Month: July 2026

Here’s What I Know

Patriotism

There has been a great deal of angst among conservatives about how the evil bastards on the Left have been trying with might and main to sabotage the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation.  It starts from the childish petulance of artists refusing to participate in anything remotely connected with Donald Trump, and continues with other members of the Pissers & Moaners Set going on about how we have nothing to celebrate because we are really an eeeeevil rayciss patriarchal capitalist bunch of Bad People which has been exploiting and discriminating against homosexualists, Black people, transsexualists, people with blue hair…. the list goes on and on ad nauseam.

Okay, I’ll cop to the “capitalist” bit.

Here’s the thing.  Conservatives shouldn’t be worried about all these childish tantrums.  We Americans have a great deal to celebrate, even if the screaming loonies are howling all that twaddle on their iPhones, at BlueSky or in institutions like The New York Times — and please note the irony that they are able to do this because of that First Amendment to the Constitution (written by those slave-owning White men two centuries ago), which guarantees the freedom to say the silly bullshit they are putting out.  “Silly bullshit”, lest we forget, is absolutely one of the parts of speech protected, much as it makes my hackles rise.

And here’s what I know.  I’m going to wake up on Saturday morning, on that very 250th anniversary of our foundation, with a song in my heart and a deep, abiding sense of gratitude that I am an American citizen, and not a citizen of some other shithole country (pretty much all countries not the U.S., as it happens).

I’m going to post a celebratory entry on my website (First Amendment), and then I’m going to head off to Texas Legends shooting range (who have informed me that yes, they’re going to be open on July 4th even though it’s technically a public holiday and they needn’t be), and I’m going to exercise my Second Amendment freedom — something that I damn sure wouldn’t be able to do in all the other shithole countries, because my firearm of choice for the day is going to be the frankenpoodleshooter AR-15 (which is streng verboten  in said states of Shitholia).

(I would go to watch the fireworks later, except it’s Texas and even at 9 o’clock at night the temperature will still be set to “Broil”, so I’ll pass on that — but I’ll be there in spirit.)

Dinner will no doubt be extremely carnivorous:

I’m sure that the above innocent activities would no doubt piss off just about the entire population of the Left (also furriners, some overlap there), but there it is.

I don’t need those big public celebrations, in other words, because while they’re fun and all that, the real celebration is personal — an individual’s activity, said individuality being at the very heart of our nation and our Constitution.

We are a nation of individuals, not just cogs in some collective machine, much as it pains the Left that we stubbornly refuse to submit to that coercion (aided by that pesky Constitution thing).

We do have a great deal to celebrate:  never forget that alone among the nations of the world — past and present — we are a nation founded on an ideal, a principle, and not simply by being part of some kingdom’s fiefdom.

And we’ve survived and prospered — good grief, how have we prospered! — for two hundred and fifty years (and counting).  That’s worth celebrating, even if the Perpetually Aggrieved don’t think so.

No Great Loss

Legal Stuff, Rights

So DJT lost his Birthright Citizenship case at the Supremes.

I for one am neither surprised nor even that upset about it.  Here’s why.

I agree that the whole idea is fatally flawed:  that the principle of just being born on U.S. soil makes one an automatic citizen is without equal in just about every other country in the world, where the nationality of one or both parents (if one, usually that of the mother) is the sole determinant of the baby’s citizenship.

And yes, I also know that the 14th Amendment had an entirely different purpose when it was originally passed, and has no proper justification today.  But it’s still a Constitutional Amendment, and said document gives very explicit terms under which an Amendment can be altered or abolished;  and that process has nothing to do with the sitting President.  It remains, quite rightly, the proper preserve of the Congress and of the states, with those pesky two-thirds majorities required at every step of the way.

As such, I’m not comfortable with any POTUS trying to abolish parts of the Constitution by fiat or executive order, for obvious reasons, and that’s why I’m not upset about the Supremes’ decision.  We have enough trouble with tinpot politicians deciding that the Constitution — or the part(s) they don’t agree with, anyway (hello, Second Amendment) — can be bypassed with some local law or regulation, and I’m of the firm belief that these people and/or governments need to have their pee-pees whacked, and hard, every time they try to do that.

If we want to end birthright citizenship, we need to do it the difficult way, the way the Founders intended it.  That may make it impossible — I hope not — but sometimes the principle is just more important than the action.