RUTHFULLY YOURS

Maybe it was not a “wave” but a loss is a loss. It was still a good night for Republicans in the states-Senate and Governors. It was also a blow to Obama whose active campaigning made zero difference- a referendum on his dismal administration.

Now, call me a cockeyed optimist, but remember that all the scoundrels (and so many are real scoundrels ) elected to the House have 23 months to hold on to their seats before they are challenged. The ousting of all the incumbents who voted against Justice Kavanaugh is instructive. Bad behavior reaps opprobrium.

Stay tuned and stay positive and stay focused….rsk

A time, however, came in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers.

I am a capitalist. I believe in capitalism because it is foundational to upward mobility, the middle class, ordered liberty, and the individual freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. So, what is the problem with capitalism?

Capitalism is driven factually by supply and demand but artificially by the marketing and advertising industries that hawk its products. So, if a particular business or industry is suffering from lack of sales – it can hire a marketing firm to create an artificial demand for its products. Those products may or may not be beneficial to the public. For decades tobacco was marketed and advertised as elegant, sophisticated, and desirable even though it was a known cancer-causing killer. Buyer beware is the operating principle in a market economy.

Billions of dollars are spent annually marketing, lobbying, and advertising products because marketing, lobbying, and advertising are extremely effective.

Products are ordinarily considered to be goods and services, but what if the product is ideology?

The publishing of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago (1973) destroyed any Western fantasies about collectivist ideology and life under communism/socialism when individual liberties are surrendered to the state. Socialism needed a new image if it was going to sell. How was the Left going to market collectivism?

In Matthew Continetti’s brilliant lecture titled “The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution” given on October 24, 2017 at Hillsdale College he explores the challenge for the Left.

“How to carry on the fight against capitalism when its major ideological alternative was no longer viable? The Left found its answer in an identity politics that grew out of anti-colonialism. Marx’s class struggle was reformulated into an ethno-racial struggle – a ceaseless competition between colonizer and colonized, victimizer and victim, oppressor and oppressed. Instead of presenting collectivism and central planning as the gateway to the realization of genuine freedom, the new multiculturalist Left turned to unmasking the supposed power relations that subordinated minorities and exploited third world nations.”

The Left had a new marketing, lobbying, and advertising strategy that targeted American universities and then K-12. American education was chosen as the vulnerable soft target for revolution – no bullets required. The long-term strategy was that two generations of leftist educational indoctrination would transform America from a capitalist constitutional republic into the socialist state required for internationalized one world government. It was a two-fisted approach that softened the targets (future voters) in school to accept the seismic political shifts that would come. This is how it works.

I keep humming a song…..rsk

“To the right, ever to the right

Never to the left, forever to the right

We have gold, a market that will hold

Tradition that is old, a reluctance to be bold.”—

“Cool, Cool, Considerate Men,” from 1776, book by Peter Stone, music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards (1969)

It had been included in the original Broadway show, but didn’t make it into the finished film.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/04/the-stages

Having explored the historical genesis of liberal derangement, especially in the wake of Donald Trump’s election in 2016, and having disclosed the role to be played by Denial after the probable failure of Democrats’ “blue wave” in 2018, we now proceed to the next stage of our analysis. We turn our attention to the forms of liberal Anger that are likely after November 6th.

Part three of a four-part series.

Anger is, as previously discussed, the dominant emotion discernible in the Left’s reaction to Trumpism. In fact, rage is rampant among liberals. What has kept this anger in check, however, is a sense of assurance that the Trump phenomenon is something akin to a death spasm among conservatives. Leftists have long assumed that “progress” of the sort they desire is inevitable, and indeed they can point to many victories won in the last few decades. Moreover, soaked as they are in identity politics, the Left puts great stock in America’s changing demographics. They presume—understandably, given their inveterate anti-white racism—that the “browning” of America can only foretell doom for Republicans.

They ignore the obvious counterargument: this country has been “browning” for a long time, and the Republican Party is today stronger than it has ever been since the 1920s. In any case, it cannot be overstated how integral it is to the peace of mind of liberals to assume that the Republican Party will soon die an ignoble death, and therefore, they believe, any upsurge in nationalism or conservatism is a temporary aberration. The march of history towards the broad, sunlit uplands of progressivism will soon resume.

The failure of the “blue wave” would be a punch in the gut to this attitude of complacency and self-satisfaction on the Left. The American people will have chosen Trumpism and Republicans not once, but twice. As leftists see it, this will mean an affirmation of “hate” and a rejection of their own worldview of “inevitable” progress. The liberal throng (sometimes understandably mistaken for a mob) will have expended vast energies, and donated vast sums, to achieve a victory that remains elusive if not utterly improbable. The bile will rise in leftist throats as it begins to dawn on them that the last gasp of conservatism, which they perceived President Trump to hail, may instead be an enduring realignment of American politics that is favorable to Republicans. They will despair at the fact that millions of women and minorities, who by rights belong on the Democratic plantation, deserted the cause. They will, in short, experience anger on a scale that will make 2016-18 seem like child’s play.

There are many good columns and editorials on the serious consequences of the upcoming election by excellent journalists and commentators. Now here it is in a nutshell from the President of our nation Donald Trump.

“This election is a choice between Republican results and radical resistance.
It’s a choice between greatness and gridlock.
It’s a choice between jobs and mobs.
And it’s a choice between an economy that is going strong
and the Democrats who are going crazy.”

https://amgreatness.com/2018/11/02/

Hey girlfriend, what’s up? Love the new Moncler vest… aubergine is the hot color this fall. How’s Olivia doing with those college applications? And good luck on Jacob’s big lacrosse tourney this weekend!

Listen, we need to talk. I know you’re not really into politics. Even though a lot of us voted for Donald Trump in 2016, you did not: Since Election Day, you’ve bragged about how edgy it was to vote for Evan McMullin. But you also thought it was edgy when you got your hair cut like Kate Gosselin in 2006.

We all make mistakes.

So there’s a super important election on Tuesday and the media is convinced that we suburban moms will vote Democrats back into power. And looking at some of the polls, I’m afraid they might be right. Democrats only need to flip 23 Republican House seats, and lots of them are located in the suburbs. Just 23 more seats until we get Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Again.

Now, maybe that doesn’t scare you. Maybe you think it will be totally trendy to run those Trump-loving Republicans out of office and show them who’s boss. Maybe Alyssa and Oprah and the gals on “The View” have convinced you that voting for a Democrat is the only way to keep your Cool Chick Card.

But hear me out. I know you hate taking advice from someone who doesn’t buy soy milk and organic bison meat, but if you would have listened to me about the Rumchata shots at the club’s summer party, you wouldn’t have jumped into the water hazard on the 18th hole.

Caution, my friend.

Because despite what Democrats are telling you now, just remember one thing: They hate you.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Ignorance about government and its Constitution threatens our nation. The Founders felt the provision of a virtue-inspired public education that includes civics imperative to the survival of the Republic they had created. Noah Webster was direct about the need for a moral sense: “The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities.” In the 1950s,” as Paul Volcker mentioned recently to Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, “courses in public administration commanded high status at universities such as Princeton. But now the phrase ‘good government’ is a mockery.” Civics is no longer universally taught. A March 2017 article in “neaToday”reported that only 25% of students reach the “proficient” standard on the NAEP Civics Assessment. An article in the November 8, 2016 issue of The Atlanticnoted that 30% of Americans did not know in what century the American Revolution took place. Forty percent thought the Bill of Rights guaranteed the right to vote; 40% did not know that the Constitution gives the right to declare war to Congress; 50% did not know the terms for U.S. Senators and Representatives, and 80% did not know the origin of Lincoln’s unforgettable words: “…a government of the people, by the people, for the people…” What does this portend for our country? The direction the country is moving is not healthy for democracy. We need to calm rhetoric and emphasize the civic virtues critical to a free people.

As we approach the 100thanniversary of the Armistice that ended World War, two books, with lessons for today, are worth noting:George Dangerfield’s The Strange Death of Liberal England, written in 1935. The book covers three crucial events in England – Irish Home Rule, Suffrage and unionization – during the four years preceding the Great War and how attitudes and responses threatened a nation that had been the cradle of liberalism. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914by Christopher Clark covers the two or three decades leading up to the same war. The book was written in 2012 and explores the complex relationships, treaties and alliances that led well-meaning leaders into a conflict during which idealism was destroyed and sixty-million people died. Bad things happen when complacency and ignorance flourish. It is a desire for power that has caused arrogant elitists in the U.S. and Europe, who speak the language of globalism but who act with imperium. The teaching of civics, including the virtues expressed by our Founders would help restore moral principles and maintain freedoms of expression.

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ttps://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/trump_is_the_best_president_ever_for_american_jews.html

President Trump’s statement on anti-Semitism the day after the Tree of Life massacre truly was “electrifying.”

The Jews have endured terrible persecution, and you know that we’ve all read it: We’ve studied it. They’ve gone through a lot and those seeking their destruction…we will seek their destruction…Never again.

It touched my heart deeply. Jews have never, but never, been given this kind of whole-hearted support by an American leader before. Trump told the rally-goers in Illinois, slowly, and with great emphasis:

This evil anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of us. It’s an assault on humanity. It will require all of us, working together, to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst. The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue. We cannot allow it to continue. It must be confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head. We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat anti-Semitism, and vanquish the forces of hate – that’s what it is.

Jews have never, but never, been given this kind of whole-hearted backing by an American leader before. Jews are used to facing murderous hate alone. We are not used to words that reflect the moral truth. We’re used to mealy mouthed pieties condemning hate on all sides.

A dear friend who is active fighting anti-Semitism wrote me, “It is the strongest statement in support of Jews ever made by an American president.”

President Trump is a promise keeper. He is unique among Presidents in keeping his campaign promises. When President Trump says anti-Semitism cannot be allowed to continue, it sounds like he means it. This may be, let us hope and pray, it may be of real significance.

President Trump is sui generis. He bulls through what ‘everyone knows’ and takes on the problems that others say are impossible to change. He sees what should be done, and he gets down to do it. Bringing back industrial jobs to America? No problem. Create jobs for unemployed blacks and Hispanics. At historic levels. Dealing with the immigration disaster destroying America? Bring it on.

And now antisemitic murders of Jews have happened in America, on his watch. Trump is putting the evil doers on notice: anti-Semitism will not be tolerated. Anti-Semitism? It’s got to end.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-many-faces-of-jew-hatred-1541025486

In the wake of the shooting in Pittsburgh, a volley of voices called for more of this or that—armed guards or gun control, barring the doors of synagogues, policing of fringe web platforms or resources for mental health. While President Trump denounced the shooting as “an evil anti-Semitic attack” and visited the grieving community, a sector of the media blamed the president for the incident, as it does for everything else. It was politics as usual.

But instead of prompting a serious inquiry into the ideology that fuels the murder of Jews, the atrocity seems to be reinforcing a misconception that can only worsen the problem. Anti-Semitism is not synonymous with Hitlerism—the only form of anti-Semitism that has gone down in military defeat. Anti-Semitism is a politics of misdirected blame, and Americans must be sure to avoid its trap.

The shooter is being cast as a neo-Nazi threat. Under the caption “A Day of Broken Glass,” a cartoon in the Pittsburgh Current shows broken windows on the Tree of Life synagogue, linking this attack to Germany’s Kristallnacht of Nov. 9, 1938, which signaled Nazism’s open season on the Jews of Europe. Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett made the same association in conveying Israel’s sympathy to Pittsburgh community.

What could be worse than the specter of Nazism here in America? In fact, it is politically comforting to cast Robert Bowers in this light. Unlike in Germany, where the attacks on Jews were launched by the Führer, our head of government ordered the full press of law enforcement to prosecute the sole gunman. Unlike in Germany, where the SS directed and fomented the attacks on Jews, here four policemen were shot trying to save the Jews. Moreover, the American people are united in horror at this atrocity. If Mr. Bowers represents anti-Semitism, the response to his attack tells us we have relatively little to fear.