RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-captive-mind-and-americas-resegregation-11596222112?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

Czesław Miłosz, a future Nobel Prize-winning poet who had just defected from Poland, began work in 1951 on a book called “The Captive Mind.” Even as Stalinist totalitarianism tightened its grip on Eastern Europe, many Western European intellectuals lauded the brave new world of Soviet communism as a model for overcoming “bourgeois forces,” which in their view had caused World War II. Living in Paris, Miłosz wrote his book, which was published in 1953, to warn the West of what happens to the human mind and soul in a totalitarian system. 

Miłosz knew from experience, having lived through the Communist takeover, how totalitarianism strips men and women of their liberty, transforming them into “affirmative cogs” in service of the state and obliterating what had taken centuries of Western political development to achieve. Totalitarianism not only enslaved people physically but crippled their spirit. It did so by replacing ordinary human language, in which words signify things in the outside world, with ideologically sanctioned language, in which words signify the dominant party’s ever-changing ideas of what is and is not true.

Since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, nationwide protests, which quickly turned to riots, have been hijacked by the neo-Marxist left, morphing into an all-out assault on American cities and institutions. This assault is underpinned by an audacious attempt to rewrite history that turns specific past events into weapons not only to overpower political opponents but also to recast all of American history as a litany of racial transgressions.

   https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-the-confused-and-pointless-rage-of-an-entitled-generation/

What happens when you take a generation of people, carefully instill in them an overriding sense of entitlement, give them lives of immeasurable comfort and ease, grant them every right and liberty known to man, but then at the same time tell them, somehow, incredibly, that they are oppressed — and then finally, after decades of this sort of schizophrenic conditioning, grant them free reign to express their confused and unearned rage in whatever way they desire, including felony vandalism and assault? Well, we are now seeing the results of that social experiment, and they are as ugly as expected — the country witnessing an eruption in rioting and mayhem by members of what the Feds generally describe as “violent anarchist” groups.

Indeed, the entitlement of these left-wing “protesters” — many of whom are white and by the Left’s own terms “privileged” — is the most striking and inescapable thing about them. These are people who believe they actually have the God-given — or whoever-given — right to shut down roads, stop traffic, intimidate, harass, assault, burn, loot, and pillage, without consequence. They really believe they have this right.

For example, DC activist Julia Clark posted a lengthy Twitter thread over the weekend complaining about cars that kept driving down roads that she and her comrades had decided to close. Of course they had no authority to close any roads at all, but that is a minor detail in Julia Clark’s mind. If Julia Clark decides that a road is closed, well then, damn it, it’s closed. And that’s all there is to it.

https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1288144511433150464

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/five-reasons-be-cheerful-katie-hopkins/

With so many people feeling stressed out and at odds with the world, I feel it is my duty as Energizer to try and install some much-needed good humor and optimism into our team.

I appreciate there is an awful lot of darkness out there and more bad news than for CNN on election night, but there are many more reasons to be cheerful. Here are just five:

[1] You are on the same team as Louie Gohmert.

When my young son asks me which superhero I would like to be, I always answer Louie Gohmert. Texas is blessed to have him.

The one-man fighting machine introduced a resolution on the floor of the House to ban the Democrat Party.

Everybody knows that slavery has been pushed and protected by the Democratic Party, they are the ones that pushed Jim Crow laws….So if we are going to hold the Democrats to the same standards they want to hold everybody else to and get rid of any vestiges of slavery, it means getting rid of the Democratic party.

All Congressman Gohmert needs is a red cape and some tight blue pants with his briefs worn on the outside and we can legitimately call him Super-Louie.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/milwaukee-shooting-victim-trump-supporter

A Milwaukee homicide victim has been identified as a well-liked fixture of the city’s Black community who supported Black Lives Matter and President Trump.

Bernell Trammell, 60, was shot and killed Thursday afternoon in front of a storefront with signs in the window supporting Trump’s reelection. according to reports. He ran a small business from the storefront.

A makeshift memorial grew in size at the spot where he was killed, according to Fox 6 Milwaukee.

“The guy was just full of love,” Dick Nelson said, according to the station.

His last known conversation was with a blogger on the morning of the shooting.

Bernell Trammell, 60, was gunned down in from of his Milwaukee storefront Thursday afternoon. (Facebook)

The chat with Adebisi Agoro took place as Trammell held a sign that said “Wisconsin Vote Donald Trump 2020,” the station reported.

“He’s just a community figure,” Agoro told the station. “I respected him just because he had a position…He’s got his opinion on why he feels that way; and I’m not going to knock him.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/27/its_time_to_crush_the_new_rebellion_against_constitution_143803.html

Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked an interesting question of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany at last Tuesday’s press briefing:

“Where in the Constitution does the president derive the authority to send federal law enforcement officers to the streets of American cities against the will of the elected officials in those cities?”

McEnany, as it turned out, was prepared. Section 1315 of Title 40 of the U.S. Code, she explained, “gives DHS the ability to deputize officers in any department or agency like ICE, Custom and Border Patrol and Secret Service … for the duties in connection with the protection of property owned or occupied by the federal government.”

She added, “When a federal courthouse is being lit on fire, commercial fireworks being shot at it [and] being shot at the officers, I think that falls pretty well within the limits of 40 U.S. Code 1315.”

Since violent thugs have targeted the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., it was an appropriate response, but it didn’t directly answer Karl’s question, which asked about constitutional authority for the use of federal force. It is a question worth asking, in part because there are many urban areas in the United States currently under similar attack but where no federal property is involved.

https://www.startribune.com/racial-justice-the-new-religion/571899352/?refresh=true

Since the death of George Floyd, a movement that condemns America as “systemically racist” has convulsed our public consciousness. Sixty years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — and despite decades of affirmative action, massive social welfare spending and a two-term Black president — we are told that “white supremacy” deforms America today, as it has throughout history.

The movement to eradicate “white privilege” manifests in demands to defund police and in the toppling of statues — not only of Confederate generals, but of figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, even George Washington.

Educational, business, media, nonprofit and entertainment institutions have taken up the “systemic racism” mantra with breathtaking speed, issuing statements declaring their virtue and right thinking.

Yet something is profoundly amiss in the frenzied movement that has America in its grip. This movement elevates passion over reason and dogma over data. It contemptuously rejects, and attempts to silence, calls for objective analysis as self-evidently racist.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16266/law-and-justice

For me, the real enemies of America are the extremists on both sides: the hard left that would bring America down, the hard right white supremacists and neo‑Nazis…. People from the hard left do not even want to hear from people on the center left.

I think the last thing The New York Times wants is for people to come to their own conclusion, because The New York Times bars dissenting points of view and fired editors who authorize them to be published on its pages…. The Times has taken the “op” out of “op-ed.”

The combination of elected prosecutors and elected judges has made our legal system far too political. Too many decisions are made by people, crowds, and pressure groups. When you combine four aspects of our system — prosecutors are elected, judges are elected, juries are ordinary, lay people, and the judges who control the juries are often subject to re‑election — the risks of our justice system being turned over to the masses, to the mobs, to the crowds, to the chanters, becomes all too real, and our system of checks and balances becomes weaker.

Remember that when America was founded at the end of the 18th century, the greatest fear was of the mob. We were watching what was happening a little later on in France with the revolution, and with the killing of so many innocent people in the name of the revolution.

In China, some years ago, I was invited to go to a trial, a man who was accused of stealing some items. After the evidence came in — you had evidence from the prosecution, the defendant testified — and then the judge ordered the doors opened. Hundreds of people poured in from the streets. The judge said, “Now we’ll hear from the masses.” The masses started yelling, “Convict! Convict! Convict!” Of course, the judge convicted, because the masses were the ones in a communist country who had control over the justice system. I never want to see that happen in the United States of America

It is very hard to be a dissenter today. If you are a dissenter today, you risk being canceled. If you are an editor who is willing to publish dissenting material, you risk being fired. If you are a dissenter today in a crowd, you risk being beaten up.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16267/illusory-superiority

Illusory Superiority is a quality that now afflicts many in public policy who think they know most things better than the mayor, the governor, or the president.

This is an army of professional “seldom right – but never in doubt” individuals who seem to be singularly unphased by their ability to get so much so wrong.

If the goal of the newspaper is brainwashing and indoctrination, like Russia’s Pravda, its executives, of course, are perfectly right to harness thought; but that is a business decision about profits and market share. It should not be confused with journalism.

Those in politics, whether staff or politicians, possessed of illusory superiority may well bring down the republic. Quite a few seem convinced that by losing the executive branch, the House and the Senate, they are somehow saving the country rather than actually pulling the grenade-pin that will bring about the collapse of the nation’s economy, free-speech, and our very future.

We all know someone whose favorite pastime seems to be knowing something about everything better than anyone.

You know.

The one who lamented to a friend, “I told my husband he should not have sold that stock!”

“Well,” was the response, “Then maybe, you would like to invest some of your own money yourself?”

That was, apparently, not the right answer. Still, that sardonic exchange, labeled, “illusory superiority,” and once confined to inconsequential conversation, has now seeped into our political world, harming the ability to voice opinions, destroying open campus debate, and creating an environment that despite the opinion of the voters, allows government staff to view itself as far smarter than the person elected to office.