Dad and Dole

Bob Dole took a bullet for Dad.

God Bless and Rest in Peace.

He saved my father's life.

Thank you Sir.

WW-II was an interesting war. Everyone showed up. One day Dad, who was a Squad Leader, was in a foxhole next to a road in Italy when a German fighter plane straffed the road. A jeep stopped and a man clutching a violin case jumped out and jumped into my father's foxhole. It was Jascha Heifitz, the greatest violinist in the world. As I said, everyone got into the act.

By April 1945 my father was, in a foxhole, in the Appenines near Bagni di Lucca. The snow was deep. It was bitter cold. Every third day he had to turn his underwear inside out to keep the lice busy. Dad was sick with frostbite feet and maybe typhus. Odds were that he was going to die.

Dad had already used up more favors than God usually hands out. He was originally supposed to be in the first group of recruits sent to reinforce the Philippines. Dad caught a cold in boot camp and was reassigned, so he missed the Bataan Death March. Instead the Army sent him to spend a couple of weeks in Florida at Fighter Recognition School, where he was the only student not a field grade officer, and then sent him to England. There he had a date with some Countessa or Baroness whose family had a castle and only learned along with his colonel that they were heading for Mers el Kebir for the invasion of North Africa when the English village girls who typed the orders yelled it to them as Dad and the colonel marched to the troop ship. Dad survived that.

In North Africa Dad was sent up to observe so he was not caught in the disaster of Kasserine Pass. He took shelter in the graves the ever methodical Germans had Russian prisoners dig in advance. The Germans did not come back after the battle on the other side of the hill. No one ever discovered what happened to the Russians. Dad survived that.

In Italy Dad landed at Salerno. He asked the locals "Dove tedeschi?" and they replied "Lasciato tre giorni." Then the Americans waited for the Hermann Goering Division to show up. Dad survived that.

The Army, which is run by geniuses, was concerned that someone might steal Mt Vesuvius, so they had my father set up a machine gun nest on top of the volcano. It erupted. They did credit Dad with shooting down a Messerschmitt but Dad said that the pilot was probably already dead before he fired a shot. Dad survived that.

Dad's CO was a Colonel who had been a Midwest bank VP. I think he was like Mr Milton in "Best Years of Our Lives." A fearless character normally found someplace warm and dry two miles behind the lines he would volunteer his men for anything and threatened to put my father on report for dragging a mattress found in an abandoned farmhouse into his foxhole (naturally) before Monte Cassino. General Alexander stopped that. He shook his swagger stick and said, "That's the spirit man. Forage man, forage." Dad survived that.

Dad's own troops proved more dangerous. When he learned that they were stealing supplies and running them across the boot to sell to the black market on the Adriatic coast Dad put a stop to it. Someone tried to kill him, taking a shot that parted his hair. Dad survived that.

So when Dad was filthy hungry sick and freezing in the mountains near Bologna it was reasonable for him to think that his luck had run out. Then a strapping young Lieutenant from the 10th Mountain Division, looking like a recruiting poster, jumped into Dad's foxhole and said, "I got it. Get out of here." That was Bob Dole and three days later he took the bullet that was meant for my father and strong as he was, it would have killed my father who was a strong man but was weakened by 30 months of almost constant combat, it crippled Dole for life after putting him in the hospital for over a year and a half. Thank you Bob.

Dad went to the Aid Station where the Army doctor said he had used up his quota and was supposed to send Dad back to the line, where he would have surely died. Then the Doc said, "Hell, what can they do to me?" and sent Dad to the hospital and saved his life. Then the Army told Dad that he was going to be shipped to the Pacific to join the invasion of Japan. They said, "Make out your will. Consider yourself as already dead." Then Harry Truman dropped the bomb. Thanks Harry. Dad survived that.

BTW, Dad did not vote for Bob Dole.

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Instapundit: R.I.P. Bob Dole Dies at 98.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 12:37 pm

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/489436/#respond

A Reply to Professor Lipson on Facebook

Professor Lipson posted the, linking to a Spectator article, 

"Trump's never-ending 'stolen election' story damages America."

Yes, there were problems with last November’s election, but they have been litigated and audited for months. To continue questioning those reviews and challenging the outcome does lasting damage to our country. It’s long past time to stop.

Trump’s attack on our constitutional procedures does not stand alone. The Democrats have waged their own damaging assault on several fronts. They floated the idea of adding two new states to the Union and more Justices to the Supreme Court. Both are efforts to fundamentally change the legislative and judicial branches by packing them with supporters. 

Politicians wage attacks like these for tactical advantage. Alas, what is tactical advantage for them inflicts real structure damage on our democracy.

My reply follows.

On this one you are simply wrong. The reality may be simply too terrible to accept. The often paranoid theories of the worst and least credible people have finally proven true. Yes they may have cried wolf a thousand times but that makes it possible that the genuine criminals took advantage of that as a cover, recognizing that many had been conditioned not to react to the real theft. The very magnitude of the crime drives those complicit to go to extraordinary lengths to defend it. As Hillary said, "If we don't win we all hang." That then leads the innocent such as yourself, who are invested in maintaining the forms of civil society and constitutional government even as the substance has been eaten out, to bandwagon and give them cover.

The crucial moment may have been when the Democrats endorsed Occupy Wall Street and the Republicans did not challenge that. Occupy was not Free Speech but a dry run for ANTIFA. The point of no return was the refusal of Stacey Abrams to concede in Georgia. The Democrats were allowed to create a shadow government and then under the cover of COVID allowed Abrams to sponsor the mechanism for the theft of the 2020 election. The GOP should have used every tool available to force the Democrats to break with Seditionists and repudiate what was clearly a coup in progress months before the election. Unfortunately the antipathy to Trump among establishment leaders of the GOP enabled the Democrats to maneuver them into passivity.

The maintenance of the forms of institution and ritual are not meaningless. There is reason to cling to them even when barbarians occupy the seats of power. It is through the institutions and the rituals, through the Constitution and Congress and the Presidency and the courts, and schools and religions, that values are transmitted and justice is delivered. That leads to a free and prosperous society. The institutions and rituals are tools, not the goals in themselves, but they are valuable tools and to abandon them is the path of despair and defeat. However as they are but a means and not the end they must be supported by vigorous enforcement. The fact is that the institutions did not, were not permitted to, operate. The supporters of President Trump did not have their day in court. Millions believe as I do that the election was stolen and that becomes more certain over time, not less.

Between the election of the Constituent Assembly of 1918, that met for only 13 hours before the Bolsheviks dismissed, it and 1990 Russia was governed by a dictatorship cloaked in the forms of law. After all the Soviet Constitution of 1936 promulgated by Stalin was "the most democratic on earth." Did that make protests illegitimate? There is no need to go full Godwin and dwell on the forms cultivated by the constitutionally legal and elected, with the possibly unneeded use of fraud and thuggery, government of nazi Germany.

Is it possible to satisfy the concerns of most of the sane, as I hope that I am, people who dispute the legitimacy of the current regime in DC? Yes but it becomes increasingly difficult to do so and the response from those invested in preventing an accounting has already crossed over into violence. The Democrats have proclaimed that any disputing of their claims to power, including peaceful protest and lawful assembly or communications, is Sedition and may be suppressed with force. Demonstrators who entered the Capitol on January 6th, which was probably unwise, but who did so after the police opened the doors and entered peacefully staying between velvet ropes have been treated brutally in a manner that only we thought had existed in the past in dark backwoods corners of America.

What can be done? At a minimum the fact that there is a legitimate concern must be acknowledged. A full formal audit and public accounting of the election must be held. Invalid votes must be exposed and rejected. Where a state's Electors were improperly assigned their votes in the Electoral College must be invalidated. Reassignment of those votes to a competing slate is a separate issue. It may or may not be justified depending on the facts. If either canceling some EC votes or replacing them were to overturn the outcome of the election then the offices of President and Vice President would have to be declared vacant. At that point the XXth Amendment would take effect. My expectation is that would make the Speaker the Acting President until a new election could be held. Here is section 3 of the XXth Amendment:

𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 3. 𝐼𝑓, 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡. 𝐼𝑓 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚, 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑙 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑑; 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑏𝑦 𝑙𝑎𝑤 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑖𝑛 𝑛𝑒𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑎 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑑, 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑙 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑑.

There are real issues arising from the 2020 election regarding Voter ID and Early or Mail in voting, as well as Harvesting, that Congress should address.

Looking back, and at the risk of flogging a horse, I want to add something.
Professor Lipson was my teacher, my mentor, is my I dare say friend, and over 40 years ago I was a spectacular disappointment when he I think took a turn as my advisor in the hope of getting some useful work out of me. His opinions matter. A belief in the benefits and even the necessity of building institutions, political, legal, and academic, and accepting the legitimacy of their procedures, including accepting an undesired result, is a rational and moral position. Good scholarship in the Social Sciences makes one aware of the grim consequences that follow when those institutions collapse and with startling speed societies revert to the Hobbesian war of all against all. 

As the Declaration says "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer" because the alternatives are both unknown and as the evidence of history and theory shows are usually worse. If the consequences of the election a year ago were, unpleasant as it may seem, simply the consequence of Donald Trump's abrasive personality alienating key groups of people combined with some clever or even unethical but still legal maneuvering by his opponents then the answer to his supporters may be, as the Lincoln Project Bush/McCain loyalists seem to say, "Suck it up. There was a lot at stake and you blew it. Now we have to try to put the pieces back together and it is going to be harder than it would have been if Trump had never existed." 

Is that true? The evidence is obscured but that is because there has been a sustained campaign to suppress the evidence. That in itself makes it harder to accept the prematurely proclaimed results. Certainly it is reasonable to believe that the reason that Trump gained the support of the Republican base and probably the majority of the citizenry was that the Establishment in the GOP had become corrupted and demonstrably failed to defend the institutions and see that they functioned as tools to deliver the benefits of law liberty and prosperity I described above. Was there a spontaneous move reacting to traditional political operations or rather a sophisticated conspiracy that resorted to Sedition and even foreign support along with organized criminal activity, from mob violence to illegal election law changes, to coerce an illegitimate result?

To simply propose the second half of the above choice would seem bizarre or even paranoid but the first alternative, given what we all saw, is also incredible. We cannot simply dismiss one and declare that the other must be true. We need a proper accounting, no matter how inconvenient that may be. Efforts to suppress challenges are themselves evidence that the results should be challenged. Every effort to deny that accounting moves the weight of evidence to the side of declaring that that Mr Trump is correct.

Rot in The Groves of Academe

Actions must have Consequences, in Physics Politics or Law.

The Statute of Limitations, which guards against persecution and the introduction of unverifiable or tainted evidence as well as some forms of corruption, is not the same as granting wrongful conduct a veil of oblivion if it is not punished within two news cycles. We need a prominent regularly updated running tally of outrages and most importantly their consequences if any. In the below case from three years ago do we know what happened? Is Thomas still employed at U Miss or at any college or by any government?

Part of the problem may be the relentless pressure on faculty to fill more than one role. Faculty at major universities are expected not only to perform research and mentor graduate students but also to engage with undergraduates and to act as public intellectuals, as personalities and advocates. That may have begun as a patriotic contribution to the government when it needed Experts to assist in crisis such as the Great Depression and then WW-II and The Cold War but it also was recognized as a gold mine in bringing to the schools not only direct federal money but also publicity that payed off when raising funds for the endowment. Famous faculty proved almost as valuable as a good football coach.

The other side of that is the pressure on faculty at small and state colleges to also produce and publish original research. Continued publication by senior faculty, Full or Associate Professor, at state colleges should not be a requirement for job retention, even if tenure rules change as they well may. Publication by junior faculty seeking tenure should be subject to much more critical review, separate from that of the journals they publish in. The current system has become a self licking ice cream cone with a frequently inedible product. Real scholarship may be drowned out by the white noise of those who have nothing to say and who say it aggressively. This has been exposed by the placement of hoax articles.

Teaching faculty at state colleges who wish to participate in the life of scholarship beyond their classroom duties should be afforded opportunities to do so as Affiliates at regional Research Universities. While publishing as an Affiliate might generate some prestige and a small possibility of advancement to a research position at a university the expectation of a financial benefit proportional to the labor involved should be limited. The job of the college teacher should be to teach. This is a step back possibly to the concept of separate college and graduate faculties, although with the colleges largely on separate state school campuses, similar to that of the Hutchins era at the University of Chicago.

Teaching in a non-vocational program at a Community College is probably worse than teaching in a decent high school, and there is no reason to support dubious publishing opportunities in questionable journals and an inflated graduate system to manufacture the doctorates that are not needed for the small number of genuine scholarly positions available. Without a doubt there are good people who can't get into a position at a top tier university. This is a tragedy and sometimes even an injustice. But the cost to society, especially in the opportunity cost of wasted resources, of pretending that those in the non-scholarly positions are producing work that is as valuable as scholarship should stop. Einstein may have done his best work while he was a patent clerk but we don't expect every patent clerk to publish and we don't create redundant journals to handle the produce of tenure hungry patent clerks. We would be better off if those who are not going to prosper as scholars, which in most fields like Anthropology means all but a handful a year, are told to focus on teaching and to drop the SJW theatrics. An Affiliation program would allow the leading faculties of the Research Universities to work with and find those who do belong in a top tier scholarly setting, without duplicating the graduate program at every state college. Of course I am generalizing. That is needed to generate testing.

The problem is that after WW-II with the GI Bill the number of college students expanded dramatically, that created the demand to increase the number of graduate students, which created the demand to increase the number of graduate programs, all with federal funny money, and then the baby boom followed, increasing the demand ad infinitum or at until the students decided that hetero-sex was a bad thing. 60 years ago a small liberal arts school or a state college could boast of one or two serious scholars, often Jewish refugees, who were relieved of the burden their colleagues had at the research universities because at the small schools they did not have to teach graduate students. That reduced some of the perks of Academia but it worked. Now the vast overgrown network of 2nd and 3rd tier schools is flooded with faculty like the character at the original link for this thread and the students, many of whom do not belong in a liberal arts school, are ill served. For those faculty who aspire to something better it must be depressing. How can we get back to what worked?

The state colleges were established under the Land Grant system as Normal Schools (Teacher's colleges) and Veterinary schools. Those are important functions. A few other similar professional programs, such as Accounting and Engineering, may be considered of direct benefit to the states, as determined by th state legislatures.

BTW an Uncle of mine was a great scholar of French literature and became Dean of graduate studies at UMass, Amherst. Under his guidance that school became a great Research University. He was proudly Liberal and hated Eisenhower. When he was a graduate student at Columbia he was on a committee of graduate students, all but my uncle were I think veterans, who went to see Eisenhower, then the President of the university, to ask for a $25 raise. Eisenhower threw them out of his office.

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Privus Sapo

October 17, 2018  · 

Shared with Public

The University of Mississippi has this to deal with:

“Don’t just interrupt a Senator’s meal, y’all,” James Thomas, an assistant professor of sociology, tweeted from his @Insurgent_Prof account on Oct. 6, the day Justice Brett Kavanaugh was sworn into the Supreme Court.

“Put your whole damn fingers in their salads,” he wrote. “Take their apps and distribute them to the other diners. Bring boxes and take their food home with you on the way out. They don’t deserve your civility.”

This untenured Assistant Prof is probably around 38 years old and spent the half of his life since high school working into his current position. If he gets fired, as I hope, his record should be amended to ensure that he does not find employment at a secondary school. He is quite literally unemployable. What can he do? Write Stand Up LGBT comedy reviews? The Village Voice has folded.

The larger issue is the bloat in America's education system. There are tens of thousands of people with graduate degrees that there is no market for except for taxpayer created jobs where they manufacture more students, who spend 4 to 15 years in the same fields and then expect employment. How many graduate programs in Sociology and Anthropology producing how many PhDs does America need? Probably fewer than a dozen, with all but the top 3 producing 1 to 3 new PhDs a year. The best may generate up to 5. How many undergraduate programs in those fields are justifiable? More than the graduate programs but still fewer than now exist. Almost all state university graduate programs in the Social Sciences and Humanities, which grew as an unintended consequence of the post WW-II GI Bill, should be shut down.

All government scholarships should be tied to some period of prior active or concurrent reserve military service.

Fbook Is Down

Fbook is down. Is it a $2 part or bad software inn the spaghetti code or is it deliberate? To be clear I have absolutely zero evidence of this, it is pure speculation for heuristic purposes.

When someone falls into the trap of doing business with a mobster they always start by thinking that they are a free agent still. Then comes the moment when the rug gets pulled out from under them. The CCP is a Mafia. Did they, either directly or through a US government cut-out, make a demand that Zuckerberg finally said "No" to? It would comport with the model for them to pull the plug to ensure future compliance. If that happened then it indicates that we are all already in the box and that Xi and his gang believe that we cannot escape. What powers to stop them remain? The infinitesimally small possibility that the CO and XO on an SSBN would launch against orders? I do not believe that will happen. The only consolation that I can offer is that the totalitarian project, and the parasitic gangster model it is wedded to, are doomed to failure. Eventually but long after we are all gone and civilization has collapsed human communities will revive like green shoots riding from the devastation after a forest fire. Hopefully there will be isolated pockets like monasteries where some memories and learning may be preserved.

Risen From History's Crypt

Islam was moribund and in retreat at the end of the 19th century. Then came two things that, I hesitate to call it Divine Intervention but perhaps some other agent was at work, rescued it. 

The first was the shift to oil powered naval vessels. The change from sail to coal fired steam had already occurred but the Royal Navy's shift from coal to oil made control of the Middle-East oil fields critical to the British. The Arabs and Iranians shifted from despised or picturesque natives of interest only to Missionaries, Romanticists, Archeologists, and various cranks to potential partners and valued assets to be cultivated. 

Next came the rise of Marxism as a challenge to the core ideologies of the West. Those being Judeo-Christianity, Aristotelian rationalism and inquiry, Empiricism and the Scientific Method in a tradition championed by Francis Bacon, limited government and individual liberty under the rule of law, and Capitalism. The West was weakened internally as both large swaths of the masses and of the elites fell away from support for culture and the institutions, which themselves became corrupted, that were always more important in expanding the sphere of Western dominance than the military power which was among their end products. Islam was itself energized as it adopted the rhetorical and organizational tools that Marxism provided for its revival.

Love In the Jet Age.

There is a story in the family that one day we went to Idlewild to see a relative off, air travel still being a glamorous big deal then. That much I do remember. Apparently we all had lunch in the terminal restaurant. During which my brother and I were busy doing what came naturally, which was being horrible. At the table behind us a soon to be famous fashion designer was sitting with an extraordinarily beautiful girl. He was proposing marriage to her, asking her to stay and telling her about how excellent his prospects were. While he was doing that she was staring at my brother and I, being horrible. The safe bet is that she got on a plane.
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There is no truth to the rumor that the Catholics tried to borrow my brother and myself so as to increase the number of young women finding vocations as nuns.

China's "Civilization Killers"

Epoch Times

This is my fear. 44 years ago a friend who had won a Rhodes Scholarship got a little drunk at his celebration party and joked about inventing something like this.
⁠
Note that I am using racial terms and categories here that the wiki in their page "Race" spends hundreds of words repetitevly denying as having any scientific meaning or biological value. Why do I do this? Because the Chinese, like most people, believe that the terms mean something and that there are biological differences that can be exploited. 
⁠
The Chinese Communist Party is (im)morally and likely technically capable of attempting this. Before they unleash a bioweapon that targets Caucasians but spares Mongoloids (East Asians), which may be feasible but also may be difficult given the history of migrations and genetic mixing over the last 10,000 years, they would I think first test the technology on a more distinct target population, Negroids. Surprise.
⁠
The CCP are I think emotionally capable of genocidally exterminationg much of the population in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America and then using survivors as labor for extracting the resources the CCP covets.

On Misandry

The Feminists are correct that there is a lot of Misogyny out there and many women are at risk of physical harm. They are also completely clueless about where the threat comes from and who is and is not likely to harm them. They have consistently fallen for gaslighting that has lead to them Judas like inducing those they claim to care for away from those who do not want to harm them and into where they can be harmed by real predators. On college campuses much agitation is I think used to isolate and stigmatize heterosexual men in order to drive a wedge between them and heterosexual women, so that the latter can be isolated and exploited by aggressive dishonest and manipulative persons, including transgenders and lesbians. Some beta heterosexual males participate in this hoping to benefit from the exclusion of other males. The Patriarchy consists of Bill Clinton and his supporting cast of sexual obsessive "Friends of and like Hillary" as well as assorted Race Hustlers, ConMen, and Grifters who view young women as chattel.

Denaturalization

On my list of amendments that would improve the Constitution of the United States is one that would enable Congress by a three fourths vote of each chamber to revoke the citizenship of any person born a United States citizen, with a two thirds vote in each chamber sufficing to revoke the naturalization of a person not born a citizen. Also upon a petition submitted by the legislatures of two thirds of the states Congress may act to denaturalize any citizen by a means of majority vote with a bill subject to Presidential approval or by a two thirds majority in each chamber should the President not assent, provided that no state legislature may authorize such a petition nor may Congress pass an Act naming more than one person for this purpose on any day that they are in session.

Instapundit: AND THE COMPETITION WAS FIERCE THIS YEAR: Teen Vogue Columnist Takes the Prize for Dumbest 9/11 Take of the Year.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/473294/#respond

The COVID K.I.S.S.

There is no zero zilch nada zip justification for Biden claiming Emergency Powers in response to a Crisis. There was some justification for the government acting with dispatch in response to an unknown threat with an unknown level of lethality and unknown means of preventing mitigating or treating its impact. That was true, 18 to 20 months ago. That is why the initial response was labeled, "Two weeks to bend the curve." None of the excuses for Emergency actions that violated civil rights, including judicial due process, respect for state sovereignty, legislative oversight and authority, and individual freedoms including both of Speech and Privacy to include medical information, are true now. 
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The government asked for two weeks so that they could find out what the disease was and where it came from and what measures might prove beneficial in response. Now we know that Fauci lied to Trump and the American people. He knew what the disease was and where it came from and he participated in a grandstanding power grab that distracted and delayed more effective measures while millions suffered. Billion were lost in financial collapse and misdirected efforts. The emotional damage was also a real cost. China in a series of hostile acts not only produced the disease and entered into corrupt relations with American officials that weakened our response but also they have withheld information that could have sped our response.
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At this point what do we know? There is a disease. It is or will be endemic, like other corona viruses. Absent further genetic manipulation to make it more lethal to targeted populations, which may happen as that may be a focus of CCP sponsored bioweapons research, many or most may catch it at some time and most will survive. Vaccines and mRNA treatments will be refined and will be appropriate for some but not all. Other treatments, using either new medicines or as is common repurposed medicines, will be tested and some will prove more effective than others. As with other diseases for almost everyone and certainly for civilians vaccination and treatment should be a matter of personal choice determined between patients and their physicians operating under rules of Confidentiality and Informed Consent.
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Consider an analogy. When a house is on fire the firefighters may knock the door down and tear the walls open, smashing dishes and furniture as they chase the fire. Their right to do so lasts only as long as the initial fire is burning and the cause and path of it are unknown. After a few hours at most the firefighters withdraw. If there is a concern that someone may be storing paint, alcohol, or old rags improperly then the fire department is not allowed to kick in doors to find and neutralize the threat. The police will have to go to a judge and show cause and hope for a warrant that they then must present. If they do not conduct themselves professionally then they may be liable.
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Freedom is maintained at a cost, and that may include some inefficiency. If someone fails to exercise due care in storing flammables or by not reporting or by spreading a disease then they may face civil or criminal liabilities. Note that for some diseases such as AIDS the Democrats have reduced or eliminated the liability of those who knowingly expose others to infection. However nothing may be done without due process. Even in the case of Typhoid Mary the Health Department had to go through the courts before confining her and they did not respond to the disease by locking up every Irish servant.

On Mandates and Conscientious Objectors

In my industry, like many others, COVID vaccines have been mandated as a condition of employment. There has been an exemption noted in many job postings for those with medical or religious objections. However such an exemption must be applied for in advance and would be evaluated by the employer's HR department. Rejection due to discrimination and subsequent denial of future employment would be almost impossible to prove. The (edited for confidentiality) notice follows.

"𝐴𝑙𝑙 ... ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑠 [𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 ...] 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑣𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝐶𝑂𝑉𝐼𝐷-19 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑦𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑓𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙, 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑎𝑤 (𝑖.𝑒., 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦, 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑓, 𝑒𝑡𝑐.)."

This parallels the Conscientious Objector Draft Exemption based upon a documented religious belief and affiliation that exists for the armed forces. That was often interpreted by the draft boards in a narrow manner that lead to applications being rejected. The rejection of the request from Alvin York, holder of the Medal of Honor and the most decorated American soldier of WW-I as given in the script of the film "Sergeant York."

"𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒, 𝑤𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑎 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙-𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑡, 𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑀𝑎𝑦 18, 1917. 𝑊𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑢𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑠𝑒. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒'𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ, 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑟. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑑."

We may consider that the draft boards of 104 years ago, like the governing political culture and the leadership of the armed forces, was considerably less hostile to religious or political dissent than that of either the government or of corporate HR departments is today. Biden's proposed mandates for all government employment, including contractors, may strip away even the tissue thin provision for an exemption based on Conscientious Objection.

Government and business today under the influence of a totalitarian ideology claim a power greater than that of an absolute monarch. Elizabeth I of England said. "I have no desire to make windows into men's souls." We have General Milley who would never say as Major Buxton did, "York, as your superior officer, I don't feel called upon to look into your conscience."