Article by Derek Hunter in Townhall

 

Will Any Anti-Trump Story Hold Up?

Will the Journosupremacists ever admit they have lied?

No profession loves themselves like journalists love themselves. After all, they “write the first draft of history.” However, as with any writing, history gets its say as well, and story after story in that “first draft of history” is proving to be untrue. It’s enough to make you wonder if any story from the Presidency of Donald Trump will stand up to even basic scrutiny in a year?

People get things wrong – we’re people, after all, and wildly imperfect. But journalists have gotten so much wrong over the last 4 years it makes you wonder if they got anything right. You name the “scandal” some left-wing outlet reported between 2016 and today about the former President and you will see a story that not only strains credulity, but one that doesn’t stand up to basic fact-checking.

Here are a few examples of “bombshell” stories that had “the walls closing in” on Donald Trump that have completely collapsed the second anyone bothered to be the most basic of journalism on them:

Trump called dead Allied soldiers “losers.” 

Russia “hacked” the 2016 election.

Trump ordered Georgia officials to “find votes.”

Hydroxychloroquine has no value and is basically poison that will kill people with COVID.

Trump ignored Russia putting bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan.

COVID was not from a lab in Wuhan.

Trump ordered the teargassing of “peaceful protesters” so he could have a photo-op.

Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people.”

Donald Trump Jr. got early access to Wikileaks emails.

Russian collusion, etc., etc.

You name the story and the odds that it held up to simple research and reporting is about zero. It makes you wonder why the most basic of reporting wasn’t done before they hit the “publish” button.

The idea that President Trump or one of his “cronies” ordered police to violently attack and gas protesters in Lafayette Square outside the White House so he could have his picture taken holding a bible in front of St. John’s Church was gospel fact with the media for a year. You name the liberal outlet and they had a story declaring it to be so. Now we know the truth. 

The Inspector General of the Interior Department, after a thorough investigation, discovered that the United States Park Police ordered the clearing of the park to erect barricades in an attempt to prevent more violence from the mob, who’d spent the previous days attempting to rip down statues and had set fire to the church. The White House had nothing to do with that decision, taking advantage of it for the defiant picture only after it had learned the area was being secured. 

Not one single reporter bothered to investigate the allegation, it just had to be true and so it was declared such. Not just on that day, but in the 365 days that followed. The narrative was fact until someone who isn’t a journalist bothered to investigate the facts, then the story fell apart. 

It tells you something important about journalism that none of its practitioners felt the need to engage in it for a year on this story. The New York Times and Washington Post created “reconstructions” of the events in its aftermath, which gave the impression journalism had taken place, but it hadn’t. Narrative, established under the guise of “Orange Man Bad,” was simply repeated as truth because the people typing it up wanted it to be true. 

That was the media business model of the Trump years – report first, do journalism later, if ever. 

There was no journalism in the Lafayette Square story. The extent to which any questions were asked of officials was minimal and every denial, which turned out to be true, was dismissed out of hand. 

Under normal circumstances, or any semblance of journalistic integrity and ethics, reporters who’d gotten the story so wrong would either be fired or suspended for failure to do their jobs. Trump Derangement Syndrome has so rotted that profession that original (and wrong) stories aren’t even issued corrections, not that it would do any good a year later. 

Every anonymously sourced story, every “scandal,” deserves relentless scrutiny in general. But when so many, if not all of them related to the Trump Presidency, not only haven’t been confirmed by anyone on the record or by documentation, it makes you wonder if anything reported in the last 4 years was true. The Washington Post famously kept a running total of “Trump lies” on their website. As it turns out, their website, and the websites of their fellow “news” outlets were the biggest lies of them all. 

 

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2021/06/13/will-any-antitrump-story-hold-up-n2590894 

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Netanyahu out as new Israeli government approved

 

Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his 12-year hold on power in Israel after the country's parliament voted in a new coalition government.

Right-wing nationalist Naftali Bennett, of the Yamina party, will be sworn in as the new prime minister.

Mr Bennett will hold office until September 2023 as part of a power-sharing deal.

He will hand then over to Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid, for a further two years.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

 

 

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57462470?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_custom4=366DDA10-CC71-11EB-9421-ABEE4744363C&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_custom2=twitter&at_medium=custom7&at_campaign=64

 

 

 

 

 

A Major Newspaper Is Refusing to Describe the Austin Mass Shooting Suspect

Nick Arama reporting for RedState

My colleague Jennifer Oliver O’Connell reported earlier on a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, late Friday night.

Fourteen people were wounded, with at least two critically-injured during a shooting in downtown Austin.

Two men are suspected of being involved in the shooting, according to the initial reports; although the police later said the number was unclear, but there was a description of one of the suspect.

But it’s what the Austin American-Statesman said about that suspect that is causing a lot of talk today.

At the bottom of its article on the shooting, the paper included the following.

Editor’s note: Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes. If more detailed information is released, we will update our reporting.

They also tweeted this:

So in other words, let’s not actually report the news, our alleged job. Let’s not provide people with what information that we may have to protect the public or by which they might be able to identify the suspect. Let’s play some kind of woke game, because we don’t want to say what the race of the shooter is. Um, guys? Not giving the description can risk innocent lives.

We’ve seen some pretty bad, liberal ideas, but this one may just take the cake.

Now, the police weren’t so reticent; they put out a description of that suspect, and it wasn’t as “vague” as the paper claimed.

So, we can see below what the paper didn’t want to say.

The suspect(s) remains at-large. It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build. The area will be closed for an extended amount of time to process the crime scene. Investigators are collecting and reviewing camera footage and surveillance video.

Now, of course, this description also went out on television, so I’m not sure what the Austin Statesman thought they were hiding with their effort. It basically just made them look ridiculous and untrustworthy as a news source. What information would be necessary for them to actually cover the news? The guy’s name and address?

Fourteen people have been shot, and they’re concerned about “perpetuating stereotypes”? Maybe, just maybe, that shouldn’t be what they’re thinking about? And reporting truth isn’t “perpetuating stereotypes.” But, this is where going over the slide with crazy thinking has brought us — and it’s a dangerous place.

Several Utah wildfires burn thousands of acres

 

OAN Newsroom

UPDATED 2:51 PM PT – Saturday, June 12, 2021

Several fires are burning across the state of Utah due to extremely dry conditions and an early wildfire season. Recent reports detailed at least six wildfires, the largest being the Bear Fire, which is currently burning around 9,800 acres at only five percent containment.

Two other fires have burned more than 5,000 acres each and both are at zero percent containment. Fire officials have issued a stage one fire restriction across the entire state, while experts are calling on state residents to be smart about fire safety

 

 

 

Interim director of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands Jamie Barnes has advised the state against campfires due to these extreme fire conditions. She reported the majority of last year’s fires were caused by people and explained what should be done if a fire is accidentally started.

“Immediately call 911. Call your local authorities and get help on the way,” she asserted. “It’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to extinguish that fire yourself so get someone there immediately, that’s a professional.”

Officials say with humidity at around three percent, they haven’t seen dry conditions this bad in nearly 20 years.

 

 

https://www.oann.com/several-utah-wildfires-burn-thousands-of-acres/ 

 

 

 

Why I Need an AR-15

A man disarmed by his government is not a citizen—he’s a subject.

by Daniel Gelenter for American Greatness

I don’t need an AR-15 for hunting: It’s not even legal to take a deer with one in my state—the caliber is too small. I also don’t need an AR-15 for self-defense, though I’d want to have one if someone broke into my house. And I certainly don’t need one just because it’s a beautiful piece of engineering. I need an AR-15 because the government doesn’t want me to have one.

Governments hate private weapons, and have always hated them. In Europe, traditionally only gentlemen (that is, originally, only knights) were allowed to carry a sword. In Japan, the samurai’s right to carry his sword came along with the right to kill any commoner who offended him—uchisute or “strike and abandon.” In Soviet Russia, private weapons were illegal, as they still are in China. And when Hitler’s Germany swept through Holland, Belgium, and France in 1940, they put up notices giving the locals 48 hours to hand over private firearms or face death (by shooting). 

When England prepared to defend herself against a threatened Nazi invasion, the Home Guard was armed in part with private weapons, as well as by rifles donated by Americans, who were the only people in the world with guns to spare. These were among the weapons confiscated and destroyed when Britain banned firearms in 1997.

There are only two forms of government: One where the people are afraid of the government, and one where the government is afraid of the people. Whoever has the weapons is the ruling class, and there is only one case in all history, only in America, that the ruling class has actually been the common man. 

Controlling Guns, Controlling People

Our federal government has been trying to undo this remarkable fact for at least the last 100 years. The first serious blow came in 1934, justified by the rise of organized crime at the time. As I outlined in a recent piece on plea bargains, organized crime was a midway point in the cascade of unintended consequences from Prohibition. The government thought the best way to keep machine guns, short rifles, and silencers out of the hands of the mafia would be to make a national registry and require anyone buying one of these items to pay a $200 tax.

It may come as a shock that organized crime largely ignored the new registration requirements. And neither were they punctilious in the matter of paying taxes. For law-abiding citizens in 1934, however, when the average annual income was $1,600, the National Firearms Act had the practical effect of restricting ownership of certain weapons to the wealthy and, of course, to the government.

When viewed from the standpoint of limiting crime, the National Firearms Act is patently ludicrous: Requiring criminals to register and pay taxes on the weapons with which they are about to commit murder, or else forcing them to acquire these weapons illegally is crazy. When viewed from the standpoint of controlling people, however, the NFA makes perfect sense.

Every action taken by the federal government has one purpose in mind: To protect the government from its citizens by transferring power from those citizens to the government. It is a striking and horrifying fact that, in this eternal quest, criminals and the government are in perfect alignment. Criminal acts of a certain magnitude are necessary in order to make emergency government measures plausible. 

Criminals Are Exempt

The government never lets a crisis go to waste—just try replacing the word “crisis” with “crime” to get an accurate picture of the history of gun control. In a twisted quid pro quo, the government has protected professional criminals from the laws it passes in answer to their crimes.

If you have any doubt on this score, a 1968 Supreme Court ruling confirmed that felons are exempt from registration under the National Firearms Act. And this is not a joke: Citing the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination, the court ruled in Haynes v. United States that only noncriminals were required to register NFA weapons and pay the tax.

The government’s legal gymnastics and lies concerning firearms laws are staggering. In 1939, the government argued in court that short-barreled shotguns could be regulated because such guns are not military weapons, and only military weapons are protected by the Second Amendment. The NFA, they explained, was purely a revenue measure conducted by the Department of the Treasury. (The very popular “it’s just a tax” argument.) The Supreme Court agreed. 

But in 1968, the federal government banned importing military weapons on the grounds that the Second Amendment only protects guns with a “sporting purpose.” The Supreme Court agreed with that as well. In 1986, the government banned the manufacture of full-automatic and select-fire weapons. And since the only way to get one of these guns today is to buy one made and registered before 1986, a full-auto equivalent of the AR-15 will now cost you around $50,000. So unless you’re a wealthy person, or a member of the police (who can buy a new one for what it’s actually worth—around $1000) you can forget it. 

The Last Resort Exists

The real problem is that a government with a monopoly on force might do anything. They might respond to your home-schooling plan by confiscating your children, as happened in Germany. They might jail you for making an offensive joke on your Facebook page, as happened in Britain. They might use a pandemic to force you to close your business indefinitely, as happened in New York. A man disarmed by his government is not a citizen—he’s a subject. 

The individual American’s best friends in this fight are those states and counties that refuse to implement unconstitutional federal laws. Montana started the ball rolling in 2009 with its Firearms Freedom Act, and numerous other states subsequently passed similar laws. These laws, of course, were ruled out of order by the federal government, but it ultimately remains up to the states to insist that the federal government is operating outside its authority.

The question regarding dangerous weapons is not whether it’s safe for citizens to own them, but whether—or why—we might consider it safe for the government to own them. When the FBI descended on Waco, they managed to kill more people in one day than the most prolific serial killer they ever caught had killed in his whole career. The Branch Davidians at Waco were actually gun dealers and were well-armed, but of course the FBI brought a tank. The FBI should not have had a tank to bring.

The current administration in Washington, D.C. is not elected and is not legitimate. As if confirming this fact, they’ve surrounded themselves with barbed wire and soldiers carrying machine guns. In so doing they implicitly acknowledge the danger posed—to them—by an armed and angry population. An AR-15 is not just a tool of last resort: It is a declaration that the last resort exists, a reminder that there are outer limits to the abuse of power.

Why Security Matters: A Lesson in Leadership

The passivity of the Biden Administration can never become 

the standard for political leadership; otherwise, our nation 

will fade away like all the other great empires of old.

by Jason Bland for American Greatness

In a dimly lit lecture hall during my freshman year in college, my history professor taught me the most important lesson of human history: security is the foundation of civilization. With security societies flourish, without it they crumble.

The expansive Roman and British empires of old were able to provide security: a stable environment where its citizens were relatively safe, commerce could grow, and their borders were secure. Many great empires of ancient days were able to do the same; however, when rulers and governments become corrupted by wealth and power, the desire or ability to provide security tends to atrophy.

Unfortunately, the same is occurring here in the United States. After centuries of struggle: a revolution against an oppressive colonial overlord, great expansion westward, a bloody civil war to preserve the Union, the destruction of fascism, and industrial growth unmatched in global history, it appears that the United States by virtue of its great wealth and power is allowing its own security to diminish. And perhaps our democracy is beginning to atrophy, or at least our leaders are.

Consider our politicians’ apathy towards inner city crime and urban decay over the past 50 years, the utter disregard in which the federal government manages and secures its borders, the apparent lack of cyber security, and inability to protect our energy infrastructure and commercial sectors. The abject carelessness exemplified above didn’t start yesterday, and to be fair, neither did the Biden Administration cause all the problems of today, but the White House has certainly put an exclamation point on the whole affair.

Let’s review several events to paint a more thorough picture.

Decade after decade of one party, Democratic control throughout our inner cities has resulted in depressing, hollow shells of once buzzing industrial and commercial centers. Cities are plagued by crime, violence, and death that for years outpaced our own combat casualties in war-torn hotspots. Sometimes it was safer to be in an armored-up Humvee in Iraq or Afghanistan than it was to stroll through parts of Chicago or Baltimore. All of this unfortunately has been punctuated by the sudden rise in violent crime and elevated murder rates over the past year and a half, coinciding with the BLM riots and defund the police movement. And all of this, moreover, has been tacitly approved by the Biden Administration, leading to the unfortunate deaths of more black people. Today there is little to no security in our cities, resulting in too many neighborhoods that are unsafe for running a business, raising a family, or calling home.

The ongoing crisis on the border has been exacerbated by the White House’s policy decisions which have resulted in a wave of illegal migrants flowing into our nation. Border wall construction was halted. Illegal migrants are being shipped from Texas to other states for release, and countless children are facing unknown physical, mental, and sexual abuses on their journey to and across the border. So turbulent has the situation become that Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has declared a state of emergency. All the while, neither Biden nor Harris seem concerned enough even to visit and assess the crisis, or take any meaningful action to solve the problem. Today the border is unsecure, a portal for drugs, human trafficking, and illegal migrants.

In March, Microsoft servers were hacked, affecting over 30,000 organizations. Investigation revealed the attack originated in China, yet the Biden Administration did nothing. In May, hackers disrupted the flow of gas pipelines transporting approximately 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel, affecting Americans from New Jersey to Florida and Maryland to Tennessee. 

The Biden Administration claimed that this was a private business matter, and so they took no action to facilitate a solution for consumers. Joseph Blount, CEO of Colonial Pipeline, paid a $4.4 million ransom to hackers believed to be in Eastern Europe. And most recently, a ransomware attack hit the world’s largest meat processing company, an action that ultimately may cause price increases for meat across the nation. This attack seems to have originated in Russia, and still the Biden Administration does little. Today our nation is either unwilling or unable to secure the data systems that run our economy and protect our energy infrastructure.

The White House is stuck in neutral, providing little practical leadership to secure Americans and resolve these issues. Instead, the Left’s culture wars continue in full force against everyday Americans, dominating the administration’s agenda. And still there are real concerns for security and stability affecting Americans, issues that require action, not platitudes. Unfortunately, the administration has not taken any steps to curb violence in our inner cities, put a stop to the humanitarian crisis on the border, or protect our energy and commerce sectors from criminal action.

The famous political scientist and leadership scholar, James MacGregor Burns, wrote in his 1978 book, Leadership, that true leaders harness their power and authority to provide for the needs of those they lead. Power in and of itself doesn’t make someone a leader, rather it is the use of power for the benefit of others that results in true leadership. 

The Apostle Paul wrote that we should remain humble about our own needs, and instead consider the needs and interests of others first, i.e. an altruistic approach to life, providing for the physical, emotional, and spiritual security of those we lead (Philippians 2:3-4). Both Burns and Paul agree that a real leader is someone who is able to positively impact others.

This is what our nation needs—leaders who will follow the lessons of Burns and Paul. Leaders who will care more about their constituents than social wokeness. We need leaders who will revive our cities, secure our borders, and protect our economy—leaders who will actually do something.

With all that’s happened over the past several months during the Biden Administration, Americans must be concerned with their security. Our cities are crime-ridden and dangerous places to call home, our borders are a disaster, and we don’t know how much it will cost to buy a tank of gas or essential food next month because of inflation and cyber attacks.

This environment does not bode well for the political future of Biden or Harris. Security is key to the happiness of their constituents. If we don’t feel safe and secure in our homes we will leave or try our hardest to do so, so we can find a more secure environment somewhere else. Just look at the mass exodus from blue states to red. People want the security and stability of conservative policies, taxes, and a strong sense of freedom.

When effective, altruistic leaders step forward and put the needs of others before their own, and ensure the security and stability of their constituents—provide a stable economy and work environment, freedom from crime, the opportunity to grow personally and professionally, the freedom to care for their family as they see fit—those leaders have the opportunity to achieve great political success.

We must remember that with security societies will flourish, without it they crumble, and most of us want to see our great cities and our nation flourish once more. We have the opportunity to achieve great success, but this is only possible when we rebuild our nation’s security. The passivity of the Biden Administration can never become the standard for political leadership; otherwise, our nation will fade away like all the other great empires of old.

 

Article by Anthony J. DeBlasi in The American Thinker

 

The Age of Reason and the Abuse of Reason

Entering a college classroom in 1950, I noticed some pre-class graffiti on the chalkboard that read: “Damn the Absolute!” This cry of a soul lashing out at evil in the world struck a sympathetic chord. Alas, it also struck a false note. For how do you turn against that from which you are formed, that is larger than every self and points to the Truth that has confounded scores of souls before and since Pilate came face to face with it? How, indeed, does one separate self from the generative power of creation without condemning that self to a private limbo?

(Whoever may wonder why I bring up something out of the “dead-and-done” past, it’s because it plagues a great many in the present.)

Did I misread the chalkboard message? Well, if banishing what is Absolute (capital A) did not mean turning against the source of human existence, what did it mean? I suspected this to be another instance of playing the relativity game, frequently won by players with more muscle than talent, or another instance of mixing constants and variables, a useful way to deceive others (and oneself) with clever falsehood. Failure to keep constants and their associated variables in proper relation to each other prevents what is to be altered from gaining real traction, which is why constants are fixed. This is a detail of reality lost on many so-called progressives who see every rule as a variable, every constraint as a block in one’s path instead of a gate to the real possibilities, while they tear down everything in their way from A to B that can’t be “manipulated.”

But no matter how “the Absolute” is confronted (or dismissed), the principle or foundation or generative power behind our very existence (a philosophical hot potato since B.C.) refuses to be bagged in words and symbols and will escape every purely rational manipulation, no matter how logical, no matter how persuasive the process.

When you put the mind in the driver’s seat, so to speak, in order to pin everything down for ourselves included, you are apt to travel in circles. For purely rational thought provides no exits from the circular lanes of a mind that lays out its own roads to knowledge of the truth. And negotiating the maze of conflicting opinions often requires the application of forceful means to “progress.” And that is where justice frequently ends when morality is abandoned.

It was Age of Reason thinkers that dignified the notion that first things may be tinkered with, evoking the prospect of a brave new world where unshackled brainpower finally rids the world of evil. Numerous disciples of this 18th Century “enlightenment” have been working diligently since then to implement one or another version of their anticipated “golden age.”

Look around. See for yourself what over two centuries of unbridled “reason” has wrought in the mission to make a better world and better people. If you see an approach to utopia, you need better glasses.

The author of “Damn the Absolute!” was evidently locked in the “progressive” bias that the world may be altered to obey every human desire by tweaking the truth, a prime tenet of relativists and materialists who, scoffing at the irrationality of “supernatural” approaches to a knowledge of reality, overlook the irrationality of their own subjective take-off points. They can’t or won’t see that the ultimate Square One for a sound worldview must forever be consistent with being human, and this forever harps back to a valid moral principle.

It is ironic but instructive, I think, that a modern sage who escaped the straitjacket of intellectual conventions, Alan Watts, made light of “the moral principle” except in its role of maintaining civil order, while a modern composer who escaped the straightjacket of musical conventions, Igor Stravinsky, recognized its central importance to human progress in his 1942 Poetics of Music. Our wellbeing, in this saner and broader view of life, is seen not just as dependent on correct responses to infinitely varying circumstances but on the unvarying givens of an overarching “Absolute,” eternally nameless as in the “I Am that I Am” of the Bible, pointing to an essential connection between man and God, being perilously ignored in his generation.

Rule makers with a prejudice against what cannot be changed commonly react to valid restraints on their power by the use of force, ranging from gentle to brutal.

Recognizing the requirement that human action be grounded in a higher principle than “utility” or “desire” allows one to see that moral restraint is not a lock on human progress but a door that opens to broader and saner prospects for human progress.

A common abuse of reason at this high level of interaction with reality is turning things that don’t change (the constants), such as being human and mortal, into the things that do change (the variables), such as the means of improving one’s health. Sages great and small have pointed out, time and again, that changing everything eventually changes nothing. Revolutionaries that demolish everything – as communists did in China – doom their experiment to failure, usually at great and terrible cost in human life and suffering.

Recognizing the limited value of reason when it is uncoupled from actual reality liberates the deeply inquiring mind (that of an academic, for example) from the prejudice that people can actually be changed into what they aren’t and do things that are actually not possible. This real enlightenment makes one see that essential human experience does not change, regardless of its socio-political trappings and degree of technological development. It allows one to see that reason per se, even when intended to bring about the greatest good for th greatest number, is quite capable of serving the opposite purpose -- that of bringing about the greatest evil to the greatest number, even when not intended – as demonstrated in recorded history and engraved in human memory.

A mindset that disdains the real world, that can’t stand a world where justice begins with accepting human nature as is, that is, flawed, is plainly the wrong mindset for any human progress. Such is the mindset that must take down “the Absolute.” Professing an attachment to reason, those who possess a contempt for the very nature of things commonly think, speak, and act unreasonably toward the actual world. Those who remain unaffected by this disorder have, in some productive or creative way, accepted the truth that since “I did not invent me” there is no call for such a bungling creature as the human being to “reinvent me and the world.” This intimation of a Creator and acknowledgment of a transcendent Absolute is at the root of sane and fruitful human progress.

In the second decade of the 21st Century A.D., we can see that “canceling” God by “enlightenment,” however “reasoned,” was a very bad idea. It has helped trash everything held most dear to most people, generation after generation, including human life itself. No one in his or her right mind will ever accept a world that violates the laws of nature, the laws or God, and the fundamental right of people to be free and fairly treated − laws that are currently rejected by progressives infected with Marxist ideology and proud of their “wokeness” – in truth, unawake to the world around them.

I dare say that devotees of the Marxist Left despise the Christian religion because its prescription for the major ills of the world is not the reform of the world but the reform of ourselves. By dismissing “the Absolute” or, as Christians might put it, turning away from God in hope of making the world a better place to live in, they set themselves on a course toward inevitable failure.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/the_age_of_reason_and_the_abuse_of_reason.html 

 

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Woke Public School Hangs Up Inspirational ‘You Can’t Do It!’ Poster For Black Students

Babylon Bee🐝

LEESBURG, VA—As part of a new diversity and inclusion initiative, the Loudoun County school board has directed teachers to hang up inspirational "You Can't Do It! (due to white supremacy and systemic oppression)" posters throughout all schools to remind students of color that they will likely not succeed in life unless white liberals dismantle the systems of oppression designed to keep black people from succeeding. 

"Don't worry -- we don't teach CRT here at our schools anymore!" said teacher Sandy Stout. "We simply teach that racism is baked into a system of capitalist whiteness that is designed to make it impossible for students of color to get ahead in life. We need our black students to know that America wasn't made for them and that they will likely fail at everything unless we white people successfully dismantle Western Civilization completely."

"It's a true message of hope for everyone!"

Other inspirational wall hangings being considered are:

• Take time to reflect on your disadvantage!
• Blame an oppressor today!
• You are powerless.
• 2+2=OPPRESSION
• Just say "NO" to microaggressions
• Don't worry-- white liberals will take care of you!

The school board reemphasized that they are not teaching Critical Race Theory but rather an honest look at the effects of racism on society throughout history.

"If you oppose this, you are a literal white supremacist," said Stout.

 

 

Article by Paul Krause in The American Thinker

 

The Death of Socrates and America?

Plato never forgave the tyrants of Athens for putting Socrates to death. Socrates’s death was a watershed moment in Athenian history. In many ways, it marked the end of the Athenian golden age as the sun set over Athens as her imperial ambitions vanished in the Peloponnesian War and the Thirty Tyrants would be installed by Sparta with support from the Athenian ruling class. The charges were concocted: he was “corrupting the youth of Athens.” In other words, he didn’t adhere to the propagated ideology of the newly tyrannical Athenian state. Socrates’s questioning of the Athenian tyrants marked him as a dangerous enemy that needed to be silenced, cancelled, forever.

Two realities flow concurrent to politics throughout history. Art and intellectuality are companions to politics in history. In eras when peoples and society flourish, their art and intellectual enterprises flourish. The golden age of Athens is marked by the explosion of art, poetry, and birth of philosophy. The slid into despotism and irrelevance is marked by the death of Socrates and the suppression of the poets. One can see this played out time and again: Renaissance Italy, Jacobean England, and early nineteenth century America and its revival after the Civil War, especially in the early twentieth century.

It is commonplace to hear how the Constitution made America great. More specifically, it should be said the Bill of Rights made America great—especially the First Amendment. Unlike other countries, America’s cherished commitment to free speech and freedom of religion helped foster a spirit of intellectual humanism and curiosity that stimulated cultural vibrancy and vitality without the expressed fear of suppression or arrest.

While it is true that there have been prejudices, American anti-Catholicism, for instance, never resulted in an equivalent St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre or the oscillation between Protestant and Catholic martyrs and religious civil wars as in Europe. Catholics in America were able to cultivate and retain their own self-identity and build their network of schools and hospitals which remain indispensable for the vitality of civil society and educational excellence and choice in the United States. All because the First Amendment ensured that degree of freedom necessary for the flourishing of the human life and soul.

When there is no freedom of the soul to engage in the activities of the mind, the artistry of inspiration, or the spiritual quest for God, societies are ensnared in the dark web of totalitarianism that not merely crushes the body but seeks to eviscerate the soul. The best and brightest of the population either sheepishly surrender to the prevailing political Zeitgeist out of fear, or they flee to places with greater liberty and take their talents to new places—leaving the place they once resided barren and decrepit.

Civilizations rise and fall with their intellectual wellspring. When one considers the greatness of civilizations, past and present, it is almost always synonymous—not with a political system—but with cultural flourishing. When we think of the golden age of Athens it is adorned with the Parthenon, the pre-Socratics, the Greek playwrights. When we think of the apogee of Rome, likewise, we think of the Roman writers and poets, especially Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Seneca, and Pliny the Younger.

Down through history this is common: Renaissance Italy with the great flourishing of poetry and art that bequeathed Dante, the Sistine Chapel, the majestic domed landscape of Florence; post-Reformation England with Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, and revived in the Victorian era with Dickens, Tennyson, Trollope, among many others.

What all these civilizations have in common during their golden age was their commitment to intellectual diversity, true intellectual diversity and not the empty “multiculturalism” celebrated today, religious vitality and vibrancy, and open atmosphere in exploring new art, literature, theology, and modes of thinking rather than a condescending hatred to one’s roots and singular intellectual thread of indoctrination.

What all these civilizations also have in common during their nadir was their rejection of spirit that made them great: the death of Socrates, the imposition of dogmatic political orthodoxies, the silencing of dissenters. In killing Socrates, Athens sent a message to other aspiring intellectuals, artists, and those who might otherwise object to the dictatorship of the tyrants. The precedence of squashing dissent, eliminating intellectual diversity and openness in the name of protecting feelings (“preventing the youth from being corrupting”), and enforcing a one-way highway has always led to darkness, despotism, and destruction. Democracy truly does die in darkness, too bad the Washington Post doesn’t realize it is the one promoting darkness and the destruction of democracy.

The United States has weathered this storm better than all other civilizations and nations in history precisely because the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. The first amendment has long acted as a buttress against the worst impulses of human nature and the dictatorially lusts that any politician can have (irrespective of whether they are participants in a “democratic” system). We mustn’t forget, Athens was also a democracy before the tyrants were installed with the support of the Athenian ruling class.

This brings us to the assault against the Western humanities in the name of “diversity.” The second killing of Socrates, in our educational system, represents the fullest maturation and movement to the new tyranny we are currently struggling against. By destroying Socrates and imposing the uniformity of ideological indoctrination across the United States (in the name of female, minority, and transgender authors and writers who otherwise all agree on the same ideological, political, and metaphysical principles), those servants of the new despotism hand us the hemlock cup and force it down our throats. We don’t even have the luxury of swallowing for ourselves.

Yet we can also look toward the coming sunrise if we have the courage and the fortitude to persevere.

Athens regained her democracy after the Thirty Tyrants. England ebbed and flowed between periods of grandeur and decadence, civil war and enlightenment. So too has the United States been tried by fire and temptation before. But we have persevered only by fighting back, not acquiescing to our own demise in the name of civility, unity, or tolerance—or whatever other fake buzzword masking totalitarian lusts is thrown out by the partisans of despotism.

We mustn’t allow the spirit of Socrates to die, for while there are examples or regaining freedom after it has fallen, it is also much harder to recover what has been lost rather than fighting to preserve what remains. The fight for America’s future begins and ends with the First Amendment. Because the human aspiration for freedom in all its important varieties are embodied in the First Amendment which is the true wellspring of American greatness and will be the source of American greatness once again.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/the_death_of_socrates_and_america.html

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The Failure Is the Point

Bonchie reporting for RedState

With the cultural issue of whether Critical Race Theory should be taught in grade school taking a prominent role in our current political discourse, we are once again seeing a familiar trend. Namely, the same group of Never Trumpers who have previously decided that winning is really icky are once again stumping to lose.

Yes, even something as fundamental as parents influencing their children’s curriculum via their elected representatives is just too out of bounds for these people.

(related The Delusion of Never Trump)

Here’s David French delivering a tortured thread on how it’s somehow dangerous to ban garbage ideology in schools.

I’m not going to bother posting the entire thing, but you get the idea. As per our usual agreement, this is once again a hill not worth dying on. Then, the next hill won’t be either, and so on and so forth, until there are no hills left.

On the merits of his argument, it’s nonsense. The First Amendment does not protect the right of a teacher to teach whatever they want. Publicly- funded schools (and privately-funded ones, via their own mechanisms) are beholden to parents, in the end. This is typically done via school board elections. At the collegiate level, publicly-funded universities are also at the mercy of taxpayers.

Further, this idea that CRT must be “replaced” with something is silly. It’s a misdirect by French to offer support for CRT — without actually having to admit he’s offering support for CRT. Racist ideologies shouldn’t be introduced in the first place. They do not need to be “replaced” with some watered-down version of CRT. For the most part, American history, including its sins, is already taught at an acceptable level. If some school districts or state legislatures want to make a point to spend more time on certain historical events, that’s up to them and their voters.

Lastly, the slippery slope argument, claiming this is a “banning” of free speech, just doesn’t make any sense. A myriad of harmful, hateful ideologies have been banned from being taught in schools. We don’t teach Holocaust denial or white supremacy in schools. Why would we teach CRT? And how exactly is saying we aren’t going to do so somehow quashing free speech?

The Bulwark’s Amanda Carpenter also got in on the act, dismissing Republican concerns around a variety of cultural issues.

What’s so ironic is that these are the same people who told you in 2016 and 2020 that you didn’t have to vote for Trump, and that obsessing over national politics was unhealthy. Many supposed conservative commentators (which neither of the above really are anymore) have spent years telling Republicans to fight cultural battles at the local level with a ground-up approach. Now that parents are doing that, they suddenly decide this is yet another battle that should be preemptively surrendered. Convenient, right?

Here’s the reality — The failure is the point.

Whether these people are surrendering on vaccine passports, mask mandates, lockdowns, Joe Biden’s crappy foreign policy, the biased mainstream media, big tech, or transgender ideology being pushed on kids, the trend is clear. The only thing you can get these guys to agree to fight for is corporate tax rates. There’s a reason Never Trump is quickly becoming Never DeSantis as well.

(related Conservative Inc. Expose Themselves Big Time With Latest Attacks on Ron DeSantis)

None of this is by chance. Rather, it’s calculated. Any battle Republicans might win must not be fought. The failure is the point.