Smash The Spoils System, Baby: South Carolina Brings It

Donald Trump, Elections, Private Property, Republicans

The menagerie of morons that is American media—these crooked, scripted, bought-and-paid-for insiders—are finally, but not quite, grasping Donald’s appeal to average folks. The gaffes and impolitic statements are the hallmark of a man who tells the truth as he see it, without dressing it up in the raiment of politically enforced propriety. Most ordinary people would do the same if they’d live to tell the tale:

Via The New York Times’ Frank Bruni:

… people voting for [Trump] aren’t evaluating him through any usual ideological lens. They’re not asking what kind of Republican he is. They’re not troubling themselves with whether the position he’s selling today matches the position he was selling yesterday or even what that old position was.

They want to try something utterly different—utterly disruptive, to use the locution du jour—and that leaves them, on the Republican side, with the options of Trump and Ben Carson. Trump has the fire.

Who said so in June in “A Candidate To ‘Kick The Crap Out Of All The Politicians’”? (Watch this space for my forthcoming book.)

… Trump didn’t just win South Carolina, and he didn’t just win it by a margin of 10 points. He won it despite what looked, over recent days, like a concerted effort to lose it. He won it after what appeared to be one of the worst weeks that a candidate could have.

It began at the most recent debate, where he trashed the last Republican president, George W. Bush, and accused him of lying to the American people as he led them into war in Iraq. He sounded like a liberal Democrat. Republican primary voters, especially those in the South, aren’t typically receptive to that.

Over the next days, Trump sounded even more like a liberal Democrat, at least as described by Ted Cruz, who went after him relentlessly, armed with Trump’s own past statements in support of abortion rights and Planned Parenthood. [We libertarians are accused of so sounding, too, because we know you cannot compel free individuals not to do certain things with their private property—their bodies—however, you can defund a thing that ought not to be funded in the first place, because there is no constitutional warrant for it.]

The week got messier from there. Trump picked a fight with the Pope. Trump picked a fight with Apple. It became evident that no personage or brand, no matter how beloved, was safe from his wrath.

TWEETS

The Russell Kirk We love Is …

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, libertarianism, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, War

… the Russel Kirk who, “Toward the end of his life, … returned to his anti-war beginnings. He went so far as to say that ‘not a single American war … had been absolutely necessary.’ He denounced the neoconservatives as warmongers; and he had no use for National Review. ‘Kirk came to believe that Buckley had sold out to the neocons, claiming in a private letter to [Peter] Stanlis, ‘As Patrick Buchanan remarks, National Review is now the New York office of the New World Order.’”

David Gordon is always streaks ahead of the rest of us mortals. Read David’s review of Russell Kirk: American Conservative, by Bradley J. Birzer (University Press of Kentucky).

I will say that I knew, from my edition of The Conservative Mind, “that Kirk in the 1940s was himself a libertarian, or close to it.” And that: “… he strongly opposed America’s war policy, in particular the use of atomic weapons and the internment of Japanese Americans.”

I didn’t, however, know that Kirk “corresponded with both Albert Jay Nock and Isabel Paterson, both renowned libertarians. Indeed, he favorably discussed them in the first edition of The Conservative Mind.”

Best tidbit from David’s review:

Buckley was a former CIA agent, and the principal point of the [NR] magazine was to reorient the American Right from a noninterventionist foreign policy toward a militant pursuit of the Cold War against Russia and to purge those who dissented from militarism and war. Four of the editors, Willmoore Kendall, James Burnham, Frank S. Meyer, and Willi Schlamm, favored preventive war against Russia. Kendall and Burnham were also former CIA agents; and the late great George Resch told me that Henry Regnery, Kirk’s publisher, called National Review a CIA operation.

READ “The Real Russell Kirk” by David Gordon.

Janice Rogers Brown: The Justice Obama (And Bush) Bypassed

Conservatism, Constitution, Justice, Law, The Courts

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Whoever interviewed the terribly nice Ben Carson the other day went blank (and quickly moved on) when Dr. Carson answered a question about his possible pick for the Supreme Court. (The ignorance jibes with Megyn Kelly, but I can’t be sure.) The good doctor’s pick was a good one: Janice Rogers Brown.

In 2009 (May 26), Judge Brown was “Barely A Blog’s Pick For The Supreme Court,” when we were faced with the choice of clodhopper Sonia Sotomayor (George Bush’s picks were as catastrophic. Remember the goofy Harriet Myers?). I wrote:

Who said the following: “Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much ‘free stuff’ as the political system will permit them to extract”?

Answer: Justice Janice Rogers Brown, the black, conservative judge George Bush had also passed-up on nominating for the SCOTUS. (Yes, the Republicans’ new-found fidelity for the Constitution should always be laughed out of court.)

This is just one of Brown’s many just utterances. At the time, President Bush’s lickspittles came close to conceding that he, too, considered Rogers Brown “outside the mainstream,” to use the Democrats’ line.

Janice Brown quotes Thucydides, F.A. Hayek, and Burke. That’s so white male, so yesterday; so wrong.

UPDATED (4/23/016): Giving Voice (& A Little Advice) To Voiceless South Africans

IMMIGRATION, Justice, Law, South-Africa

The West is unenlightened when it comes to life in South Africa, in general; for whites, in particular. Accompanied by a picture of a gorgeous little girl, a young South African dad—he’d make a magnificent contribution to the US—wrote to me the other day for a plan of escape. He has little chance of getting into the US legally. US immigration laws privilege—and select for—Third Wold scofflaws. To understand how US immigration policies penalize law-abiding, white, middle-class migrants bereft of the H-1B or O-1 Visa requirements, read “Please, Can My Sister Become An Illegal Immigrant?” (boy, did G. Bush compound the problem while in office).

Suffice it to say that this man would never consider entering the country illegally without his beloved family. And even if he did; there is no militant identity group agitating on his behalf. In fact, in researching my book, “Into The Cannibal’s Pot,” I was unable to find a case of a judge affording a sympathetic hearing to a white, migrant, South-African family. The one family, having overstayed its visa and built a wonderful life, bolstered as it was by affidavits from church and community—they were sent packing by an American rogue in judicial robes.

Here’s the note received. It’s heavily redacted for his own protection. My reply follows. The following points were not brought up in the original reply:

* The dangers of couples like this falling prey to ruthless hoaxes and exploitation. The best sources for lawful immigration possibilities are reputable immigration lawyers, consulates and attendant websites.
* Canada does have a more rational, flexible immigration system, taking into account age, facility with French and English, and qualifications with respect to the changing needs of the country’s economy.

Dear Ilana,

I don’t know where to start, so I will begin with what is most important in my life, the reason for me writing this: my beautiful, 4-year-old blond baby girl.

The other day she asked me, “Daddy… will the bad man come to hurt me?” I said no they won’t because daddy will always protect you, but I knew that it’s a promise I cannot keep if she remains in South Africa.

She is stuck here surrounded by rapists, torturers and murderers. Every day I fear for her safety, every day I am reminded that she has no future here in South Africa.

I desperately need to get my family out, but we simply do not have the means to emigrate. We own very little …

We don’t want charity. What I am hoping for is that you perhaps know businessmen in the US who would be willing to employ me (or both of us).

I am 33, Afrikaans, but fully bilingual. I have 11 years of experience in the office automation industry …, technical and sales. For the last 6 years I have been running a small business from home … . I am willing to do any kind of work as long as I can support my family with it. …

… My wife is English speaking. She has extensive experience in banking and office administration.

We are both honest and hardworking people. We will be productive members of our community, wherever that may be.

We just want a normal life and to live in a country where my daughter can grow up in relative safety.

I pray that you can assist us, but even if you cannot I am eternally grateful that you are enlightening the world about what is going on in SA.

God bless you and your family
Yours Sincerely
Anon

My reply:

Dear Anon,

My heart breaks at your plight. I know it’s pervasive. As you know, my book speaks to this.

Legal immigration into the US is hard. Especially for whites. For South Africans US law has no compassion, unless non-white.

Immigration lawyers are expensive.

The criteria to enter the US have not changed; it’s still near impossible legally and while white.

Go online and investigate Australia, New Zealand and Canada. (See my opening comment about Canada. This may be the case with the other two countries.)

I’m thinking Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland might be a good bet. That’s just me reading the tea leaves. These are places desperate to keep their heritage and national sanity. Having emerged from communism; they’re not as collectively dumb as the Anglo-American Fabians.

South American countries like Chile, too.

Sadly, all I can do is write. I will certainly write about your plight, taking care to keep your info private, of course.

I have family in SA, so …

I do hope you can carry a fire arm, although I know the right to defend your life is now heavily circumscribed. It wasn’t that way when I lived near Vereeniging.

Let me know how you and your lovely family (little one is gorgeous) are doing.

ilana

UPDATE 4/23):