osan
Member

I maintain my insistence on https://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2021/07/amendment-xxix.html

I gave up there.

That is certainly so, but why not use Theire rotten system to make them have to work as tediously as possible in that sphere? It may not work out that way, but then it costs one very little to give it a swing.

I'm not at all getting your point. Nowhere do I state nor do I imply anything even remotely as you put it here. Where's this coming from? I remain perplexed. I would not put them in charge of commerce, but the issue at hand is not of trade, but of responses in the face of external threats. I've not said anywhere that such measures are good for trade, but under a very narrowly defined set of circumstances, trade must yield to defense. Trade, for example, makes little difference when the enemy in question is landing troops in all up and down the eastern and western seaboards. I've made that distinction very clearly.

The fact that liberty has to be pitched should tell you something very significant about the state of the mean American. Hint: it's not very good.

A pipe dream, indeed... but you neglect to say why. WE are the reason. Our rank corruption as individuals who want all the joys and exhilarations of liberty but who have no interest in paying the costs and bearing the fatigues of getting and maintaining the state, make it so. We, the glorious people, are by and large full of shit. So please, let us at least be honest in a sufficiently complete manner with each other here on this site, the way friends should be with one another, and speak circumspectly on such matters. I agree with your assertion, but I add the reason why it is so, which reveals that we could change it. We just don't want to... enough. We want the knight in shining armor - Trump is a good contemporary example - to fix it all so we can go back to masturbating and filling our noses with snow and sticking our tongues up our girlfriends' asses as we shop for swag on our cell phones. Whoopdee flippin' doo... For the millionth time: WE are the root of all human problems. It ain't the climate; it ain't mass-coronal-ejections; it's not an asteroid about to slam into the earth, or little green men from Andromeda, or mountain lions. It's us. Just us, and nothing or nobody else. Until that changes, there's not that much point in going on about liberty, is there?

THis, of course, raises the same old question of at what point do people begin taking non-equivocating physical action against these agents of perdition. Disobedience is usually met by men with guns. Will mass disobedience produce results where dribs and drabs fail? We really have not tried it yet, so who can say? But reasonably assuming that the hornets' nest would be stirred and many people would be gravely violated by the armed petty-tyrants, pursuant to their masters' orders, what then? It then becomes a very clear choice: fight or capitulate. Fight must perforce mean the holding to account those who become the sources of tyrannical action, and if that means apprehending the boards of large network media outlets, for example, then that is what would have to be done. Apprehend CEOs and Chairmans of the Board and issue warrants for the arrests of all other board members, many of whom would likely attempt to flee the country or take sanctuary with police, which raises yet another interesting set of possibilities. But at some point, we the big-mouthed "free men of America" need to shit or get off the pot, and shitting means BECOMING the self-governing people who act within the metes of the principles of liberty, lest we become what we claim to loathe. And THAT raises some interesting questions as well, not the least of which would be the question of volumes and appeals and so forth. Under such conditions, SCOTUS would be absolutely unworthy of the least shred of trust because those justices would without question view the "people" as renegades. So how would it all be handled? Or would we declare war for real and simply execute prisoners on the spot? It could prove the only practical way to negotiate such a dolorous circumstance. Regardless of all these discomfiting uncertainties, the one certainty in my opinion is that we are going to have to wrest the powers of governance from the hands of these scurrilous criminals if we are to take our liberties in a serious and adult way. Otherwise, we're just bullshitting ourselves and each other in the good old echo chamber, and then why bother talking about it at all?

The perfect is the enemy of the good. I wrote normatively and it is a clearly valid perspective. That the positive reality reeks of numbskulls and douchepigs with malevolent or ineptly conceived agendas, screwing billions of people in their backholes through bad decisions of the sort under discussion here, it does not follow that the notion itself is mistaken. The magic is competence and good faith, which boils down to trustworthiness. That nearly nary a single living soul involving himself in such matters is worthy of the least shred of our trust, it still does not follow that the idea in itself is unworthy. It only means that either we have the wrong people in such positions of special trust, the issue itself is very difficult to navigate correctly or, most likely, both. And let us not evade the bigger issue and root of the problem under discussion: people, by and large, are fucking douches, ill-content to live and let live. Quite the contrary, they seek petty drama, the consequences of which tends to be misery heaped upon misery. At the end of the day, there is little to recommend us as a species. Our cleverness, coupled with our eminent corruptibility and our apparent lust for corruption, has far outflanked our wishes to live good lives amid our fellow human beings. Otherwise, we would be living far better lives than we currently enjoy.

Protectionist measures do indeed bring harm to economies, most particularly when all else is normal and cordial between trade partners. But when justified, such properly considered measures lead to lesser evils. Comparatively trivial issues of optimal economic health are secondary to the immediate survival of a people in the face of threats from an external enemy. The issue you address is not quite as simple as you seem to convey. These sorts of political considerations most often carry subtle difficulties and require wise men to undertake such measures in a manner loosely analogous to the amputation of a gangrenous limb for the sake of saving the life to which it is attached. AF's example of cutting all economic ties with China, our mortal enemy, is valid.

Well put together. I've posted it elsewhere. Mors tyrannis.

I think the question turns on the real truth about Trump. Is he the pariah to the left, or is he controlled opposition?

One of the great problems in all this is that Theye play both ends against the middle, the latter being "us". This manifests is such a multitude of ways, it becomes nearly impossible to know how to proceed, what to think, whom to trust, and so forth. For example, had Americans known the truth about Lusitaia, how eager might they have been to volunteer to fight on the side of the good-for-nothing British? I suspect Americans would not have been at all on board with the idea. The same can be said for the second war. The demon spawn Roosevelt was failing in his communistic foist upon America, so he saw his opportunity to divert attention from his miserable failures as president by taunting and goading Japan to the point they finally gave in to stupidity and lampooned Pearl. We humans are problematic on our best days. Given our capacities for being corrupted, it becomes clear that the greater we become in terms of our technological capabilities, the more the more to the hazard we venture in terms of our continued viability as a species. Long ago, wild tribal humans were likely averse to the strictures of civilized life. However, we are so easily corrupted, especially if tyrants take their time, introducing their foists in tiny measures until the people are so corrupted, as we see today, they can then take bold cuts with little concern for being challenged in any meaningful way. People like comfort. The world is by its nature an uncomfortable place. Hold out crumbs of comfort, no matter what lies you must tell, and people will do anything you command. This is the sad truth of the mean human being. He is a pathetic beast who, like a chameleon, changes his stripes as convenience may find appealing. Rare are the men who understand the value and nature of freedom. Rarer still are those who understand the balance between principle and pragmatism that best protects and perpetuated liberty, which is so ephemeral due to the mean man's readiness to fall to the false temptations that lead him to eventual slavery.

The first video I saw was cropped. It appeared that the entire structure collapsed in unison, leading me to suspect this was another 9/11 job. Just this morning I saw the uncropped harbor video and the progression of collapse from the initial failure point, outward is clearly visible. As to whether it was an accident, I say hold judgement and let us see what the "experts" say in a report. It will be interesting to watch for the economic effects this propagates, which I'm sure there will be some. It may come to well illustrate just how highly we depend on these assets for our daily existences. Time will tell.

The debt is. lie, so why are we fretting over it?

I'd like to boldly assert that this dreck has no chance, but given the prevailing state of raving lunacy in every corner of this and, I must desist. I would like to see it pass. We need that straw to break the camel's back. Better sooner than later because we appear to be losing our wills to basic sense and decency at an alarming rate. If there's anything left of real Americans, let them be pushed to the point where there's no more room to back up. We have been hovering at the shit-or-get-off-the-pot point for at least two decades as Theye have steadily encroached ever more deeply into the territories of our sovereign rights. We've done nothing to stop Themme and that is a great shame upon us all. I say let them deliver the coupe de grace, that either we rise and slaughter them, or be put to the sword as we rightly deserve as reward for our indolent attitudes. What a shame that all has come to this.

Well this is all very depressing. No surprises, mind you... just depressing.

May I take it Johnson is proving himself just another DC whore?