We Were Warned

posted by Mark Lewis at Townhall 

Mike Johnson.  Mitch McConnell.  Joe Biden.  Chuck Schumer.  Nancy Pelosi.  The United States Congress.

The American people have nobody to blame but themselves.

It’s called “democracy.”

It may be surprising to us, but there have been thinkersdown through history who didn’t believe democracy is the optimal system of government.  Here is a quotation from one of them:

“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.  Theoretic politicians who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would at the same time be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

 This same writer also penned this:

“Democracy is the most vile form of government.”

Most Americans would think such heretical words had to have been written by Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Attila the Hun, or some such tyrannical megalomaniac.  Nancy Pelosi would probably say Donald Trump wrote them. But actually, the author of those sentiments was James Madison, the man given most of the credit for writing our Constitution.  Yes, THAT James Madison.  Hi

Now go back and read again, more carefully, what he wrote.

As strange as it may sound for an American in the 21stcentury to be saying this, there are actually some soundarguments against democracy.  I can support Madison’s thesis in many ways.  Look at the list I started this column with.  Add Kamala Harris.  Barak Obama.  Bill Clinton.  And Hillary.  Two George Bushes.  Jimmy Carter.  Not to mention Adam Schiff, Lindsey Graham, California, thewhole Democratic Party, and you can add your own.  I think this is (partially) what Mr. Madison had in mind.  Occasionally, democracy does give us a Reagan or Trump, but that is the exception not the rule.  Maybe once a generation.  

By the way, just as an aside, Madison also said, “Disarm the people—that is the best and most effective way to enslave them.”  Adolf Hitler DID agree with that.  As did Joseph Stalin.  And Mao Zedong.  Joe Biden.  Hopefully, Republicans won’t let that happen, but don’t take it to the bank.  

Actually, in American history—and this is extremely important—democracy has been a gradual development.  Women suffrage was put in the Constitution in 1920, though many could vote before that date.  Many minorities were denied the vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  18-year-olds in 1971.  Those are huge segments of the American population, well over 50%.  In one significant sense, we could say the United States “democracy” is barely 100 years old.

An anecdote.  I am (was) an historian by trade and spent about 25 years teaching history to college students, mostly 18-year-old freshmen, mostly Americans.  One semester, I decided I would begin by giving the students a “pre-semester (non-credit) exam” on American history and culture.  One of the multiple-choice questions was, “What is Jennifer Lopez known for?”  Another of the questions was, “According to our Founding Fathers, what is the purpose of government?”  Of the 30 or so students in that class, every single student knew that Jennifer Lopez is famous for her big butt.  Not one student knew the purpose of government according to our Founding Fathers (to protect property).  That class was in California (c. 2005).  I tried.  

These are the people we let choose our leaders now. And for the next generation.  It’s probably already hopeless, folks.

While the above is anecdotal, it probably isn’t uncommon in America.  And it explains exactly why so many mediocre, incompetent people have been elected to office.  Give Evil and Mediocrity the vote and don’t be surprised if Evil and Mediocrity are elected.  Madison would surely agree with that sentiment.    

“In the U.S., [just over a century] of full-blown democracy has resulted in steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime.” (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Democracy:  The God That Failed”).  Madison would no doubt have expected that, too.

“Remember, democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”  John Adams, our second President.   Note his belief that democracies“murder themselves” and “commit suicide.”  Does that describe what America is doing today?

Our “democracy” is not 250 years old; it has barelyreached 100.  What will the next 100 years bring?  Will there even be a next 100 years?  

A democratic republic can only survive if the vast majority of people are moral, honorable, trustworthy, law-abiding, family-oriented, and patriotic.  And the Uniparty in Congress is making sure that more and more Americans have less and less of those qualities.  Because they don’t want democracy (they would lose), they want tyranny. 

I wish Madison and Adams could come back to life and see America today.  I know EXACTLY what they would say:

“We told you so.”

If our Founders didn’t establish a “democracy,” what DID they establish?  Yes, a republic, but if the “people” are incompetent to rule, who should?  I will discuss this in a future article.  As always, the Founders’ true system is actually brilliant.

When stupidity and evil surpass wisdom and virtue among a people, democracy becomes the worst form of government possible.

Our failure to listen to history might cause our ultimate downfall.

And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- April 21

 

The U.S. Department of State: How Can You Praise What You Hate?

Building a workforce that reflects a self-loathing America is not the best way to represent America and promote our image and interests in a burning world looking to us for leadership and inspiration.

by Thaddeus G. McCotter for American Greatness 

Sadly, this is not a rhetorical question but one in need of answering by the America-loathing leftists burrowed in the sinecures of our self-esteemed United States Department of State.

Consider the Biden administration’s latest recycling of an Obama-era bureaucrat within the State Department, the new Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer (CDIO) Zakiya Carr Johnson. Per Hannah Grossman’s April 10^th Fox News report, Ms. Carr Johnson’s holds less than adoring views of country and her fellow citizens. At an August 2020 “feminist webinar,” she opined:

Because we live and work within systems… so deeply rooted in patriarchy and colonialism and racism and otherism, we tend to be very resistant to shifts and changes. It’s very uncomfortable for many colleagues… A culture of misogyny has allowed men to act without consequence and it becomes part of what we believe is normal, right? In order to make any change, we’ve literally got to be about the work of dismantling that traditional structure at every juncture.

In using language many would find offensive and that would spur an H.R. complaint, Ms. Carr Johnson wrote:

[There] are chinks in the armor of traditional leadership that refuse to reconcile with a colonizing past, or recognize that time has run out for experimentation and tweaking of a failed historic model… We understand that a cultural shift is on the horizon and in order to save us all, we must be prepared to change.

Sifting through the leftist “Prog whistles,” such as “traditional leadership” (i.e. “straight white males”), one can fairly suppose Ms. Carr Johnson does not consider herself part of the “we” that needs to change. Guess who “must?”

Carr Johnson co-authored a Fair Share toolkit guide entitled ‘Feminist Leaders for Feminist Goals.’ According to the guide, redistributing power requires ‘feminist leadership’ to redress ‘a culture of male and/ or white dominance.’

This is standard grist for the (capital “I”) Intersectionalist, Ms. Carr Johnson, who “’learned… to demand intersectionality in all spaces.” Yet the intersectionality sweepstakes has its losers, too, including some less-than-usual suspects, for it seems not all feminists are created equal.

This idea was reiterated in a June 2020 letter Carr Johnson signed with Fair Share, which outlined a series of antiracist commitments. [Italics, mine.]

We strongly believe that feminist leadership must be anti-racist in order to transform our societies. Today we call for… long-term transformation… We will do our part to uplift and amplify feminist leaders of colour, counter White-centered feminism trends and narratives, and share Black and Brown feminists’ wisdom and recommendations.

There is the crux of the leftist long-term canard, one that, along the lines of “We support the troops, but not the war,” allows them to have their cake and eat it too: “I love America, that’s why I will fundamentally transform it.” Just as one cannot tell American military personnel you support them while you undermine their mission here at home, one cannot loathe America here at home and promote its mission abroad.

Recall when then President Obama was asked about American exceptionalism? His response downgraded America as not “the country” but “a country.” This greased the skids for the State Department’s decline into American-loathing radical chic, as exemplified by the DIE Cult indoctrinator (“diversity, inclusion, equity”), Ms. Carr Johnson. Thus, if the left were honest—and they doggedly are not as a practical matter—they would say, “I loathe America, but I will love it once I’ve fundamentally transformed it.”

This, of course, is not conducive to the mission of the United States State Department, which one presumes to be promoting the image and interests of America to the world. Evidently, in their support of Ms. Carr Johnson, Mr. Biden’s State Department disagrees:

Secretary Blinken created the position of CDIO to ensure the inclusive workplace environment we need to continue to attract and retain the nation’s top talent. When the people making foreign policy decisions on behalf of the American people don’t reflect the full diversity of our nation, we all lose, and our national security is weaker. Together, we will ensure the United States is best positioned to meet the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly complex world.

Once more, we see the race-essentialist “diversity” conceit of the DIE cult: a person is viewed not by their principles but by their physique; not upon the content of their character but upon the color of their skin and/or sexual orientation. As long noted, the DIE ideology, which is little but affirmative action on steroids cloaked in “new speak,” balkanizes Americans into competing camps of grievances, undermines the principle of equal justice under law, and subverts meritocratic practices.

Incredibly, the State Department’s CDIO position exists to indoctrinate its personnel in this partisan, Maoist ideology that loathes its sole client: TheUnited States of America. The result of the DIE cultists’ ministrations is the exclusion of State Department personnel who love America and the “inclusion” of personnel who loathe America. Is this the “image” the U.S. seeks to present to the world?

One person who thinks so is Secretary of State Antony Blinken. As Fox News reports, in announcing the “appointment of Zakiya Carr Johnson as their chief diversity and inclusion officer…Blinken touted Carr Johnson for bringing ‘expertise and a fresh perspective on how we build a workforce that reflects America.’”

Call me sane, but building a workforce that reflects a self-loathing America is not the best way to represent America and promote our image and interests in a burning world looking to the United States for leadership and inspiration. Instead, all our foreign policy “experts” can offer are apologies and condolences, and the occasional plane load of gold to state-sponsors of terror who want to kill us?

No, you cannot praise what you hate. So, roll up, America, on the floor in a fetal position, and kiss your strategic assets and image goodbye. “The U.S. apology tour is dying to take you away….”

Well Of Course They Hate America

posted by Alan Joseph Bauer at Townhall 

The pro-Hamas crowd has now become distinctly anti-American. And they represent a significant portion of the Democratic Party.

The throngs who came out for Hamas and aggressively against Israel and Jews immediately after 10/7 could ostensibly have been thought not to hate America. While Hamas has killed dozens of American citizens, it has never formally declared an attack against America or American targets. I know families whose loved ones were murdered by Hamas terrorists; the attacks were aimed at killing Jews, country of birth or citizenship irrelevant.

But the signs were always there that the “river to the sea” crowd also hated the very country that has given them everything they have. Initially, they put akeffieyeh on a statue of Benjamin Franklin in Washington. Around the same time, they climbed light poles in New York in order to remove American flags and replace them with Palestinian flags. And one could notice that at their large rallies and marches, there were only Palestinian flags; American flags were nowhere to be seen.

But they have moved their US-hatred up to eleven. Recent events include the following:

*In Dearborn, Michigan/Lebanon a group started chanting, “Death to Israel; Death to America.”

*A fellow flew a Hezbollah flag, though the group murdered 241 Marines as well as other Americans in Lebanon in the 1980’s For good measure, he burned an American flag as well.

*Young lunatics in Chicago praised Iran after it sent over 300 projectiles towards Israel to kill Jews. Iran has the blood of hundreds of American soldiers from Iraq on its hand, independent of the embassy takeover in 1979.

There can be no great surprise that those who demand that Israel disappear also hate the US. They claim that the US is aiding and abetting a supposed genocide in Gaza by providing weapons to and diplomatic cover for Israel. Did you catch the Gazans at the beach the other day? Stangest genocide in history. Their hatred of the US is both pathetic and ironic. Pathetic because they have it so good in the US and ironic in that their whole lives depend on the good that only the US knows how to create.

When I set up my first startup here in Israel, it was in the late 1990’s. Israeli taxes were so high that any new company would set up in Delaware in order to have a good tax arrangement when the big payout came via a buyout or stock listing. Things here in Israel have changed, and my current company was set up in Israel as the tax advantage is now here over the US. But our US-haters buy coffee at Starbucks, have iPhones, drive Teslas or Fords, wear clothes from Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica, Ralph Lauren or the like. Their shoes are Nike and they go to McDonalds at least twice a week. What our clueless revolutionaries do not understand or appreciate is that each of these iconic American companies came into being because in the US an inventor, entrepreneur, or investor knows that if a new company takes off, those taking significant risk to start it stand to get rich. It is no coincidence that 17 of the top 20 companies by market capitalization are US firms. When Microsoft took off, it not only created a handful of billionaires such as Bill Gates, but it created thousands of millionaires out of many of the original employees who received stocks or options in lieu of salary. How many millions of people worldwide work to support, fix, or augment smartphones, computers and the like? The leftists’ claim to hate the US while benefiting from all of the amazing goods produced by the US approach to life and business is like a child stating, “Mother I hate you and hope that you die soon. Could you please pass the potatoes, and the steak is really delicious.”

A Columbia student who was present at the massive anti-Israel rally that was finally broken up by the police this week noted the presence of many non-Columbia affiliated individuals who were the most radical and aggressive. In my day at Harvard, the university made a significant effort to keep “townies” out of Harvard events. The presence of professional Palestinian protesters is a driver for student radicalism. Did you see anyone at any rally during the past seven months demanding two states for two people? Did you see any of them slam Hamas’ brutal attack while still demanding a Palestinian state? Did you see any of them admit that Israel is risking soldiers’ lives and drawing out the war in order to minimize Palestinian casualties and get aid to the enemy? So it’s no surprise that they now take their unidirectional hatred and point it towards the US. I wish that they would just move away. Within a week, they would realize how good they have it at home.

In the old days, the two big political parties had about 5% zanies at the fringe. For the Republicans it was the Birch Society or the like, while the Democrats have always had some commies around. But now the anti-Israel/anti-America block of the Democratic party is probably 20% of the active membership. It is the reason why Biden is telling Israel what to do or criticizing it for fighting a legitimate war. The Democrats are going back to Chicago for their convention this summer. Expect it to be 1968 all over again.

Things Worth Remembering: ‘We Will Fight with Stones in Our Hands’

 Months before Israel achieved independence in 1948, Golda Meir came to America, asking for help in the battle for survival.

By Douglas Murray

April 21, 2024

Last Saturday, Iran launched 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state. With help from the United States, France, Britain, and importantly, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Israel destroyed almost all of them; and on Thursday, the Jewish state struck back. 

It was a reminder that Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel was not an isolated act of terrorism, and that it was most certainly not part of a Marxist-inspired campaign to “decolonize” the Middle East, as so many Hamas apologists in the West insist on believing.

Instead, it was part of a broader Arab, and really, Muslim inability to recognize the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in the land that they had first inhabited more than 3,000 years ago, been kicked out of, returned to, been kicked out of again—and then started to return to en masse in the late 1800s.

A half-century after the rebirth of the Zionist movement, Israel finally gained its independence, and in 1948, when the United Nations announced the creation of the State of Israel in the historic homeland of the Jewish people, there was dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv. 

But the new state’s neighbors didn’t allow the party to go on long. As most readers will know, no sooner was the state created than it was assailed by its Arab neighbors, who hoped to kill it at birth.

Much of what is going on today—including Iran’s recent failed attack on Israel—can be traced to that catastrophic decision by Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and others not to accept the Jewish state.

Today, it seems almost unimaginable that, in 1948, after so many years of struggle, the Israeli public had to go through yet another war. I frequently marvel that they had the energy and courage to do so, though I suppose that many were impelled by that all-important truth that Golda Meir imparted to then-Senator Biden: “We have nowhere else to go.” 

At the time—1973—Meir was the Israeli prime minister and a towering figure in world politics with an almost mythological story: she had been born in Kiev in what was then the Russian Empire at the end of the previous century, then she had immigrated with her family to the United States, where she had grown up in Milwaukee, and she had made aliyah—immigrated to—the Jewish homeland years before it achieved statehood.

By early 1948, when Israel was on the cusp of becoming a state, she was known for being a powerful orator—someone who could articulate clearly and plainly why Jewish self-determination was so important. But she was not well-known in America.

In January of that year, Meir, who was then the head of the Jewish Agency, traveled to the United States to raise money in preparation for Israel’s war of independence. (The Jews knew the UN might give them the green light, but the Arabs would not.)

She had not planned to go to Chicago, but while in New York City, her sister Clara persuaded her to go—to speak to the annual conference of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.

Meir arrived in Chicago in the middle of a freezing cold winter “without a dime in her pocketbook even to take a taxi.” Wealthy and influential Jews in Chicago were not especially keen on meeting with her. As Henry Montor, the executive vice president of the United Jewish Appeal, a Zionist organization, recalled, Meir was, to his mind, “an impecunious, unimportant representative, a schnorrer—Yiddish for beggar or layabout.

Meir, for her part, was terrified. On the one hand, she knew that war in the Middle East was imminent, and she had no choice but to bring home money for much-needed weapons—or there wouldn’t be any Israel. On the other hand, she understood all too well that there was, among some upper-crust American Jews, a wariness of the idea of a Jewish state—a desire, often unstated, not to appear too Jewish.

In any event, Montor managed to carve out a little time for Meir to speak at the Council’s luncheon on January 25, 1948, at the Sheraton.

She later recalled: “I was terribly afraid of going to these people who didn’t know me from Adam. I admit I was shaking. I had no idea what was going to happen.”

But providence, or something like it, called her that day. And the effect was historic. The audience was on its feet immediately after she finished. Her goal had been to raise $25 million in America. She came away with $50 million—aid that would prove critical in the months ahead.

According to those present, Meir went to the stage with her hair severely parted, absolutely no makeup, and with no notes to speak from—her preferred habit. The pauses in her speech seem to have been as important as the words themselves. She seemed to be feeling the words, weighing up the words, and judging, by the second, their effect on her audience.

She spoke for some 35 minutes. 

Friends was the term she chose to address her audience. 

“The mufti and his people have declared war upon us,” she said. “We have no alternative but. . . to fight for our lives.” 

She told the audience about the thirty-five Jews who “fought to the very end” on the road to Kfar Etzion and of the last one killed. He had run out of ammunition but died with a stone in his hand, prepared to continue fighting.

And she paraphrased the famous words of Winston Churchill: “We will fight in the Negev and will fight in Galilee and will fight on the outskirts of Jerusalem until the very end.”

She added: “I want you to believe me when I say that I came on this special mission to the United States today not to save 700,000 Jews. During the last few years the Jewish people lost six million Jews, and it would be audacity on our part to worry the Jewish people throughout the world because a few hundred thousand more Jews were in danger. That is not the issue.”

The issue, she explained, “is that if these 700,000 Jews in Palestine can remain alive, then the Jewish people, as such, is alive and Jewish independence is assured. If these 700,000 people are killed off, then for many centuries, we are through with this dream of a Jewish people and a Jewish homeland.”

This was the spirit—the moral vision—that compelled Golda Meir, like so many Israelis after her, to do what other people thought could not be done. 

To be sure, Meir had her blind spots. Not long after Senator Biden, then 30, visited Israel along with other U.S. officials, in 1973, Egypt and Syria simultaneously attacked Israel—in what became known as the Yom Kippur War. 

Israel was nearly destroyed, and Meir’s reputation for being Israel’s Iron Lady was badly undermined (and Israeli politics were transformed forever, laying the groundwork for many of today’s thornier issues). But the Jewish state fought back, and it accomplished what appeared, for a while, impossible: victory.

That victory was critical not simply because it restored Israel’s territorial integrity, but because it was part of a much bigger effort to force the surrounding Arab states—however reluctantly, however glacially—to come around to accepting that Israel was not going anywhere.

Iran, as we know, is still learning that lesson.

The mullahs in Tehran, if they are wise, will take a look at Meir’s 1948 speech in Chicago, when she did what no one thought could be done—and inspired so many Israelis, present and future, to follow in her footsteps.

“Much must be prepared now so that we can hold out,” Meir told her audience on that snowy day in Chicago. “There are unlimited opportunities, but are we going to get the necessary means?”

She went on: “Is it possible that time should decide the issue not because Palestinian Jews are cowards, not because they are incapable, but merely because they lack the material means to carry on?”

Then, she said: “I have come to the United States, and I hope you will understand me if I say that it is not an easy matter for any of us to leave home at present. To my sorrow, I am not in the front line. I am not with my daughter in the Negev or with other sons and daughters in the trenches. But I have a job to do.”

To listen to Douglas read parts of Golda Meir’s 1948 speech, click below:

Go to link to find audio at the end...

https://www.thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-remembering-golda-meir?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_id=143770598&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=rd3ao&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email