Threatened

From PJMedia comes this little snippet:

I’m not going to comment on the article itself, but on the poll about which it speaks.

You see, we all know about the attacks on our Second Amendment rights — Virginians most recently, Californians, New Yorkers and Illinoisans in perpetua — and of course we are, and should be, permanently vigilant about those, especially as its the fucking government — federal, state and local — who inflict gun control on us law-abiding citizens (aided and abetted, it should be said, by the Jackals Of The Press — JOTP — who never saw a gun they didn’t hate).

Likewise, the right to a fair trial, and the presumption of innocence, is often trampled upon by the fucking government — where, for example, law enforcement officers can lie to a suspect with impunity in order to extract a confession, but lying to a law enforcement officer carries a prison sentence (ask Martha Stewart).  You could also ask the late Richard Jewell about that — the Fibbies publicly named him a “person of interest”, whereupon the JOTP pounced on that and helped them in their pretrial conviction in the public eye.

It’s the other three freedoms that concern me almost as much, because those are under attack not only by government (e.g. “hate speech” — whatever that is) but also by non-governmental  institutions such as universities, corporations and social media (once again, aided and abetted by the JOTP).  We can all agree that murdering someone is bad;  but shouting “You filthy nigger!” as you murder him, according to the gummint, is somehow much, much  worse.

And you can join a completely fascist organization like Pantifa (despite their name) without penalty, but joining the KKK is OMG so  beyond the pale.  Yeah, I know:  joining a fascist organization is just freedom of association, but joining a racist organization… well, that deserves censure, saith the scolds and bureaucrats.

And FFS:  I’m not supporting the KKK, those morons;  I’m simply saying that freedom of association means you should be able to associate freely with anyone you want.  To my mind, Pantifa is just as bad as the Klan — but if we’re going to shut down an organization because of its lawless activities, how about rounding up and arresting every known member of MS-13?  Never mind, they’re just a Hispanic social club, right?  It is, as they say, to laugh.

Oh, and try to form a men-only club, and see how long it takes for a feminazi-inspired lawsuit to hit your doorstep.

Likewise, if we are free to practice our religion, feel free to wear a yarmulkah in downtown Dearborn in Michigan, just to see what happens.  And good luck wearing that crucifix around your neck as a customer service person working, say, for an airline.  Somehow, the very sight of said religious symbols are “provocative” to the adherents of other religions.  Well, I’m provoked beyond words by those niqabs  and burkas  that Muslim men force on their women, but I’m not going to kick the shit out of the man walking next to a woman so clad — as much as I’d like to.  And I wouldn’t want to ban the stupid clothing, either, unless we have a situation where a woman refuses to remove her veil for a driver’s licence photograph.  (“No face?  No licence” should be the rule, but noooo.)

Yeah, I know that all this is full of pitfalls and contradictions, but that’s all part of living in a free society, isn’t it?

What I’m saying is that we don’t, anymore.  Somehow, we’re having our freedoms circumscribed just because some people think that freedom is fine unless they get offended by the freedom of someone else.  Then it’s time for shitty laws and even worse, penalties.

Exceptional

Can American exceptionalism be revived?  At City Journal, Alan C. Guelzo gives a cogent reasons why we can, after a look at our history and the three legs of its foundation:  political, economic and diplomatic.

I believe that the American experiment, based on the Declaration and embodied in the Constitution, belongs to an exceptional moment in human history, and remains exceptional. I believe that the U.S. economy is flexible enough to recover its mobility and astonish the world with its capacity to disrupt artificial barriers. And I believe that we can repair the deviations we have sustained from an overconfident mission-mentality without needing to accommodate ourselves to the mores of globalization.

Read it all (it’s long, but very worthwhile).  However, there’s a whole ‘nother essay brewing in his final analysis:

Can this, realistically, be done? Can we disentangle our public life from the grasp of the new hierarchy of bureaucrats and, overseas, pull back from foreign-policy crusades? Can we, in short, recur successfully to our first principles?
Well, we did it once before[emphasis added]

And it’s getting to the point, I think, where we may have to do it the same way as the Founders did it.  As the man said:

Go Back

From Liz Sheld at PJM:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee said on a Sunday snuff show that Trump’s tweets telling The Squad to “go back to where they came from” reminded him of the time he was told to “go back from where he came from.” Cummings made his remarks to George Stephanopoulos, who also revealed that has been told to “go back to where he came from.”  This is a new epidemic, so many Democrats have been told to “go back,” why are we only hearing about it until now?

I have to say that nobody has ever told me  to go back to where I came from, but that may be because I’ve made every effort not  to change the United States nation as I see it, but to preserve  it — original intent of the Founders, traditional American values and traditions, strict Constitutional construction, reverence for the flag and all it stands for, unswerving loyalty to our Armed Forces, respect for law and order, paying taxes, serving on a jury, defending the United States against criticism when traveling overseas (okay, I’m not sure whether a drunken fistfight with a Scot constitutes actual defense, but hey)… and of course, I don’t think I have to prove my undying support for the Second Amendment (along with the nochschleppers  in the Bill of Rights).  Frankly, if someone were to tell me to go back, I’d have nowhere to go.  I’m here, and I’m staying — to the utter dismay, I hope, of liberal assholes and socialists everywhere.

As for these fucking Socialist Congressweasels (we all know who they are), the same cannot be said.

I’m not setting myself up as some paragon of civic virtue, here;  but at the same time, I would suggest that my version of civic virtue is more in line with mainstream America than theirs — and I suspect that there are far more like me than there are of them — even among “traditional” Democrat voters.

I guess we’ll just have to wait for the 2020 elections to see if what I say is true.

Quote Of The Day

From The Diplomad:

“The controversy over the Betsy Ross flag.  What utter rubbish!  I did what I always do in such cases:  I went out and bought two Betsy Ross flags, one in a frame for inside the house, and another to hang out front — I also bought another handgun.”

When the socialists get outraged, increase those activities that outrage them.

Doesn’t get more American than that.