From an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on December 23, by David Satter, titled “Soviet Politics, American Style”:
When the Soviet Union fell, it seemed the Soviet attempt to impose a deluded version of reality had died with it. Francis Fukuyama, in his 1989 essay “The End of History”, said that Marxism-Leninism was doomed as an alternative to liberal democracy. I argued at the time that the drive to make a religion out of politics had not disappeared.
“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans—and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused—and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.” – Sigrid Undset
December 26 is Boxing Day. Although it is mainly regarded as the day for after-Christmas sales, traditionally it is the day when gifts were presented by the fortunate to the needy. Today’s quote, especially after yesterday’s exchange of presents, reminds us of the gifts we have received unasked that are of the greatest value. Take a little time today to reflect on our good fortune in being alive to enjoy the gifts of living on our good Earth.
This paragraph appears at the end of the December 2020 issue of the Limbaugh Letter, in an article entitled “American Pravda: Our Soviet-style Media”. Rush quotes numerous publications, in sections titled “Disinformation”, “Outright Lies”, “Race Propaganda”, “Orange Man Bad”, “Orange Man Voters Bad”, “Lies of Omission”, and “No-Fraud Gaslighting.”.
You have to wonder how these so-called journalists sleep at night, with all their intentional deception, disinformation, fabrication, and distortions to serve the agenda of the hard-left Democrat Party. In the old totalitarian USSR, reporters didn’t have a choice; but the American Pravda drive-bys do. Of their own free will they’ve surrendered their talents, their objectivity, their spirit of free inquiry, and even their curiosity to the socialist hive mind; they have become the totalitarians.
“How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” – Ronald Wilson Reagan
Communism only works on the household level. The traditional family is run as a communist society: from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs. In a functional family, it succeeds and succeeds powerfully. Dad and Mom provide the resources and distribute them as needed. The children grow up to be productive adults.
“There are few modest talents so richly rewarded — especially in politics and the media — as the ability to portray parasites as victims, and portray demands for preferential treatment as struggles for equal rights.” – Thomas Sowell
More Sowell food for the brain. This quote seems appropriate today. We can expect four years (or more appropriately four more years) of Democrat operatives (in both politics and media) portraying parasites as victims, and demands for preferential treatment as struggles for equal rights. We saw it all last year with BLM critical race theory and Antifa. Over the next four years we shall see this trend no longer constrained at any level by the Federal government, but rather with the Federal government cheerleading those attempts.
“There are really only two types of people: those who want to win in competition, and those who would prefer to shut competition down. The former are the strivers and entrepreneurs; the latter the monopolists and cronies. Philosophically, which are you?” -– Arthur Brooks
This divide defines today’s America. Red-state governors like Noem and de Santis, are in the former category. Blue-state governors, like Newsom and Cuomo, belong in the latter category. If you are the former, you voted for Trump in November. If you are the latter, you voted for Biden.
In 1925, Churchill officially rejoined the Conservative Party in Britain. In a speech in 1926, in “strongly working-class Bolton”, he says:
Let them abandon the utter fallacy, the grotesque, erroneous, fatal blunder of believing that by limiting the enterprise of man, by riveting the shackles of a false equality upon the efforts of all the different forms and different classes of human enterprise, they will increase the well-being of the world.
“Despite the synergine the Count’s eyes were going shocked and vague. He pawed at the little plastic oxygen mask, batted away the medic’s worried attempt to control his hands, and motioned urgently to Mark. He so clearly wanted to say something, it was less traumatic to let him than to try and stop him. Mark slid onto his knees by the Count’s head.
“The Count whispered to Mark in a tone of earnest confidence, ‘All . . . true wealth . . . is biological.'” — Lois McMasters Bujold, Mirror Dance
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
We may not be living in times as cataclysmic as those of Frodo and Gandalf, but it has been a trying year. Next year bids fair to be worse. The good of the last four years will be undone and we will likely face more restrictions on our civil liberties and can almost certainly expect higher energy prices as the United States once again becomes an energy importing country.
Background: Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger just narrowly escaped (warned by Ron’s father work works at the Ministry of Magic, warning that the Ministry has fallen to Voldemort) from Death Eaters who crashed the wedding of Ron’s brother Bill to Fleur Delacour, looking for Harry. They managed to make it to Harry’s Godfather’s house (Sirius Black, who was murdered and willed the house to Harry), and have learned from the House-elf Kreacher that Sirius’s brother, Regulus, stole a Horcrux from Voldemort’s hiding place.
They receive a visit from Remus Lupin, a werewolf, Member of the Order of the Phoenix, and sometime professor at Hogwarts, and he tells them about all the changes happening in the Wizarding World, and at the Ministry, now that Voldemort is essentially in charge. Do these changes remind you of anything?
“If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.” ~ Ayn Rand “A little learning is a dangerous thing” ~ Alexander Pope, ‘An Essay on Criticism’ (1709) Preview Open
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“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw
This quote has never been more appropriate. We are energy-independent due to George Mitchell, who unreasonably pushed fracking through until it became economically viable – often against the opposition of the “reasonable” among us, who said peak oil was simply a fact. There is no shortage of food due to Norm Borlaug, who unreasonably insisted we could increase food production despite the claims of “reasonable” people that we needed to end food shortages through population reduction. We are on the cusp of affordable space travel due to the insistence and efforts of unreasonable dreamers like Elon Musk, who found ways to dramatically cut launch costs, despite the claims of the reasonable that it could not be done.
To me, the remarkable aspect of this poll is not that Biden is leading. It’s that it shows 7% of the electorate is undecided. Really? Undecided? This late in the game? And with these two politicians? One who has been fed into our consciousness in every aspect of our lives over the past five years and is currently the president and the other who was vice president and has been in the public sphere for nearly five decades? Who in the hell are this 7% who can’t make up their minds?
And then it hit me: They aren’t undecided, they lean Trump, but they are waiting to make that final commitment. Something is stopping them. Something relatively intangible. It’s the “tone” thing. They are down with his policies and achievements, but they just don’t like the guy’s attitude. They prefer the “presidential” thing. – Larry O’Connor
“Hands are made for holding.” – Corina T., Nevada
I usually don’t get Dove chocolates but I saw some in the dollar store, had a craving, and picked up a bag. I’m a little aware of the quotes Dove includes inside the wrappers. Some find them insipid and rant against them. Others find them humorous. I enjoyed the above pre-Chinese Flu quote on my wrapper. With St. Fauci saying that shaking hands will be a thing of the past, this is a nice reminder that people need a human touch.
“When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.” ― Eric Hoffer
So, has cowardice become a fashion? The excessive timidity over Covid suggests it may well have. So, too, do increased reports of police not just ceasing to be proactive about policing – spending time avoiding getting into “situations.” But it has gone beyond that, with police refusing to make arrests of violent and dangerous criminals for fear of the adverse reaction should the perpetrator receive his just desserts when resisting arrest.
From a newly-translated memoir, excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, from his new home in Vermont:
But the Lord also sustained me in another way, in the fact that, even though living in the West, I did not have to rush from pillar to post to survive, which would have been exhausting and degrading in an alien milieu: I didn’t need to look for money to live on. And so I never took an interest in whether my books would be to the taste of a Western readership, whether they’d “sell.” In the USSR, I’d been accustomed to earning almost nothing but spending almost nothing as well. Alas, in the West, that wasn’t possible, especially with a family.
“Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.” — Thomas Jefferson
Tom, I don’t kegel or dance the quadrille, but my brand new NordicTrack indoor bike arrived yesterday, and I’m all in on exercising in the afternoons, just as your bewigged eminence recommended.
You were a gadget lover yourself (your decoder machine is totally dope), so I know you would appreciate my indoor exercise bike, a marvel of electronic and mechanical ingenuity. In the comfort of my living room, I can pedal through Paris or the wilds of Peru, virtually of course, as I watch the scenery go by on a 22-inch high definition screen. (You’re probably having trouble following this, aren’t you, Tom?)
