NEW COLUMN: Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction

Constitution, Democrats, Donald Trump, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Natural Law, Republicans, The Courts, The State

“Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction” is the current column, now on WND.COM.

An excerpt:

Big Media, the policy veterans and the chancelleries across Europe and Britain are constantly complaining: Donald Trump has had the temerity to defy their international order, summit—and seek peace—with their enemies, and mess with the multilateral maze they call agreements. He even declared, early in June, that the US would be far better off if it negotiated bilateral trade agreements.

Or, in Trump speak, “country-on-country agreements.”

But what does an entrenched punditocracy, a self-anointed, meritless intelligentsia (which is not very intelligent and draws its financial sustenance from the political spoils system), oleaginous politicians, slick media and big money care? They’ve all worked in tandem to advance a grand government—national and transnational—that aggrandizes its constituent elements, while diminishing those it’s supposed to serve.

These political players have built the den of iniquity Trump keeps trampling. Against these forces—NAFTA, NATO, FBI, DOJ, CIA, a whole alphabet soup of acronyms that stands for the Permanent State, national and international—is Trump, still acting as a political Samson that threatens to bring the house crashing down on its patrons.

And his latest. Trump’s judicial appointments, in particular, might just prove to be “his most enduring legacy,” lamented the liberal Economist. These certainly threaten to cement the Supreme Court’s originalist bent:

.. No president has confirmed more federal appellate judges (12) in his first year than Donald Trump. He has also seen six federal district-court judges confirmed, and one Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch. Another 47 nominees await confirmation; 102 more federal judgeships remain open for Mr. Trump to fill. With two of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices, and its one unpredictable member (Anthony Kennedy) aged 79 or older, the president [will] get to name another justice [maybe two] …

Published in June of 2016, “The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” made the case that Donald J. Trump is the quintessential post-constitutional candidate.

In the “Opening Statement” titled “Welcome To The Post-Constitutional Jungle,” oldies will recognize a nod to the Guns N’ Roses classic, “Welcome to the Jungle,” as well as to broadcaster Mark Levin’s coinage.

We inhabit what Levin has termed a post-constitutional America. The libertarian (and classical conservative) ideal—where the chains that tether us to an increasingly tyrannical national government are loosened and power is devolved once again to the smaller units of society—is a long way away.

Where the law of the jungle prevails, the options are limited: Do Americans get a benevolent authoritarian to undo the legacies of Barack Obama, George W. Bush and those who went before? Or, does the increasingly ill-defined entity called The People continue to submit to Demopublican diktats, past and present?

The quintessential post-constitutional candidate, Trump’s candidacy was for the age when the Constitution itself is unconstitutional. Like it or not, the original Constitution is a dead letter, having suffered decades of legislative, executive and judicial usurpation.

The natural- and common law traditions, once lodestars for lawmakers, have been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute. However much one shovels the muck of lawmaking aside, natural justice and the Founders’ original intent remain buried too deep to exhume.

The Constitution has become just another thing on the list of items presidential candidates check when they con constituents.

The dissembling words of many a presidential candidate notwithstanding, the toss-up in the 2016 election was, therefore, between submitting to the Democrats’ war on whites, the wealthy and Wal-Mart, or being bedeviled by mainstream Republicans’ wars on the world: Russia, China, Assad and The Ayatollahs. Or, suffering all the depredations listed and more had Candidate Clinton been victorious. …

… READ THE REST. “Applauding The Donald’s Ongoing Creative Destruction” is the current column, now on WND.COM

130 Candidates Have Been Killed In Mexico, While Running For Office

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democracy, Drug War, Elections, Morality

Pray for courageous Carmen. She has two children and doesn’t know if she’ll survive to raise them. What imperils Carmen’s life? She is running for office in … Mexico.

More than 130 candidates have been killed in Mexico during a deadly election campaign leading up to general and presidential elections on Sunday.

Carmen’s husband was one of the victims, shot dead six weeks ago in broad daylight after a rally.

Now the grieving widow is running for office herself.

Harley-Davidson Had Been Looking To Move Production Off Shore For A While

Capitalism, Debt, Donald Trump, Economy, Free Markets, Trade

Conservatism once had the genius of James Burnham, Russell Kirk, Frank Chodorov, and Felix Morley; now the brand boasts Rich Lowry, Meghan McCain and S. E. Cupp.

The last has learned nothing from the 2016 election. S. E. Cupp, a Never Trumper who hosts a CNN show, is betting against Donald Trump. She says, “Trump Supporters Soon Will Learn That No One Wins A Trade War.”

Where’s the learning curve? I would not bet on Trump losing a trade war.

This is not to advocate tariffs. I am for free trade. But here’s the clincher. We don’t have free-market capitalism. Never have; at least not in recent memory.

Thus, “trade deficits must be seen in the context of state-managed trade and systemic debt.” That’s what Trump is negotiating; he’s not messing with the divine order in which we true free-marketers believe. For it doesn’t exist.

As for Harley-Davidson’s decision to move some of its production outside of the U.S.: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Kennedy of Fox Business disclosed that the company had been looking to move production off shore for a while and were searching for an excuse to do so.

 

Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer Came To Define American Conservatism

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy

Charles Krauthammer was the quintessential neoconservative. As the scholar of American conservatism, Paul Gottfried, puts it, Mr. Krauthammer “worked to reconstruct the American Right as an extension of the Left.”

It’s rather telling, then, that a former leftist, who was hardly distinguished by his hard-right positions, has come to define the American Right.

Inadvertently (or not), Rich Lowry brought the conservative canonization of Mr. Krauthammer somewhat under control by comparing him to William F. Buckley and Irving Kristol. (Although they seemed to have been far more prolific on the book-writing front and had taken tough positions on thorny issues.) But, mercifully, NOT TO intellectual giants like Russell Kirk and James Burnham.

Whether he meant to or not, Mr. Lowry provided a slightly more sobering reality check, although Lowry still sold Mr. Krauthammer’s philosophical predecessors short.

A consummate neoconservative, the late Charles Krauthammer, nevertheless, came to define American Conservatism.

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