Category Archives: America

UPDATE II: A July 4th Toast To TJ, Author of The Declaration

America, Founding Fathers, History, Pseudo-history

THOMAS JEFFERSON, that is. For most, Independence Day means firecrackers and cookouts. “The Declaration of Independence—whose proclamation, on July 4, 1776, we celebrate—doesn’t feature. To be fair to the liberal establishment, ordinary Americans are not entirely blameless. In fact, contemporary Americans are less likely to read it now that it is easily available on the Internet, than when it relied on horseback riders for its distribution.”

Back in 1776, gallopers carried the Declaration through the country. Printer John Dunlap had worked ‘through the night’ to set the full text on ‘a handsome folio sheet,’ recounts historian David Hackett Fischer in Liberty And Freedom. And President (of the Continental Congress) John Hancock urged that the “people be universally informed.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, called it ‘an expression of the American Mind.’ An examination of Jefferson’s constitutional thought makes plain that he would no longer consider the mind of a Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, or the collective mentality of the liberal establishment, ‘American’ in any meaningful way. For the Jeffersonian mind was that of an avowed Whig—an American Whig whose roots were in the English Whig political philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. …

… Jefferson’s muse for the ‘American Mind’ is even older.

The Whig tradition is undeniably Anglo-Saxon. Our founding fathers’ political philosophy originated with their Saxon forefathers, and the ancient rights guaranteed by the Saxon constitution. With the Declaration, Jefferson told Henry Lee in 1825, he was also protesting England’s violation of her own ancient tradition of natural rights. As Jefferson saw it, the Colonies were upholding a tradition the Crown had abrogated. …

Naturally, Jefferson never entertained the folly that he was of immigrant stock. He considered the English settlers of America courageous conquerors, much like his Saxon forebears, to whom he compared them. To Jefferson, early Americans were the contemporary carriers of the Anglo-Saxon project.”

The original Independence-Day column in its entirety is “A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson And The Anglo-Saxon Tradition.”

UPDATED AND CONFIRMED I (July 5): Certain Americans will never own the founding history of this country, and one of perhaps three just wars Americans have fought.

The foul-mouthed Chris Rock: “Happy white peoples independence day.”

UPDATE II: In response to a Facebook comment: The issue here is not slavery, Myron. No need to crumble in white guilt at the mere mention of the American Revolution.

Let’s Break-Up And Break Free, Says BAB Contributor

America, BAB's A List, Federalism, Founding Fathers, History, Liberty, Nationhood

Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli has an Independence-Day message of freedom: Let’s break-up and break free. If you haven’t gotten his drift, on this Independence Day—Dr. Pauli recommends doing away with the supersize version of the United States of America, as this will do wonders for liberty. Hear hear! (Myron’s bio is below. It’s packed with his usual flare. Perhaps Myron’s highest achievement, however, is his teenage daughter. Dr. Pauli is the most devoted single dad I know.)

DO WE NEED TO HAVE A “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”? Of course, our Founders asked questions like that – but nowadays, to ask is even borderline treason making one a racist, terrorist, or psychotic. So much for the Land of the Free. But I will ask it anyway!

Other Empires have devolved – USSR being the best recent example. I don’t want to get caught up in detailed nuances but it can be done – so we can have 20 to 50 “countries” instead of one. OK – the 2 Dakotas and Montana can be the Republic of Northland. It will not be a superpower – but not everyone has to be #1. The Danes, Swiss, and Costa Ricans sleep soundly even if China, France, and Israel have more powerful armies. Is China about to invade Northland, anyway?

In fact, the “Federal” Government of the 1787 Constitution was not created (dismissing the Articles of Confederation as more of a Congressional coffee klatsch) to ward off imminent attack from Frederick the Great. Much of the impetus came from the corruption and ineptitude of the 13 states which quickly slid into “banana republic” governments. The soldiers of the Continental Army were stiffed and would have staged a coup if not for General Washington. Fiat paper money was shoved into circulation (sounds like today!). Debts, foreclosures, and contracts were negated by demagogic mobs that controlled the local legislatures. If someone in Rhode Island owed money to a creditor in Virginia, forgetaboutit!

If, when debts were not repudiated, gangs like Shays Rebellion put pressure to do so. Goods flowing from Maryland to New Jersey risked getting the “TSA treatment” from goons in Pennsylvania or Delaware. It was with that mess in mind that people like Franklin joined up with quasi-monarchists like Hamilton and supported a national government with LIMITED powers to restrain the states from the hanky-panky they were sliding into. An indirectly elected national government with limited powers could serve as a check-and-balance on the two-bit state demagogues. Franklin recognized this in his famous 17 September 1787 speech – that it would serve the cause of liberty for some time until the people will have grown corrupted.

Even 100 years after, advocates of limited government had a champion in Grover Cleveland, but by 1896, there was an electoral choice between the Plutocratic Imperialists of McKinley and the Currency Debasers of Bryan.

The country has grown but government has grown more and liberty has shrunk. The price of keeping Wyoming safe from an invasion from India currently includes SWAT teams raiding chemo patients for pot plants and bureaucrats from 3000 miles away scanning algebra test scores.

If we did break up, we run the risk of DC turning into Zimbabwe and Mississippi becoming Klan land, but there might be some restraint on the states due to economic competition. If Texas and North Carolina wanted racial, second-class status for Asians, their universities and engineering companies would become a laughing stock. The higher Massachusetts raises taxes, the more people would emigrate to New Hampshire.

But it might not go all that smoothly. What would prevent a combination of Mexico and California from invading an Arizona that attempted to enforce immigration restrictions? Would a power-hungry New York megalomaniac (Bloomberg) attempt to coerce Connecticut as well?

The danger is not as likely to come from China or India or Russia or some bucktoothed Afghan Pushtuns, but from North American Huey “Kingfish” Longs.

Franklin supported the Constitution, but warned that it “can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” One can also add Jefferson’s quote: “experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

The TSA, the SWAT Teams, the endless undeclared wars, the out-of-control deficits, the drones and constant surveillance – this was not forced on us by Germans or Martians but what WE HAVE DONE TO OURSELVES. Local corruption might be preferred to national or international corruption, but it is still evil.

So my preference is summed in one word – small may not always be beautiful, but it’s better for liberty.

**
MYRON PAULI, Ph.D., grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism.

Nattering Nabobs of NATO

America, Foreign Policy, Ilana Mercer, Military, Russia, Uncategorized, War

NATO concluded a two-day summit in Chicago on May 21. Srdja Trifkovic, at Chronicles Magazine, distills the “impressively vacuous waffle” issuing from these publicly financed officials. This particular self-important convention, concludes Srdja, could have been avoided. A “day-long teleconference—preceded by a few thousand e-mails among a few dozen civil servants—at zero cost to U.S. taxpayers and zero inconvenience to the citizens of Chicago” would have done the job.

I’d go one better: There is no need for NATO. The sooner the US disinvests from NATO, the better off will “The American Interest” be served.

Alas, there is more at stake than the good of the people allegedly represented by NATO “leaders.” Thus, as Srdja points out, “The alliance will continue to expand its capabilities in spite of economic austerity.”

All of the key decisions on Afghanistan are made by the Obama administration.
It cannot be otherwise. That war has always been an American operation, with some peripheral support from a number of NATO countries. …
…the future of Afghanistan belongs to the Taliban. For 11 years, survival was all the Taliban needed to accomplish in order to win. Once the American and other NATO troops leave, the ANSF will collapse, President Karzai will seek refuge in the Emirates, and Afghanistan will revert to her premodern ways. It does not matter: The country is irrelevant to the security of NATO members, and it should never have become a theater of NATO operations.

On the American cold-war hangover of kicking Russia despite its co-operation, Srdja observes the following:

When Obama addressed the summit on May 21, he publicly thanked Russia and her Central Asian neighbors “that continue to provide critical transit” into Afghanistan. Therefore, it is remarkable that a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations—the prospect of NATO membership for Georgia—was revived at the summit: “we have agreed to enhance Georgia’s connectivity with the Alliance, including by further strengthening our political dialogue, practical cooperation, and interoperability,” the declaration says, and “we appreciate Georgia’s substantial contribution . . . to Euro-Atlantic security.”
This is nonsense. Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia in August 2008 was one of
the most destabilizing events of the last decade in the Euro-Atlantic region. Imagine the reaction in Washington if Russia were to offer a military alliance to Mexico, equipped and trained the Mexican army, and guaranteed the inviolability of the Rio Grande frontier. Any further expansion of NATO along Russia’s flanks would confirm Moscow’s suspicion that, after the end of the Cold War, the underlying raison d’être of the alliance remains enmity with Russia. …
…Russia’s security interests demand a friendly “near-abroad” along her extended frontiers. Having a hostile Georgia on her southern flank—ran by an arguably unstable Mikhael Saakashvili—is a problem. Accepting Georgia into NATO would be seen in Russia as a security challenge of the highest order. Moreover, it would be detrimental to U.S. interests because of the security guarantee contained in Article V of the NATO Charter—the cornerstone of the alliance—which theoretically obliges the United States to risk an all-out war in defense of Georgia’s sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Srdja’s analysis in Chronicles is always highly recommended. Subscribe to the magazine once the editors complete their lineup with The Paleolibertarian Column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive (rightist) libertarian column, also on RT.

UPDATE III: The Closing of The American Mind? What Mind?

America, Education, Family, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Justice, Morality, Pop-Culture, Reason

Expect a WND and RT column follow-up in response to the responses (a sample is here and posted below) to “Bullied ‘Jail Bus’ Lady: Fearful Fatty, Not a Hero,” which gave me a glimpse of America at it illiterate, fulminating best.

A dear friend (and libertarian luminary) wrote to say, “Bravo.” He also divulged that he had given up on combating what goes for wisdom (Sophia) in America today. He quit writing for the “public.” His career spans decades to my 15 years (having arrived in North America in 1995). My friend is fortunate in the sense that most of his magnificent writing was done before America entered “The Age Of The Idiot.”

Illiterate and educated: They joined to castigate and curse this writer for writing truths that, if heeded, could set free the prisoners on the “Yellow Jail Bus”—those coerced to ride and/or pay for government schools.

Illiterate and educated: There was scarcely a difference in the quality of argument. I described immutable reality: a dysfunctional, ineffectual adult that had abnegated her duty and dissolved into a puddle of self-pity in the face of taunts from a couple of crappy kids. I urged: “Drain the septic tank that is our federalized education system, and with it the auxiliary personnel that infest the schools and feed off a dwindling tax base. There is now one non-teaching adult for every eight or nine children.”

For using words to describe reality, I was peppered with ad hominem, my character impugned. (And no: to the detritus delivered to my WND email address, and posted below: Even though she has had a life far harder than Karen Klein’s, in Israel and South Africa, my mother is still a dignified, beautiful lady at 73. I love you, mom.)

A day will come, and a child riding the Yellow “Jail Bus” will be beaten to a pulp (or maybe to death) by the type of wolverines who set upon Klein. Klein will have retired (and moved closer to “the Mecca of maturity: Disneyland”). But true to the system and society she represents, another ineffectual, fearful female will have taken her place.

I wonder what my assailants will say then? A second-hander might write a similar article … years down the line. (As has happened with most hot topics; mainstream catches up.) Or, more likely, people will continue to pay homage to PC pietism, making sure no one utters words that cleave to reality, such as, “Feeble, too fat to budge and too powerless to perform the task for which she is being paid.”

Kids could be injured because of Klein-like adults in positions of “authority.” But so long as nobody’s feelings are hurt—all will be deemed copacetic (even if it’s not). Wreaths will be lain, candles lit, tears shed, more slobbering will happen on weak-minded TV shows.

And “Managerial-State busybodies” will mandate compulsory anti-bully courses to all inmates in the Jails that are our government schools.

Not to tax the American Mind too much, but the Klein episode conjures a story by Edgar Allan Poe. (Don’t worry; your kids won’t hear about him in the public schools, from where his ilk has been expunged. Poe was, after all, some white American dude who could, “like write and stuff.”)

“The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” tells of inmates in an asylum who overpower their wardens, tar and feather them, throw them into underground cells, and proceed to have “a jolly season of it” without them.

If only…

UPDATE I (July 1): Abelard Lindsey: You may need to re-read the column. Excerpt: “… Perhaps the two [bus drive & monitor] live in fear of potential lawsuits, lodged by the parents who sire these good-for-nothing seventh graders…”

UPDATE II:

From: Greg
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2012 7:40 AM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Bullied ‘jail bus’ lady: Fearful fatty, not a hero

Ilana

This was an excellent commentary on both the public schools and the “sissified” adults that pretend to manage them. I agree with you completely.

Greg

UPDATE III (July 5):

From: John W.
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2012 9:23 AM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Thanks….

I only “taught” children for one year. If I can’t spank ’em, I can’t teach ’em. I found other work!

Thanks for a great article.

John W.

I’m getting tired of this thankless, punishing gig. I may just oblige my detractors and, for starters, close the moderated sections of what is a labor-intense blog spot. If you have a preference, which I very much doubt it, you may register is by clicking to Donate.

ILANA













Here’s a sample of America the Virtuous:

From: bizlique@comcast.net [mailto:bizlique@comcast.net]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 6:23 PM
To: imercer
Subject: cunt

you’re a bitter old hag and total cunt.

here’s some attention: i hope you die soon and when you do, we’ll rejoice like we did when breitbart died. that will be your legacy.

From: Virginia Gomez [mailto:virginiagomez4@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 2:20 PM
To: IMERCER@WND.COM
Subject: YOUR ARTICLE ON MS. KAREN KLEIN

Wow, and ‘YOU’ actually have the nerve to call yourself a writer?! … But what can one expect from a ‘liberal’ whom I consider jerks and idiots. There aren’t any nice words I can use to describe your despicable article on: “Bullied ‘jail bus lady’: Fearful, fatty Not a Hero”. Is your mother overweight or is your dad overweight from eating too many twinkies?? Would they be considered “Fatty”? Do you call them “fat” without regards to their feelings?? It’s a shame that YOU haven’t taken a real close look at yourself in the mirror and seen how ugly you really are! …when I saw that you are a liberal I said to myself “hey, what else can one expect from a liberal, thank god she has not disappointed me.” Take your shitty comments/ articles and apply them to your parents and other jerkoff liberals who appreciate your worthless talent.

From: Thomas Mariani [mailto:xmarianix@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 3:00 PM
To: ilana@ilanamercer.com
Subject: Bus driver

How can you write things like this, “Or, perhaps the bus drive is another fearful fatty who was unable to dislodge herself from her seat”. Ilana, Go fuck yourself.

From: C B [mailto:taz11375@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 6:06 PM
To: ilana@ilanamercer.com
Subject: Exclusive: Ilana Mercer asserts Karen Klein is perpetuating infantilism in America

Fuck you – ignorant bitch!