, the shortness of time that has passed since the precedent was set limits the disruption caused by allowing the individual states to pass their own laws on either side of this issue.  The Federal government could even restore the Defense of Marriage Act if it was politically expedient.  And there is a real grass roots appeal to allow states that don’t favor the homosexual life style to have their say.
  • Questions about the Constitutionality of Affirmative Action should be front and center in this Court. Even past verdicts by the Supreme Court when more liberal justices were represented recognized the contradictory nature of a clearly discriminatory practice sanctioned by the United States Government.  It is long past the point where reverse discrimination makes even bad sense.  And the way the Left has used it to weaponize identity politics against the white population needs to be shut down before it does anymore harm to the unity of the country.
  • The constitutionality of the Patriot Act and other post 9-11 security over-reaches need to be reconsidered. The recent actions by the FBI and the other intelligence gathering agencies highlights the runaway nature of these intrusions on privacy and an originalist interpretation will go a long way toward re-evaluating the current imbalance favoring law enforcement over due process.
  • And a final major item that could be adjudicated is the Constitutional protection for homosexuality. That was another constitutional protection discovered by Justice Kennedy.  Here is another social question that used to be a state matter until the Supreme Court overstepped.

So, this merely my speculation.  What do you think?  What’s your logic?  Leave a vote.

 

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What Do We Do After Trump?

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Right now, Donald Trump is the most active, disruptive force that the right has had working for it since Andrew Jackson.  It is almost impossible to overstate how important he has been and continues to be for the preservation of the American experiment.  Without his miraculous victory in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election we would be literally choosing between insurrection and slavery.  That is how bad permanent domination by the Left would be.

But now we have to remember that the U.S. Constitution does not include provision for a dictator for life.  Somehow, they decided to leave that clause out.  Something about Julius Caesar, blah, blah, Caligula, blah, blah, blah.  So, we have to face up to the fact that we won’t always have the Donald to speed bag the media, the swamp and the Dems for us.  We will be back to depending on the Republicans!  That is a discouraging thought.  Therefore, it behooves us (now that’s a word) to plan ahead and make provisions for that sad future day.

Let’s try to get to the essence of the problem.  How do we avoid ending up with the Bushes again?  My first thought is install Donald Trump in some position of power in the republican establishment when his term is over.  Maybe the head of the Republican National Committee.  Let him be the one to control the purse strings for the election funds and work on the talent selection and the party platform that should guide the executive and legislative agendas.  But, of course, this is still a temporary fix.  Donald Trump is over seventy years old.  Even he lives to be a vigorous centenarian the day will come when he’s gone.  We need a Plan B.

And Plan B is that we need to become radicalized and activist about the things we want and don’t want.  And the first thing we have to get straight is that this is a permanent state of affairs.  We will never reach a point where we can split the difference with the Left.   Now and forever it is a zero-sum game. Whenever they win we lose and vice versa.  We have no common ground and there is no compromise except as a tactic and even then, it’s probably a bad idea.  We are two separate populations inhabiting the same geographic space locked in a perpetual war of attrition.

We need to become serious about vetting our leaders and those that want to become leaders.  No more Bushes.  No more mavericks.  No more kindler, gentler anything.  No more reaching across the aisles and no more globalists.  If you’re not America first, last and all, you’re a globalist.

We need to become as unfair as we possibly can be toward the Left.  Do to them what they’ve done to us.  Remember they are doxxing, deplatforming, firing and discriminating against Right Wing folks on a wholesale basis already.  The least we can do is return the favor.  Make them live up to the lefty creed but ignore it for our side.  Allow and even egg on the witch hunts for the Al Frankens and Harvey Weinsteins of the Left and laugh at the Stormy Daniels episodes.  Let the Joe Crowleys and Phyllis Kahns experience the blessings of the identity politics and diversity they championed by losing their legislative seats to these new populations when they look around at the Old Democrats and say “What you mean We, kemosabe?”  Make them pay whatever price we can for policies like sanctuary cities.  Penalize progressive states wherever and whenever possible.  Use lawfare to go after their companies and institutions that discriminate against people and companies on the Right.  Use the courts to shield traditional and religious populations and institutions.  And cause trouble for companies that cater to the Left.  Send letters of complaint.  Boycott.  Give poor recommendations and reviews to them.  And by the same token lavish business, compliments and good word of mouth to companies that take our side or at least don’t go against us.  Sometimes it will seem like you’re going against your own interests to do that.  Maybe it’ll be worth it anyway.  Think about it.  Do you really need to drink Starbucks?  Isn’t there another company slightly less obnoxious to your views that still makes decent coffee?  Don’t patronize movies with imbeciles like Matt Damon in them.  Don’t buy their books, don’t read their news stories and don’t watch their television shows.  It’s that simple.

And the most important aspect of all this is don’t wait until Donald Trump isn’t around.  Start now!  If we can start chipping away at the awfulness of the Republican party before we’ll have to depend on them, it will go that much better for us.  If you have a Republican Representative who does not cooperate with President Trump then send an e-mail to his office stating your displeasure.  Let him know where you stand.  Remind him that there will be a primary at some point in his future and someone you like better may be running against him.  Get involved in your local politics and take the measure of the people who represent you.  You might be surprised what you learn.

So, enjoy the Trumpocalypse we are living through in all its sideshow splendor but start planning for the future.

03JUL2018 – American Greatness Post of the Day

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Michael Anton (aka Publius Decius Mus) performs a fisking of Bret Stephens’ paean to untrammeled immigration.  It goes without saying Bret doesn’t come off very well.  Can you imagine Stephens used to be considered conservative?   It’s a long article and I doubt Bret even deserves the honor of this much attention but Mr. Anton does cover the bases very thoroughly.  I would say this article  is preaching to the choir but if you are interested in just how crazy the house conservatives at the New York Times have become check out Anton’s dissection of exhibit A.

 

America Is Not the Common Property of All Mankind

03JUL2018 – OCF Update – July, The Greatest Month of the Year

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The earth revolves around the sun. Well actually they both move around the common center of gravity of the whole solar system. But since the sun is monstrously heavier than the rest of the solar system combined, this center of gravity is within the spheroid of the sun so I won’t quibble about it (starting now!). So, the year is based on the Earth’s orbit around the sun which takes 365 days and a fraction. A month is supposed to correspond to the revolution of Luna around Earth. This is about 28 days. If you try and divide 365 and a fraction by 28 and a fraction you are not going to get a whole number. And this makes perfect sense. The revolutional periods are completely unrelated. And so, we end up with months with lengths varying from 28 days to 31 days and even one that varies every four years to try and make up for the fractions. What a silly system. Days, weeks, months (if we even need them at all) and years should be decoupled and allowed to do their own thing. And don’t even get me started about daylight savings time. So, you can see I have no particular respect for the calendar and its divisions.

But there is one exception. Every year I wax poetic about my quasi-religious devotion to one particular example of the imperfect lunar division to the solar year, namely the month of July. July is the greatest human invention that I know of. In the northern hemisphere, which is the only hemisphere that I probably will ever encounter, July represents the quintessence of earthly delight. The days are long, the weather is hot and sunny, and the human spirit cries out for leisure and fun. And every year I answer that call. I make sure to take time off and commune with nature and with my friends and family, read books and watch movies, engage in various silly recreational activities, eat all kinds of delicious poisons and commit all manner of misdemeanors against the work ethic. It’s as close to heaven on earth as I know of. Now here in New England, where the inhabitants take irrational pride in their ability to withstand horrific climatic extremes of cold and sunless gloom there are many who find July too “hot.” I don’t understand it myself, but I guess we all just have different tolerances to the weather. The only thing that I can say is that I hope they have had any repairs or maintenance done to their AC system, as it will be a very long month for them if they haven’t. My friend has said that these emergency repair services from a company like Buric Heating and Air Conditioning, (burichvac.com/emergency-ac-service/) were really good for him when his system suddenly broke, as well as it happening at the worst possible time. But it’s sorted now, and he no longer finds July to be too “hot”, but lots of others still do. I guess to each his own. Maybe my Mediterranean blood is irrational in preferring extreme heat and light to more hyperborean conditions. But based on my observation of the rest of the New England persona I think humanity would confirm my bias over theirs. So I’ll take it as a given that July rules.

And the beauty of this month is that everyone else is more or less doing the same thing. Business productivity goes to hell, television is taken over by boring reruns and truly unwatchable replacement series that no one bothers with and the only people really working are amusement park and hotel employees. Even website traffic hits its low point in July. And that is good. Bloggers need time to recharge their batteries and readers need a break from blather.

Now, don’t panic. I do not intend to abandon the faithful readers of Orion’s Cold Fire. After all, writing this blog is one of the high points of my week (and we’ll talk about the origin of the week another time) and not something to be abandoned just because fun is to be had. I will be providing quotes and photos on my usual daily basis and I will comment on the unfolding Trumpocalypse on a fairly regular basis and I will provide Trump parodies and movie and book reviews as I produce them. But I might not be as punctual as I usually am and I may have a short hiatus here and there. After all, July is also my birth month and I like to be lazy right around that blessed date. So, bear with me and we’ll get through this together.

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“Narrative Collapse” or “And Now They Know That We Know it Too”

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As the Conservative Treehouse linked to the results of the Harvard-Harris monthly poll we find three very encouraging results.  Look at the answer percentages on these three questions:

Do you think current border security is adequate or inadequate? 61% Inadequate / 39% Adequate

Do you support or oppose building a combination of physical and electronic barriers across the U.S.-Mexico border?  60% Support / 40% Oppose

Do you think that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, known as ICE, should be disbanded or not?   31% Disbanded / 69% Not Disbanded

And this poll skews to the left with 37% Democrat, 32% Republican and 29% Independent.  Look at that number, 60% support building a wall.  That represents basically all the Republicans and all the Independents.  But if you go to the Harris Poll site and look up Harvard Harris you’ll see this headline:

“Latest Harvard-Harris Poll Finds More than 6 in 10 Registered Voters Oppose Border Wall Between U.S. and Mexico.”

But that’s the opposite result.  How can that be?  Well the poll they tout was taken back in April and preceded this one.  But wait a minute, you might say, how could 20% of the country change its mind in a month or two?  And you would be right.  That doesn’t happen.  The older poll reflects what we’ve been fed from pollsters for the last decade.  Americans want more immigration and they love those whacky, fun-loving drug runners from M13.  We can’t get enough of their idiosyncratic drive by machine gunning and intimidation of our high school children.  What’s not to love?

So how did the new headline occur?  I don’t think you’ll find a documented answer that makes sense.  I’ll give you my theory.

The narrative collapsed.

The people who put out these polls have a pretty wide latitude when it comes to selecting the participants, phrasing the questions and massaging the data they receive.  And I think they use this elasticity to produce results like the 99.9% certainty that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.  So, I’m guessing that the difference between the April poll and the June poll was relatively large, not twenty percent but maybe five percent.  But my guess is that the real percentages in those two polls were 65% and 70%.  But you’d say, wait a minute, that’s impossible.  How could a 65% majority for the wall be turned into a 40% minority?  That’s a 25% inaccuracy.  And why then would they not just adjust the 70% to 45%.  My theory is they’ve been maintaining the same narrative that they fabricated to prop up the Obama presidency and they juiced it as hard as they could during the Clinton campaign and they held out hope that the Resistance would bring down Trump’s popularity and allow his presidency to collapse.  But the numbers keep moving farther and farther in the other direction and now they’re literally afraid of being caught cooking the books and losing their gig.  After all, other pollsters are already showing different results on these same poll questions and it must be getting a little thick for our friends at Harris and Gallup.  They don’t want to be the ones flapping in the breeze when the next Brexit or Trumpocalypse occurs.  It might mean having to get real jobs.  So the jig is up and they’ll have to start only slightly slightly tipping the scales, let’s say 5 to 10%.

And that got me thinking, what would it look like if the narrative collapsed completely?  And what would it take to cause that implosion?  My guess is that what would cause the implosion would be the success of the Trump Revolution.  Specifically, if the Republicans hold onto the House and expand their lead in the Senate and use this majority to provide President Trump with the funds to build the wall and enforce the immigration laws and the country supports this effort by re-electing him convincingly, then all of this would be enough to collapse the Narrative completely.

So this is the long answer for why those poll answers seem so different from expectations.  But there’s a short answer too.  A one-word answer.  Trump.

Ever since the primary debates he’s been telling us the Emperor’s New Clothes are fake news.  Jeb! told us that illegal immigration was love.  Trump told us it was crime.  The Media and the pollsters said Trump was part of a small, shrinking, bigoted minority.  The election showed that wasn’t so.  He keeps hammering away at the lies and evasions.  And he’s definitely winning.  And they know it.  And now they know that we know it too.

29JUN2018 – American Greatness Post of the Day

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Julie Kelly has a nice article (NeverTrump is Now NeverSCOTUS) that reviews how the remaining NeverTrumpers have gone so far off the rails that they not only still deny Donald Trump’s achievement in saving the Supreme Court but even claim that throwing the next Court pick to the Democrats is the right thing to do.  Guys like Bill Kristol want the Dems to take over the House and Senate just to destroy President’ Trump’s term in office.  It’s hard to believe that they were ever actually on our side.  In fact I don’t.

NeverTrump is Now NeverSCOTUS

How I Got Here

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I was born in 1957.  My father and uncles fought in World War II and the Korean War.  I was raised to believe that Americans were the good guys.  And then Walter Cronkite and John Kerry said we were the bad guys in Vietnam.  A few years later Lyndon Johnson told us we were racists.  A decade later Jimmy Carter told us to let the enemies of the United States do as they pleased because we had sinned against them.  And every day the Media and the Left did everything they could to tear down our country and our spirit.  We had stagflation (stagnant economy and 20% inflation), the Iran Hostage Crisis and the Carter Malaise.  That was a low point.

And then a miracle happened.  Ronald Reagan told us we weren’t the problem and that we really were the good guys.  And it was like a cloud drifted past and the sun was shining on us again.  And like magic, everything got better.  And Americans were proud and happy again.  And even the lousy leftists seem to remember they were Americans a little and it was morning in America again.

And George H. W. Bush said it was his turn to be President and he had learned his lesson and he would be just like Reagan only smarter and kinder.  And we wanted to believe him and compared to Mike Dukakis he could have been John Wayne.  So he got his turn.  And we got a New World Order complete with higher taxes, NAFTA, shuttered factories, high unemployment, recession and Middle East War.

And that got us Bill Clinton and Hillary, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Monica, Dot Com Bubble, Al Gore, more shuttered factories, Chinese trade imbalance and moral rot.

Everything was a muddle and a mess.  When George W Bush said he was a Christian Conservative from Texas we hoped that he would right the ship.  Avoiding Al Gore seemed like dodging a huge bullet.  We hoped that we could start to repair some of the damage from his father and the Clintons.  And the 9-11 happened.  And that was like a punch to the throat.  And W did a lot of things right.  He joined the country in a crusade to crush Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  And the young men of that generation answered the call and went to Afghanistan and crushed our enemies.  And there was hope that we could subdue the Muslim extremists and end the Middle Eastern threats once and for all.  But a unfunny thing happened.  W had his own vision of a New world Order.  And it involved draining off the blood and treasure of our country to turn the Middle East into Kansas.  And he squandered both of those precious commodities until there was nothing left.  And when he was finished Iraq wasn’t Kansas and the Democrats took the Congress and the Presidency.  All W accomplished was killing and maiming a generation of young Americans, bankrupting the country and making Barack Hussein Obama president.

Obama’s presidency was like a foreign occupation.  It was hard to decide which was worse, the injury or the insult.  He took every opportunity to belittle and shame Americans and he did whatever damage he could do.  Permanent double digit unemployment and wage stagnation had robbed a generation of the American dream and beggared their parents.  Obamacare was the biggest legislative victory he scored against us but it also seemed to galvanize the country against him.  The worst damage he did was the BLM activism that he aided and abetted.  The other mischief he sponsored was spreading alien refugees wherever he could.  And one other thing that he got behind was the whole gay marriage, transgender movement.  He discovered that he had “evolved” to recognize a constitutional right to gay marriage and this dove-tailed with the lunacy that drove Justice Anthony Kennedy to inflict a Supreme Court decision forcing another insane assault on the American family.

And so, in 2015 we had hit bottom.  It didn’t seem that anything could be done to save America from poverty and degradation.  Our choices, such as they were, were Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Jeb! Bush.  And we all knew neither of those two could beat Hillary.  After all Bernie was supposed to lose and the super delegate system would make sure of that.  Jeb was much too much of a gentleman to consider doing anything more than weakly protest at the unfair campaign attacks that Hillary’s machine would unleash and then good naturedly concede defeat.  And when Antonin Scalia died suddenly during the election year it seemed as if nothing could save us from the dismantling of the First and second Amendments.  This truly was the political low point of my entire life.

And then a miracle happened.  Donald J. Trump.  It seemed utterly impossible.  But there were some voices that I followed who said he was the answer and our last hope.  And interestingly they were on the Alt-Right (one specifically, Vox Day).

And they were right.

So twice in my adult life a leader has emerged who everyone said was crazy.  And they said he was wrong and would cause disaster and maybe nuclear war.  And both times he was the right man at the right time.  And just as with Reagan it’s as if a cloud has drifted out of the way and the sun is shining down on us bright and warm.

And this is what I’ve learned.  Don’t trust the elites, especially Republicans.  Not in the Media, not in Academia, not in Industry and not in Washington.  Don’t be mistaken into thinking that the Left are Americans even if they themselves are convinced they are.  They’re not, they’re globalists.  America is just an inconvenient stepping stone on the way to the global hive.  Don’t trust anyone who has been in politics for his whole life and for pity’s sake don’t make him VP.  Look for a courageous and confident leader who knows what the story is.  Look for someone who is unafraid to speak the painful truth and hurt powerful people’s feelings.  Look for someone who understands how the whole dirty business works and can’t be bought off.  Look for someone who isn’t ashamed to be an American.  And then back him to the Gates of Hell.  We may still end up crushed by the Left.  But at least we’ll know it is happening and we won’t be fooled again.

And remember, we got Reagan and Trump but there won’t be a third miracle, three strikes and you’re out.