For the Handful of People Smart Enough To Understand This, Not One of Whom Is "raygun"

They know how to bleat "death panels" with a guffaw, but haven't a clue that they're being led by Judas goats.

Thanks to Og for inspiring me to summarize his insight -- from our conversation.

Fair Warning to NY23

A combination of circumstances, attitudes on display, and personal experience compels me to offer this warning.

Expect widespread voter fraud in favor of the Democratic candidate for Congress, and expect the GOP to not only look the other way, but to obstruct any oversight, whether it be by Conservative Party leaders who have a candidate in this race (Doug Hoffman) or independents who wish to see some breaks in the lock the Democratic/Republican Parties have on everything from the electoral process to governing itself, or even lay Republicans dissatisfied with all leadership in DC.

I don't have a foolproof solution for you watchdogs. The best advice I can offer is to be very certain who you trust, and to watch your backs in any event. If your candidate is a good one, and you do the right things, at least you will feel Him by your side when push comes to shove.

USA Sovereignty: It's Been At Risk Since 1789

Last week I highlighted a segment of Lord Christopher Monckton's speech wherein he warned us of the threat to our sovereignty. Then I gave you a glimpse into how dismaying was his comment.

Since then Mark Vande Pol has put together a thorough review of how much treaty law affects our nation's constitution, and the federal power over the states and over our personal rights, the Bill of Rights notwithstanding.

In Patrick Henry, “Ratified”: The Treaty Power, Its Perils and Portents, Mr. Vande Pol (a recognized land restoration expert and author) provides us with several troubling observations and conclusions. One quite startling is:

Virtually every major Federal environmental law cites treaty law as its source of authority, simply because extending Federal police power within the States exceeds the enumerated powers the Federal government was granted in the Constitution.

He provides the records of the founding fathers during struggles to ratify our US Constitution so as to contrast for us the arguments between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. It was clear that the anti-federalists spotted the dangers inherent in the proposed constitution from the very start. Still, the Federalists poo-poohed those concerns, but not very convincingly, as shown. However, the forces clamoring to fix the then current financial crisis were so great that the majority of states representatives were willing to at least temporarily give power to foreign governments over how we governed ourselves as a form of guarantee for the loans they would then provide us (viz.: treaty law as the justification to pass federal taxes so as to repay national debt.)

Somehow, in all the years since 1789, the USA has never ratified an Amendment to our Constitution that would rescind that power of treaties. Not even after WW II when we were providing loans to the world through the Marshall Plan did we seek to amend that clause in our Constitution.

Mr. Vande Pol argues for and demonstrates what such an amendment would look like:

Whether to limit the treaty power in Article VI is one thing, but there should be NO disagreement about Amending Article II, Section 2, Clause2 of the Constitution as follows:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present three quarters of the legislatures of the Several States concur;

Treaties operate at the Constitutional level. The same standard should apply to treaties as to amending the Constitution itself.

So this change at least goes a short way toward restoring some of the benefits of federalism without the bulk of its historic complications.

It is a very simple amendment that should brook no argument, so fire any representative who resists. It is that important.

He even provides us with this stunning observation:

"Now you know why George Bush’s administration was instituting programs to cut greenhouse gas emissions despite the fact that the Senate had rejected the Kyoto Protocols 98-0 -- Clinton had signed Kyoto."

I bet most of you are surprised to learn that. Mr Vande Pol shows it to be a consequence of another treaty ratified by the Senate in 1969 that allows the spirit of any international agreement signed by one of our Presidents to be followed even when our Senate fails to ratify the treaty.

This, my review of Mr Vande Pol's important work, is only a sketch. Please go and read the whole thing.

It will serve you and our nation to learn and understand how urgent it is that we prevail upon Mr. Obama not to sign the Copenhagen agreement. Copenhagen's provisions will be onerous far beyond what most all Americans have been informed.

We were woefully ill informed, that is, until today.

Thank you Mr Vande Pol.

Weathervane Politicians No More

Politicians have often been called weathervanes because "they move in the direction that the wind is blowing."

That remark was always meant to be disparaging because it implied that they would move in the direction that would get them reelected rather than the right direction.

Well, thanks to Lord Monckton, we have a new metaphor for the tendency of our politicians.

Lord Christopher Monckton speaks on October 14th, 2009 at a climate skeptic event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute. 

In the clip above, at about 1:28:40, after he quotes Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pumping Global Warming, he says

"that's the traffic light tendency: they call themselves Green because they're too yellow to admit that they are really Reds."

Personally, I preferred them when they were more like weathervanes. There they exhibited more humility and tended to act more like public servants and less like rulers.

Will BHO Cede the USA to UN Authority?

What am I talking about?

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy,” -- Daniel Webster (1782–1852), arguing against the taxers in 17 U.S. 327 (1819), a fact conceded by US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall even as the court decided in favor of the taxers. More at the source.

Keep that in mind as you listen to this:


If you believe that there are many more big hurdles to overcome before BHO's signature becomes constitutionally binding law (putting aside what the UN thinks his signature means), and that we may still be relatively safe from foreign control since the Senate still would have to affirm it with a two thirds vote, or that your rights under the constitution are protected even if it passes, you are horribly misinformed.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur. [emphasis added]

all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;

There is a chance you still fail to see the imminent threat. The above extracts from the United States Constitution are fully sourced at Treaty Law: The Constitution's Original Trojan Horse. I urge you to go there and read it. You will find a clear discussion of the relevant consequences of how treaty laws have, in the past, superseded our constitution and your rights.

And remember that Supreme Court ruling at the top as BHO blithely signs that "global warmimg" treaty at Copenhagen in December.

Statist Tools: Victimoguery

Most of us are willing to live and let live.
They could care less as long as they get what they want.

If the media and its journalists and opinion writers were truly independent, this word, or one that means the same thing, would have been invented long before now. Also, add this to the reasons for doubting that those whom we have accepted as  "leaders" of the Right opposing Statism are all that we need them to be. In that we are lacking leadership in this, I have stepped in to fill the vacuum.

Yesterday I spoke of one of the Statist tools that are used to divide us that I call tripwires. I went on to explain that there are phonies out there who act wounded by pretending that a tripwire has gone off and harmed them. I saw that they deserve special scrutiny. Every day that we lack focus on what it is they are doing, that is another day we permit them to continue their charlatanry. It is another day they succeed in stirring the pot of divisiveness. I referred to them yesterday, for want of a better word, as professional victims. I simply could not think of a word that accurately described these despicable people.

So I turned to my old friend, Francis W Porretto of Eternity Road, to see if he could provide me with the word. He quickly likened the scenario to which I'm referring to that of a professional staked goat. I interpreted that his simile suggests one who makes their living as bait to entrap an innocent target who has the misfortune to say or do anything with or related to them. He promised me he would think about it. That was days ago. When Fran cannot come up with a word, I am pretty confident it does not yet exist.

So here we are.

I am proposing to call such highwaymen, victimogues. They are either the setters and beneficiaries of such traps or the goats who bait themselves.  

victimogue (vik' tih mog): from victim + demagogue; one who masquerades as a victim and exploits the alleged harm in order to achieve personal gain. In the process they create real victims of the individuals, institutions, or whole communities who have been ensnared by the victimogue. Their practice is called victimoguery (vik' tih mog' uh ree).

Although I do not remember the names of the principals involved, I recall an incident from a few years ago that provides an outrageous example – or at least it was outrageous then. One man, upon hearing the word niggardly used properly to describe cheapening behavior, reacted as if the speaker had said the N word, and his reaction, though mistaken, still subsequently cost the bewildered speaker his job.

It is not clear who played out the incident to its despicable end. Someone involved acted as a demagogue, making a mountain out of a molehill, and rode out the incident to the extent that it made the speaker a victim of political correctness. Whether it was the reactor who played the victim or it was the speaker’s boss who chose to see the listener as a victim in order find cause to fire his employee, this is an example of what I propose we call victimoguery. 

Someone who discovers that some words used by others can grant them sudden and great power, and then chooses to ride it out despite a commonsensical explanation that should have ended the issue, that person is acting as a victimogue, and deserves as much societal reproof as any demagogue.

In insurance fraud cases, there are people who have been known to throw themselves into the path of cars and subsequently sue the actual victim of the staged event. Frequently the perpetrator is allied with a lawyer and a doctor to carry out the scam to the detriment of the real victim, all while playing the victim himself. It often takes a lot of detective work to uncover a racket ring like that. But the victimogue often employs his shtick in the broad daylight, counting on political correctness to stifle any support for the real victim.

This has gone on for so long because our media has not served its purpose and cried foul when indeed it is a foul deed. Instead they give one of the biggest perpetrators a slot on FNC. I doubt that is the kind of "fair and balanced" that Fox's favorable viewers have in mind.

Their "success" -- that is lack of real resistance -- led to this travesty inflicted upon Rush Limbaugh that really harms all of us. If Rush can be harmed simply by orchestrated charades and the perpetrators suffer no consequences again, what's to stop them from harming any of us? The victimogues couldn't make hay with what he really says. They resorted to libeling him with false reports of him uttering the type of words that keeps victimogues in business.

So I decided a word for their practice finally needed to be coined so their game could begin to be shut down. Had this been done sooner, the opinion of an Al Sharpton would carry no weight at all.

To aid us from allowing such nasty people to continue to acquire any degree of respect, our culture needs a special pejorative name that aids us in quickly identifying them. Whether anyone takes up my suggestion, victimogue, or chooses another more eloquent, I pray it be done. Such people need a name for their chosen profession so that everybody understands how damaging they are to comity. Most of us are willing to live and let live; they could care less as long as they get what they want.

Statist Tools: Tripwires

• "The evil Boosh. Bush is responsible for everything bad according to you."
• "STOP with the death panels stuff. It's just not true."
• "You third party boosters are nothing more than Democrat shills."
• "Sarah Palin? [Sneering laughter] My God man, there's nothing more you can tell me." [Walks out]

I suspect I am not alone in hearing similar exhortations erupt in the midst of an otherwise reasonable discussion. In each instance that I heard these, what I would call a "tripwire" had been triggered. What are tripwires? Where did they come from? What may be done about them?

In the incidents above, the tripwires were, respectively:

• The first mention of any of GWBush’s errors (reaction from a variety of conservatives who’ve been conditioned by the untrue attacks on W to defend him for nearly everything);
• After receiving a news story about QALY (reaction from a captive of the statist media);
• After anyone threatens to leave the GOP unless its leadership stops demonizing lower party members (reaction from a party hack);
• Any mention of Sarah Palin (reactions by any Dem and many RINOs).

When, upon hearing some words or phrases, a listener launches into a rant or other unbridled action, we may say metaphorically that the words acted as a tripwire.

As with someone who triggers the tripwire of an antipersonnel mine, most people who are set off by a tripwire (the 'sploder if you will), or a speaker who inadvertently sets one off (the tripper), are not pleased with the result.

But what of those who gain from the tripwires being triggered? Are they simply the beneficiaries of the tripwires naturally sprouting up as do weeds after spring rains, or do they have some role in setting or keeping the tripwires in place?

Deliberately speaking such words in the presence of a listener known to respond explosively is clearly a ploy that is seeking a repeat of that explosion.

• In the case of a joker, we see it done purely for entertainment, especially when applied to someone known to be strung too tightly.
• In the case of a trainer, the reason is to callous the listener so that they become inured to hearing the words.
• The more Machiavellian hit tripwires to derail the listener from whatever course or thought in which they are presently engaging.
• The worst are demagogues who use them to enrage mobs.

Those who engage in such manipulations can clearly be seen as provocateurs or, at the very least, tools of provocateurs. So clearly, some people gain from the setting and maintaining tripwires.

Then there are those who respond angrily to some words, as if the words were their tripwires. They aim to cause many speakers to curb their speech in the interest of maintaining comity or avoiding sanctions. Such a manipulator may become known as a censor or tool of a censor. Clearly, such people enjoy a degree of power from this situation than they would otherwise experience. So they benefit to from the setting and maintaining of tripwires.

Included in this group would be those who we should recognize carry around a chip on their shoulder and are ever ready to respond to any utterance that even vaguely sounds like a tripwire. For lack of a better word now, let's call them professional victims. I will provide an example of this tomorrow because this is a special case that may be the source of great damage to our society. At any rate, this sort of person helps provide justification for the promulgation of the tripwires and thereby aiding both the of the two previous types who set and maintain the trips.


Conclusion:

I have provided but a few examples of what I call tripwires and their consequences. You probably have more than a few of your own. You may call them hot-button items instead. Consider sharing some of yours in the comments. What is important to recognize is that our society has been put on edge by these items. And who is the primary culprit who has pressed them upon us by constant repetition of issues and items that promulgate them? Why it’s the media that most of us – as revealed by their financial collapse – have learned to mistrust in the extreme.

If you wish to be able to join with your fellow Americans to counter the Statist push we all recognize at least to some degree, you have got to find ways, train yourself if needed, to stop from exploding when someone trips your wires or pushes your hot-buttons.

Don’t let the scoundrels win. They who constantly lay landmines that harm our society and culture will continue to succeed until you get wise to their manipulation of you and your neighbors. Get together with your neighbors and discuss how it is that tripwires exist and shed light upon each and every one you can perceive.

Each tripwire is a little thing. Uncovering them one at a time will help you keep from triggering them and maybe, hopefully, defuse the bomb-like issues that divide us to begin with. Any success from each small but cumulative effort will serve you and America very well.

Memory Hole 101: Obama Worship Hidden Away for Now

********* UPDATE 10/17/09 to my post Not til 1909 published 9/24/09***********

The notorious "mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm, Barack Hussein Obama" School-Children Indoctrination Worship Song was blocked. Little doubt this was due to the extreme embarrassment it brought the President just as the heat from a previous gaffe had cooled. The poor baby was just recovering from the grief he brought on himself with his outrageous "I am God's Partner in matters of life and death" declaration that had been overheard and reported when this worship session turned up on the Internet.

So here is a new version of the video. If anyone notices that this one is also removed, please inform me. Thanks.

As If In Answer to a Prayer

I apologize for my extended absence. I have not abandoned my pledge, going back to early July, to increase my participation in the fight. I had good reason for silence -- I was seeking advice from some knowledgeable and talented friends before publishing about what I consider to be a very important issue.

A couple of days ago an idea struck me as if in answer to this prayer.

Dear Lord, lead us in the paths that will thwart those who divide us.

Since I still call myself agnostic, this probably is no miracle, but more like a sudden awakening to a purpose. However, it may be proper for you to offer thanks to Him should you find my efforts at all beneficial.

I began putting together what may be a multi-part essay, but I am trying to keep it to a single entry and powerful. I'm told that much of what I'm writing about is not really new. However, I've searched for others who have dealt with the topic, and I don't see anyone suggesting that you might consciously take note and do something about it, and for you to seek out and get help from others who are like minded.

If I complete it soon, it will be the next entry in my series "Statist Tools."

Statist Tools: Do Not Love Your Brother

STOP with this Death Panel stuff.

It's not true. 

In response to this plaint from a loved one, I offered the following video.



I do not yet know what response I will get. I am not hopeful. At some point it must become clear that an ostrich likes to stick its head in the sand.

In general I am forced to come to the following two major conclusions about those who back ObamaCare despite all the dangers inherent within it.

First, there are those who ideologically like the idea of government running of all things. As you know, I am convinced that those at the top of this ideology see Statism's threats to individuals not as a bug but a feature.

And then there are those who  have a problem or expect a problem or have been made to fear a problem for themselves or others under the current system and are expecting the new arrangements to bail them out. They fail to see the role of government is bringing about the current problems because those in government place all the blame on "the free market." Those who believe our current health care system is "free" of government regulation, and not see that the problems as consequences that are significantly tied to those regulations, cannot be that ignorant. They had to be "educated" to be that blind.

a despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love each other. -- De Tocqueville

Dear Lord, lead us in the ways to thwart those who divide us.

The Left Hand of Statists

Where merit and valor are sneered at, you get less of it.

That is the ending to the last comment at the Belmont Club thread about awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Hussein Obama.

Wretchard, ever proving to be one wise cat, chose that line to cut off further comments to his post that began with this sentence The Nobel Committee thinks that President Obama is advancing the cause of peace. 

Today, this item by Just A Grunt helps explain further what the Left leaning world means by peace.

Aiding Persian persecution

Last week Barack Obama decided to defund an organization called the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and it hasn't taken long to see the effects. Yesterday the Iranians announced the sentencing to death of 3 people who participated in the street protests in the wake of the recent elections.

In fact, about the only complaint I have with Just A Grunt’s presentation is that he underplayed the role of he who must by now be the leading vote getter for the Heisman trophy.

I've said it before in various ways, and sadly I'll continue to find news that exemplifies it and provide me new ways of saying it:

Global Statists believe you and those you love are members of a herd overly large in numbers. For them, the only real peace comes after a rapid increase in graves.

Borrowing from Wretchard's observation and taking it one step further: Within the halls of our mutually elevated elites, expressing any real love, pity and sorrow for individuals is sentiment beneath contempt.

This is the consequence of there being no well organized opposition to what Thomas Sowell called The Vision of the Anointed. Inflated egos have carried too many souls into that inhuman condition of which C.S.Lewis warned in The Abolition of Man.  Made ever more brazen by baseless accolades of those who rule the media, those at the helm of state are being encouraged to act as rulers. "You own the White House and both houses of the legislature, so ram your will through." From a perch that is above humanity, what rights does a mere human possess that megalomaniacs will recognize?

That's the Left hand of Statists. The Right hand doesn't want to ruffle any feathers, so they work incessantly to still your concerns. "Just shut up and take it."

Speak out whilst yee still may.

Sitting President Accepts Big Money Gift

[Updated]As this is the Age of Obama, I am sure President Barack Hussein Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize is legal.

How do I know? Because in the few hours this has been bandied about I've not yet heard anyone raise ILLEGAL GIFTS as an issue.

That is all for now.

*********Update*********
I just Googled and came up with

 No results found for "dilbert principle presidency".

For those unfamiliar with the Dilbert Principle, it states (roughly): Take the Peter Principle one step further: the Dilbert Principle is exemplified by someone being raised all at once to his level of incompetency without ever having experienced a level of competency first.

I think in our crazy postmodernist world, this is my favorite explanation for how those crack Norwegians could bestow their Nobel Peace Prize on BHO: they eagerly recognized one of their own. /sarcasm [tag added for the incompetent.]

*********Update 2*********
Posted at the comments to The Smallest Minority 
10.09.09 - 10:14 am | # 

It's slowly dawning on others too. If Congress allows the gift (which I think they can and only they can allow -- how did Barack accept so quickly?) will that be Obama's Augustest moment? All hail Cæsar.

*********Update 3*********
I posted the text of this thread and its link at the Belmont Club as post 109.

Later, JM at post 130 provided me a reason to follow up

132. Pascal Fervor Oct 9, 2009 - 12:11 pm:

jim Nicholas @ 130: he was given the prize in an attempt to influence geopolitics.

To be fair, that IS inherent in the name of the prize.

That’s why I raised the issue. Money given to the American top dog (are we to believe it was not given to affect his policy decisions?) is what makes an issue of it. The money should not have been offered directly — that is if anyone in world politics still gave a damn about appearances.

APPEARANCE of corruption was once enough to drive a leader from office. What a joke! When the media is in the government’s control, expect two minutes hate to be directed at those who spot the conflict of interest.

I’ve been informed [Thank you Ed Bonderenka] that Obama will pass the gift off to charity. It was still given to him directly so he can choose the charity. Gee, I wonder what "charity" he’ll pay off? Rev Wright? Planned Barrenhood? ACLU?

Then 134. Tcobb (12:36 pm): spotted Bama's most favorite: ACORN most likely–probably through the back door.

Yep.

Left and Right: Not What You Think They Are

Left and Right are not what most people think they are.

I've tried to write on this many times. I usually get sidetracked. So before I get bogged down in my attempt to lay this out, here is what I am trying to prove.

1. Neither the terms Left nor Right represents a camp that speaks for the majority of Americans.
   
2. The two main parties, Democrats (Left) and Republicans (Right), are scripted opponents.
3. For the rest of this exercise, Left or Right will be referring to the the leaders of the respective party. 
   
4. It is not true that one of the main parties is as bad as the other. One will take us where most Americans will disapprove faster than the other.
   
5. However, both parties are headed in the same direction: larger government and lessened individual liberties. (How personal freedom diminishes as Statism increases will be examined later.)
6. The Left pretty much accepts its extremists (avante garde, shock troops, selected victims of some ism) as it rarely, if ever, speaks against any of them. (In fact, Leftist media never uses the terms "radical" or "Left-wing extremist," making it clear they don't believe someone can be too far left.)
   
7. The Right condemns and marginalizes as extremists any person or group who question the party leadership, and thereby trashes its most impassioned forces that easily could counter balance the Left's extremists. The Right even gets angry with any of its "moderates" who call for plain common-sensible slowdowns. (In fact, Leftist media always uses the term "right wing" or "extreme right wing" for any person or group it does not recognize as left of "center.")
8. Both parties are determined to drag the rest of the country with them whether you like it or not.

Those in control positions know what Left and Right effectively means. All eyes are on the professional wrestlers in the ring while the promoters have been slowly moving the arena in the direction of the Soviet Union.

Lately the promoters are convinced they can't be stopped. So they have begun rushing the changes. As a consequence, many more of us are feeling the earth move beneath us. I hope that is reason enough for you to read more of what I have to say on this topic and pass along the ideas to those you speak with.

Jotting all this down without too many excursions is tiring, and I tire easily. With much help from my friends, I hope to continue this soon.

In the meantime, here is Ronald Reagan agreeing with the message I aim to convey to you.

Choose between left or right sound bite

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: up to man's age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

Typical RNC Response to Conservatives

Conservatives and libertarians. Let the following prepare you for the response to expect of a serving Republican, particularly a Senator, when you request they act more conservatively.

Click to see your senator's response to your request.

Whereas I've seen Democrats respond like that to Republicans, I've only seen Republicans respond like that to their own constituency.

The Sound of Rulers

Should we Americans not find the key to the lock that moneyed influence has on our primaries and elections, we better get used to hearing: "Whether you like it or not!"

Pleasant Predictions

Stick with this thing until the last 20 seconds.


Better yet, fast forward.

For the lighter side, try this.