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What We Neglect in Tocqueville By Harvey C. Mansfield

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/12/17/what-we-neglect-in-tocqueville/

Democracy in America is about a lot more than democracy .

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was a French aristocrat and one of America’s very best friends, the special, rare kind that tells you the truth. His Democracy in America is quoted often for support, but less often sought for advice. Here are a few points in his great book, often neglected, from which we can learn. (An anniversary is a time to celebrate, but any time is a good time to learn.) 

The meaning of democracy. Many readers today wonder how Tocqueville could speak of “democracy” in 1835, when women had no vote and blacks were enslaved. Tocqueville specifies “equality of conditions” to define democracy, a state in which each individual thinks he has sufficient intelligence to rule himself, resulting in the rule of the majority of such individuals. It’s not that individuals are equal, but that they think they are. Others are held to be “similar” to oneself, neither inferior nor superior. Democracy is not a self-evident truth taken from nature’s God but a plausible convention held to be true. Democracy can become more equal — give women the vote and abolish slavery — when the majority rules it to happen, but the majority can also accept imperfections and inequalities if it wishes and still remain democratic. Such inequalities, for example offices filled by elections, often make democracy work better. Even in its normal functioning, even when officials have powers unequal to those of citizens, democracy has hidden aristocratic aspects necessary to its good functioning.

Democracy and aristocracy. Tocqueville — an aristocrat himself, living just after the French Revolution — knew the contrast between the Old Regime and the democratic future that he found in America in a way we cannot today. For us there is only one way to live justly and reasonably — in democracy. Even the hateful regimes we know, such as communism and Nazism, are perversions of democracy. Tocqueville refers to the “providential fact” that democracy in our time is inescapable, but he explains democracy to itself in constant contrast with its rival, aristocracy.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Folly of Renewable Energy The West needs to go nuclear By Matt Ridley

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/12/17/the-folly-of-renewable-energy/

If you judge by the images used to illustrate reports about energy, the world now runs mainly on wind and solar power. It comes as a shock to look up the numbers. In 2019 wind and solar between them supplied just 1.5 percent of the world’s energy consumption. Hydro supplied 2.6 percent, nuclear 1.7 percent, and all the rest — 94 percent — came from burning things: coal, oil, gas, wood, and biofuels.

As Mark Twain might say, reports of an energy transition away from combustion as a source of energy are greatly exaggerated. True, carbon-dioxide emissions are rising more slowly than energy consumption, but that is mainly because gas is displacing coal. The rise of renewables has so far not even compensated for the recent decline of nuclear — a decline renewables have contributed to causing because intermittent renewable energy hits the profitability of nuclear power hardest. Nuclear cannot be easily switched on and off.

So the thermodynamic explanation of the world economy remains the same as it has since the industrial revolution liberated us from reliance mainly on the (renewable) muscles of people, horses, and oxen or the vagaries of (renewable) trade winds. We use the heat of flames to do useful things, such as move stuff around, light and heat our homes, manufacture goods, grow crops with tractors, power the Internet.

The main change in recent years has been that energy is increasingly centrally planned. Instead of a market deciding between fuels, the government picks favorites to subsidize, and then subsidizes the old ones, too, when it finds it has poisoned the market against them. Throughout the Western world energy markets are coerced. The development pipeline, corporate rhetoric, and fuel-market shares are all determined by policy.

This has some perverse consequences. Lobbied by firms such as General Electric, Sylvania, and Philips, governments all over the world forced consumers to give up incandescent light bulbs in favor of expensive compact fluorescent bulbs, ostensibly to save energy. All this achieved was a delay in the voluntary replacement of both by a much more efficient, safe, and reliable form of lighting: LEDs.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Dershowitz explains how Supreme Court could get involved in Georgia election challenge Dershowitz says high court may be asked to weigh in on who can choose state’s electors: Ronn Blitzer

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dershowitz-supreme-court-georgia-election-challenge

Attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr appeared on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” to discuss recently revealed evidence of possible voter fraud in Georgia, and explained the possible processes for how the Trump campaign could use it in their effort to reverse the result of the presidential election in that state.

Starr, who rose to fame as the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton, pointed to information presented to Georgia state senators last week, including video that purportedly showed ballots being counted without supervision. While Georgia officials have insisted that the video simply shows “normal” ballot counting procedure, Starr said Georgia legislators “seemed to be really troubled” by the video and other evidence presented to them.

“There certainly is probable cause for investigating and looking further,” Dershowitz said. “Giuliani has made very serious accusations. The question is which institution is designed constitutionally to look into it. Is it the state legislature? Is it the courts? Is the clock running in such a way that there won’t be time to look into this?”

Dershowitz, the Harvard Law professor emeritus, said he has proposed for the future the creation of a neutral panel consisting of former judges and justices that would field election-related complaints.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Ossoff, Warnock Campaign with Democrat Congressman Who Called Jews ‘Termites’

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/05/ossoff-warnock-campaign-with-democrat-congressman-who-called-jews-termites/

Georgia Senate Democrat candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will campaign Saturday with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who in 2016 compared Israeli settlers to “termites.”

Warnock and Ossoff will attend a “Drive-in Rally” hosted by the Rockdale and Newton County Democrats with Johnson.

Johnson’s rally with Ossoff and Warnock raises questions about Johnson’s controversial remarks, including his own commentary on Israeli settlers.

At an event in 2016 sponsored by the Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation — which supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), Johnson said:

There has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming.

…

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

2020 meltdown leaves Iowa Democrats on edge After the botched caucuses and the party’s Election Day wipeout, the state’s first-in-the-nation status is more precarious than ever.

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

http://2020 meltdown leaves Iowa Democrats on edge After the botched caucuses and the party’s Election Day wipeout, the state’s first-in-the-nation status is more precarious than ever.

Aside from ousting Donald Trump from the White House, the story of the 2020 election has an unhappy ending for Democrats. They failed to win back the Senate, nearly lost the House and fell short in statehouses all across the country.

But from the botched caucuses in February to the party’s wipeout on Election Day, nowhere was more miserable this year for Democrats than in Iowa. Long a focal point of the party’s political universe, Democrats there are now on the brink — their losses up and down the ballot in November have made the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus status more precarious than ever.

“There’s a lot of soul searching going on in Iowa right now,” said Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democrats. “It looks pretty dire for the next couple of years.”

The hits started early, with the caucuses, and are still coming a month after the election. Earlier this week, state officials certified Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ six-vote victory over Democrat Rita Hart in the state’s open 2nd Congressional District — making it one of two House seats that flipped to GOP control this year. If that excruciatingly narrow result withstands a challenge from Hart, it will leave Democrats with just one of Iowa’s four House seats.

That’s on top of Trump trouncing Joe Biden in the state, Democrats failing to dislodge GOP Sen. Joni Ernst and Republicans expanding their majority in the legislature. This month, the party is expected to release an audit of the caucus fiasco, just as Democrats begin to look ahead to the midterms and the presidential nominating calendar for 2024.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Moshe Phillips: Trump should let the Quartet die with James Wolfensohn see note please

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/trump-should-let-the-quartet-die-with-james-wolfensohn/

James Wofensohn was also one of the philanthropists that had the hair brained idea of buying the productive and state of the art Jewish farms and agricultural machines and systems in Gaza, in order to persuade Israel to leave Gaza. As soon as the Israelis left, local Arabs trashed and burned every single appurtenance and every home, barn, greenhouse and all the produce…..rsk

A review of the Quartet’s website is instructive in examining just what’s wrong with the body. Its failures—and they are plentiful—stem from its entire approach to Israel.

James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank Group, passed away on Nov. 15, and in the conclusion of his obituary, The New York Times quoted his “mission impossible” quip about his envoy experience with the Quartet on the Middle East.

“The Middle East turned out to be my mission impossible,” claimed Wolfensohn. He was tasked with working on Israel’s so-called disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would succeed Wolfensohn in leading the Quartet and be the last leader of the Quartet to have any gravitas on the world stage.

The Quartet has outlived both the involvement of Wolfensohn and Blair, who ended his own involvement with his 2015 resignation and now has outlived Wolfensohn himself. But it has also quite literally outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any at all.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

This Crisis Demands a Constitutional Analysis of Voting Machines Jeff Crouere

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffcrouere/2020/12/06/this-crisis-demands-a-constitutional-analysis-of-voting-machines-n2581110

There are constitutional rules on how prisons are operated, how zoning laws must be drafted and what rights members of the LGBT community must be accorded; however, there are no rules regarding modern voting machines, as well as the hardware and software used to tabulate votes.

Clearly, some constitutional rules should apply to these machines because they control our most basic rights, which includes the right to vote and the right to have it counted honestly.

It must surely be considered unconstitutional for a municipality to utilize voting machines that allow poll workers to switch a vote if they thought a mistake was made. Poll workers cannot be allowed to hack into the machine’s hardware or software and reverse a vote just because they thought a voter hit the wrong button.

Consequently, the idea that there must be constitutional rules regarding both the hardware and the software used in voting machines is not far-fetched, and indeed, its implementation is now obviously long overdue.

Millions of Americans have been closely following the president’s legal challenges to the 2020 election. The reams of evidence the president’s team have compiled indicates severe problems with the hardware and software used to cast and count votes. The focus has been on several swing states, but the problems might be prevalent across the country.

It seems possible to not only change votes, but also to disregard votes and create large batches of phony votes out of thin air.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Our approach to election fraud is lunacy By Jay Latimer

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/our_approach_to_election_fraud_is_lunacy.html

Does no one really care about our country?

Nothing is more important to our rights as a citizen than being assured of a free and fair election.  If we can’t trust in our election process, are we really in a democracy or just a banana republic?

Tens of millions of Americans feel with good reason that the election is tainted.  There are hundreds of well documented anomalies including over a thousand affidavits stating under the penalty of perjury that significant irregularities occurred.

But we are relying on a skeleton crew of privately funded lawyers to try to get to the bottom of what by all accounts appears to be a massive fraud.  Why is this all-important effort left to a few brave souls and not the main focus of our government’s efforts?

Where is the Justice Department?  The FBI?  Why doesn’t the Defense Department do a review of military mail-in ballots that inexplicably went 100% for Joe Biden?

How about a forensic analysis of the tens of thousands of Biden-only mail-in ballots that weren’t folded and appeared to be on different paper?  Who rented the P.O. boxes used for tens of thousands of illegal voters in Georgia and other states?  Where is the investigation of postal officials who ordered carriers to throw away Trump mailings?  Why aren’t the poll workers who sent observers home and then illegally continued counting in the dark of the night arrested and charged?

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

More suspicious voting data arise in Virginia By Maker S. Mark

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/more_suspicious_voting_data_arise_in_virginia.html

There are many questions about the presidential election others have documented.  Virginia would seem to have been solidly blue.  Ms. Powell and others continue to insist they have evidence of something in the vote-counting in Virginia.  To further my personal mission to examine some of the data myself, I applied the same formulas to the Virginia JSON data that I utilized on the Pennsylvania data.

My goal is to find additional items that need to be questioned and audited in any state with discrepancies. I have calculations now that allow me to extract the vote total, the percentages to each candidate, and the timestamp in the JSON file.  I now have the ability to examine by hour or by minute the reported totals.  In Virginia, I found some items that I have to question.  I will continue to examine additional states throughout the weekend.

This is the first example of a data issue for Virginia.  We see the vote totals decrease twice over the space of 18 minutes.  The time stamps for the decrease are 05:12 and 05:30.  (Remember, this is the UTC time reported in the JSON files used by the MSM.)

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France Is Still Under Attack by Guy Millière

Posted By on December 6th, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16818/france-under-attack

“If nothing changes, in a few decades, France will have submitted to Islam, and Islamic violence will probably be even greater than today. It is already almost impossible for the country’s leaders to react. They are hostages of a Muslim population that is less and less integrated and whose anger they do not want to arouse. They are under the gaze of groups that immediately denounce any criticism of Islam and under pressure from many countries in the Muslim world that France does not want to offend”. — Alan Wagner, “L’Europe face à l’islam”, interview on Tepa, August 2, 2020.

“For Muslims, Islamic law has God as its author. Any other legislator is illegitimate.” — Mohammed Hocine Benkheira, historian, Le Point, March 21, 2016.

“Macron… is still not able to pinpoint the real problem because it would be politically incorrect for him to do so… This is the problem with someone like Macron and what he’s saying… they can never acknowledge that what’s happening is integral or a part of authentic Islam….” — Raymond Ibrahim, “Islamic Terror in France”, SkyWatch TV, October 30, 2020.

“France still does not understand the reality it is facing. It believes that it has been struck by terrorists… but it is suffering a guerrilla war that is gradually gaining momentum…” — Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, lexpress.fr, October 18, 2020.

October 29. Nice, the main city on the French Riviera. A man in the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption decapitates a woman and murders two other people while shouting “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is the greatest!”]

This is the second beheading in France by an extremist Muslim in less than a month. Two weeks earlier, on October 16, a middle school teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded in the suburbs of Paris after showing his students some Mohammad cartoons during a discussion on freedom of speech.