Category Archives: America

Dick Cavett And Enoch Powell: Civilized, Edifying Discussion That Would Never Take Place Today

America, Britain, IMMIGRATION, Race, Racism, Reason

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“‘Racist’ is one of the modern terms of abuse,” Enoch Powell tells Dick Cavett. “The term of abuse is more effective the less defined it is. Then you can throw it at anybody and anything.”

“It all sounds reasonable,” replies Cavett, to Mr. Powell’s lucid explanation as to the question of which people belonged in England, given the British Empire’s reach and diffuse definition of citizen vs. subject.

I’ve repeatedly made the point in columns and to my friend David Vance, who lives in the UK, that all the racial nonsense the British are agonizing over is imported from America—doesn’t belong in Britain—so I love that this is Powell’s first point: The race baggage is American; not British.

Before him, explained Powell, nobody in government had cared enough to give voice to the sorrow Britons were feeling to over the possibility of losing their home, England, as they knew it. Powell was giving context to his 1968, “rivers of blood” speech.

READ more Barely-A-Blog Posts about Enoch Powell.

Link via https://britishbullybees.blogspot.com/2021/03/enoch-powell-on-being-called-racist.html

Mercer Memorial-Day Message Same Since 2009

America, Homeland Security, Israel, Just War, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, War

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“What I learned growing up in a war-torn region is that a brave nation fights because it must; a cowardly one fights because it can.”—ilana mercer

I have published this message every Memorial day, since 2009, softened slightly for taste.

Robert Glisson, a veteran and a longtime reader—where are you, Robert?—was once asked to write an op-ed for Barely A Blog about the “Patriot Guard Riders.” The op-ed, entitled “For The Love of A Brother-In-Arms, And ‘Big Brother’ Be Damned,” was prefaced with this comment:

“I do not identify with the military mission, but who can fault the humanity of the effort?”

It is the habit on the Memorial Day weekend to thank uniformed men for their sacrifice. And it is the annual custom on Barely A Blog to extend sympathies to the Americans who fight phantoms in far-flung destinations. I’m sorry they’ve been snookered into living, dying and killing for a lie. But I cannot honor that lie. I mourn for them, as I have from day one.

I am sorry for those who’ve enlisted thinking they’d fight for their countrymen and were subjected to one backdoor draft after another in the cause of illegal, unjust wars and assorted informal attacks. My heart hurts for you, but my worshiping at Moloch’s feet will not make you feel better, deep down.

I honor those sad, sad draftees to Vietnam and to WW II. The first valiant batch had no option; the same goes for the last, which actually fought a just war. I grew up in Israel, so I honor those men who stopped Arab armies from overrunning our homes. In 1973, we came especially close to annihilation.

I can legitimately claim to know of flesh-and-blood heroes who fought so that I could emerge from the bomb shelter (in the wars of 67 and 73) and proceed with my kid life. I always stood in their honor and wept when the sirens wailed once a year. Wherever he is, every Israeli stops on that day and stands still in remembrance. We would have been physically overrun by Arabs if not for those brave men who defended the homeland—and not some far-away imperial project—with their bodies.

But can we Americans, in 2021, make such a claim? Can we truly claim that someone killed an Iraqi, Afghani, Yemeni, Libyan or Syrian so that we may … do what? Remind me?

“What I learned growing up in a war-torn region is that a brave nation fights because it must; a cowardly one fights because it can.”

How fast the so-called small-government types forget that the military is government. As explained in “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program“:

“When Republicans and conservatives cavil about the gargantuan growth of government, they target the state’s welfare apparatus and spare its war machine. Unbeknown to these factions, the military is government. The military works like government; is financed like government, and sports many of the same inherent malignancies of government. Like government, it must be kept small. Conservative can’t coherently preach against the evils of big government, while excluding the military mammoth.”

“Classical Liberalism And State Schemes“ further suggests how the military, as an arm of the state, can become antithetical to the liberty of its own citizens and the world’s citizens:

We have a solemn [negative] duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty, and property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because (supposedly) upholding the negative rights of the world’s citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—their lives, liberties, and livelihoods. The classical liberal government’s duty is to its own citizens, first.
“philanthropic” wars are transfer programs—the quintessential big-government projects, if you will. The warfare state, like the welfare state, is thus inimical to the classical liberal creed. Therefore, government’s duties in the classical liberal tradition are negative, not positive; to protect freedoms, not to plan projects. As I’ve written, “In a free society, the ‘vision thing’ is left to private individuals; civil servants are kept on a tight leash, because free people understand that a ‘visionary’ bureaucrat is a voracious one and that the grander the government (‘great purposes’ in Bush Babble), the poorer and less free the people.”

UPDATED (5/5): The Politicians And The Presstitute Circle Jerk

America, Celebrity, Ethics, Media, Politics, THE ELITES, The Establishment

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Conflict of interest equals corruption. Yet, it is the modus operandi of major media in America, left and right. There is a “revolving door between media and successive administrations.”

Josh Hawley, a politician and friend of the Tucker Carlson Show, is on a book tour. My tongue is firmly in my cheek when I say this, because a politician should not serve any interests other than the people who pay him. Their fame or notoriety comes from the fact of their election. Using their position, paid for by the taxpayers, to aggrandize and enrich themselves is unethical and disgusting.

Writing and promoting books on the job, accepting book deals, paid lectures: These, in my opinion, should be outlawed.

Hawley’s book, I assure you, is inconsequential. Politicians are mostly inconsequential, banal minds. The book’s central, hackneyed “idea” of breaking up Big Tech, will help you NOT ONE BIT if you’ve been financially deplatformed and your speech, also the source of your income, has been throttled. Case closed. (A far better route is hinted at in my Deep Tech piece.)

As I observed in “Brian Williams: Member Of Media Circle Jerk,” America’s presstitutes are “no better than the lobbyists and the politicians they petition, they move seamlessly between their roles as activists, experts and anchors; publishers and authors; talkers and product peddlers; pinups and pontificators.”

No sooner does a politician, left or right, make a name for himself through media channels, than he starts peddling product: throw-away books, for one. Again: Any profit off a tax-payer funded office should be prohibited. It has to be.

Network friends entertain each other on their respective shows, making an even greater  mockery out of the typical canned TV “debate.” They do it all the time. The public doesn’t seem to care that their heroes are corrupt.

And family members hop on the gravy train.

Ethical practices entail keeping your (journalistic) work and friendships APART—just as you should keep your wife out of the office of the president (the late Mugabe) and your kids out of the White House (Trump). The avoidance of conflicts of interest was once grasped by people, too.

The corrupt and avaricious American media conceal these practice, because they want to partake in what is lucrative, career-advancing corruption.

What Fox News’ Howard Kurtz says below is all well and good, except listen to this:

“You know, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this game of musical chairs. It’s no secret that many high-profile people have moved back and forth between Fox News and Trump administration,” Kurtz concluded. “But it does seem that more journalists join Democratic administrations like Biden’s.”

In the car, the other day, on the radio, I heard Jason Rantz, a local radio host, enthusiastically repeating the “nothing inherently wrong” mantra to his listeners. See, Jason  and his ilk would like to flit between radio and politics; between commenting about the news to making news. They’d, moreover, like you to believe that the revolving door is ethical. It isn’t.

Via Mediaite:

Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz cited Joe Biden’s Secretary of State pick and CNN global affairs analyst Antony Blinken as the latest example of the “revolving door” between the media and presidential administrations, Tuesday.

“When Joe Biden does unveil Tony Blinken as his pick for Secretary of State today, he’ll be introducing the global affairs analyst for CNN, which Blinken joined after working at the top of the Obama State Department,” Kurtz noted in a segment on America’s Newsroom.

“This revolving door is spinning even more quickly between the media and the government,” he continued, pointing out that “there’s a mini exodus at MSNBC for Obama veterans who became cable pundits,” and who are now leaving to join Biden’s presidential transition team.

“Rick Stengel, former Time Magazine editor, had joined the Obama State Department, now has left MSNBC for the Biden transition,” Kurtz went on. “Also leaving MSNBC for the transition… former Obama prosecutor Barbara McQuade and Zeke Emanuel, medical expert who worked on Covid strategy. Jen Psaki, who many may remember as Obama’s State Department spokeswoman, has left CNN for the transition.”

Kurtz explained that “sometimes, the connections are behind the scenes,” citing “former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham [who] was an NBC and MSNBC contributor, but dropped from that role for helping Biden with some of his speeches without disclosing that to viewers

This revolving door between cable media, neoliberal (CNN) or neocon (Fox), and the D.C. duopoly, notwithstanding, it’s time to switch off the game show that is the incoherent, celebrity-driven, Big Con Inc. If you haven’t; you’re part of the problem.

UPDATED (5/5): I forgot to mention that on Tucker’s show, last night (5/4), Josh Hawley also alluded to:

“…Big government run by the Left.”

The very same permanent state was run by the “Right” until January.  LOL.

Come on. The Deep State and the hydra-headed horror of a government that heads it is seamlessly unseemly.

UPDATED (4/25): LETTER: Quite A Few Conservatives Agree That J.D. Vance Is Vile

America, Celebrity, Conservatism, Critique, Intelligence, Literature

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I love my readers. They get it. Writes Mr. K, a longtime reader and a lawyer, about the column, “On The Backs Of Poor Whites? How J.D. Vance Elites Become Elites“:

Thank God. You are the FIRST person I have seen with the courage to call J.D. Vance out for what I also saw when reading his book years ago: His unbelievable willingness to throw anyone, including his family, etc., under the bus also to serve his, ultimately by definition, desire for self-promotion.
And in general, I have NEVER gotten what people saw in that book that elevated it so high. [Indeed. He’s nothing great.] As you kind of say, he found a niche in demand, I guess, that also was not too particular about the quality of what it would celebrate.

As for conservative TV hosts who’ve dubbed J.D. Vance “one of the smartest people around.” That’s hilarious. This says all you need to know about conservatism’s intelligentsia.

James Burnham, Hans Hoppe, Samuel Huntington (A Democrat, actually) of the brilliant, unequaled Clash of Civilizations fame, and Samuel Johnson, Russell Kirk, Clyde Wilson, von Mises, Rothbard, Chris Matthew Sciabarra (what a writer he is!): They all live happily on the shelves of my library, pictured above. It would be sacrilegious—and an affront—to place Vance in their literary vicinity. Stupid, too.

READ: “On The Backs Of Poor Whites? How J.D. Vance Elites Become Elites“:

…Vance is a sellout. Not that they were asked for their take, but the archetypical folks depicted in Hillbilly Elegy contend, justifiably, that “Vance [is] not an authentic hillbilly or an example of the working class.”

Cassie Chambers Armstrong’s Aunt Ruth, for example.

Aunt Ruth didn’t think much of Vance’s endeavor. Her niece is an Appalachian and author of a redeeming tale, Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains.

“Hillbilly Elegy’s portrayal of Appalachia,” explains Chambers, “is designed to elevate Vance above the community from which he came … it seeks to tell his story in a way that aligns with a simplistic rags-to-riches narrative. Think critically about how that narrative influences the way we are taught to think about poverty, progress, and identity.” …

UPDATE (4/25): Jeff Deist: “Agreed. For a more thoughtful defense of Appalachia and poor whites this is a great read– by former US Senator Jim Webb.”