RUTHFULLY YOURS

For forty seven years my family, the “King”dom owned a revolutionary home in Newtown, Connecticut. Our dear old house, built in 1752 by a schoolteacher named George Lake, had small windows with wobbly glass, original inner doors and hardware, low ceilings, a steep staircase, and a typical central chimney with three functioning fireplaces and a detached three-story barn that had been used for hay and horses. The family that owned it before us had upgraded bathrooms, plumbing and electricity but fortunately left the character and footprint intact. We restored the barn completely to create more living space for our children, kid-laws, and grandchildren.

We had wonderful decades there and July 4th was always special….a cookout, hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and friends and fireworks and patriotic songs and a reading of The Declaration of Independence and three loud cheers for America the Beautiful.

I sold the house last year with nostalgia and rue, but in fact, my husband and I always knew that we were more than owners. We were custodians of a bit of Connecticut history- only the fifth family to own it since George Lake built it with hand hewn tools.

Today I will celebrate with dear friends in a historic New Jersey town and we will watch the fireworks and sing patriotic songs. The venue has changed but the love for America is undiminished.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!! RSK

REMEMBER THIS ONE?https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/18/us/clinton-says-chinese-money-did-not-influence-us-policy.html
Clinton Says Chinese Money Did Not Influence U.S. Policy

President Clinton said today that reported political campaign contributions from China to the Democrats had not influenced his foreign policy, but he welcomed further investigation into decisions that made it easier for China to launch American satellites and possibly obtain sensitive technology.

”The decisions we made, we made because we thought they were in the interests of the American people,” Mr. Clinton said, responding for the first time to reports that a Democratic Party fund-raiser told Federal investigators of funneling thousands of dollars from a Chinese military officer in the President’s 1996 re-election campaign. Mr. Clinton, speaking at the end of an economic meeting in Birmingham, England, said he would determine the substance of the charges before deciding whether they would affect policy toward the Chinese Government.

”In any case, I think the investigation ought to proceed,” he said, ”and then whatever the facts are, we’ll take appropriate action at that time.” Mr. Clinton is planning to visit China next month.

The Justice Department’s campaign finance task force is investigating whether political contributions influenced the Administration’s 1996 decision to reverse a State Department policy that had categorized satellites as ”munitions,” making it more difficult to export them for launching aboard Chinese rockets.

There is an iconic picture of a child, a young boy, terrified, holding his hands up as armed Nazis surround and round up the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. Pictures of children who are injured or at risk evoke a special horror among decent people.

Indecent journalists exploit and stage such photographs to further bias and political agenda. A recent Time magazine cover is an example. In Gaza, Hamas paid the grieving family of a dead baby, Layla al-Ghandour to use her photo to blame Israeli troops who fired on violent “demonstrators” along the Gaza border with Israel.

Nothing is new here.

In August of 1982 during the first Lebanon/Israel War, front pages and television footage were flooded with pictures of a Lebanese baby with bandages covering her body. The headlines and networks screamed: “ A baby who lost both arms was severely burned as a result of a bomb dropped by and Israeli plane.”

Then U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz, by every measure a decent and fair man, declared after being shown the photograph and headline: “The symbol of this war is a baby whose arms have been amputated.”

Harsh words indeed, but totally wrong. The baby, it was soon disclosed, had not lost any limbs nor suffered severe burns. In fact, the light injuries were sustained from a shell misfired by the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Many years later, following the terrorist spree that segued the Oslo Agreement, the mainstream media failed to notice or record photos of mangled baby strollers or the blood soaked sheets of a crib in Israel.

Telling truth to biased journalists is akin to casting pearls before swine. rsk

https://edwardcline.blogspot.com/2018/06/if-hillary-had-become-president-iii.html

This is the third and final installment of my previous columns, “Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election,” and what news we would be rationed with by the MSM and the Clinton regime. The cast of characters is as limitless as the membership of the Democratic Party and MSM, and their unceasing plots to somehow implicate Donald Trump in a conspiracy (with Russian help) to “steal” the election from Hillary Clinton. That year-long $17 million “investigation” by Robert Mueller was proven by the IG Report to be a house of cards susceptible to the slightest breeze of fact and truth, leaving the cards scattered over the floor.

Exempli gratia:

Ø President Clinton will award David Hogg a special Medal of Freedom at a ceremony at the White House. Hogg was a survivor of the Parkland massacre and became an anti-gun activist , and helped found a student group, “Never Again MSD,” dedicated to abolishing the Second Amendment. The President would announce, with Hogg at her side, that she will sign any legislation that erases the Second Amendment or nullifies the ownership of guns of any and all makes by private citizens. At the President’s obvious discomfort, however, Hogg would give a semi-Nazi salute with a raised arm after the President’s remarks. When questioned about the salute, Hogg would deny any connection between it and Nazi Germany.

Ø TV news channels MSNBC and CNN would refuse to apologize for comparing former presidential candidate Trump’s statements about federal immigration practices with Auschwitzand other Nazi concentration camps. Trump’s public remarks, post the election of Hillary Clinton to the White House about the need for a border wall, would be, as his lawyer would assert, twisted to “prove” he was a nascent Nazi.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/why-socialism-is-doomed-to-fail/

In The Consolation of Philosophy, the 5th Century Greek scholar and Roman Consul Boethius wrote: “Compare the length of a moment with the period of ten thousand years; the first, however miniscule, does exist as a fraction of a second. But that number of years, or any multiple of it that you may name, cannot even be compared with a limitless extent of time, the reason being that comparisons can be drawn between finite things, but not between finite and infinite.”

Boethius’ insight into the nature of asymmetrical comparison is perennially valid, whether with respect to philosophical and theological speculation, mathematical equations involving infinities, or ideological aspects of political thought. It explains why communist, anarchist or socialist experiments in the life of peoples and nations are bound to fail, for as Boethius might have said, they do not treat of corresponding finite entities. In other words, these adventures in social perfectibility flow from the refusal to ground a vision of the future in historical and political reality.

In order to achieve the possible, it is necessary to acknowledge the real, that is, the limits set by the actual parameters of historical existence and the constraints of human nature. Otherwise we are on the way to creating a dystopian nightmare. One cannot validly compare the imperfect social and political structures of the past and present with a utopian construction that has never come to pass and which exists only in myth, dream and mere desire. No sound conclusion can emerge from such dissonant correlations. To strive, for example, to build an ideal society in which “equality of results” or “outcomes” — what is called “social justice” — is guaranteed can only produce a levelled-down caricature of human struggle and accomplishment. We have seen it happen time and again, and the consequences are never pretty.

The infatuation with “outcomes” in the sense of compelled equality persists wherever we may look, significantly in education, where equality of result is enforced under the tired mantra of “diversity and inclusion” — standards are lowered, everyone is admitted, everyone graduates, everyone gets a trophy or a degree regardless of input, so that no one gets left behind. Mastering the curriculum, however, is a highly competitive venture, meant to sieve winners from losers; we recall the word derives from the Latin for “race course.” The “equality” compulsion is especially paramount in “social justice” legislation which ensures that unmotivated non-contributors to civil order, prosperity and disciplined excellence in any field of endeavor are treated as at least equal to and often favored over successful practitioners and genuine achievers.

https://edwardcline.blogspot.com/2018/06/if-hillary-had-become-president-ii.html

This is a continuation of my previous column, “Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election” and what news we would be rationed with by the MSM and the Clinton regime.
Barack and Michelle Obamawould debut their first Netflixe ffort, “Black is the New White,” in which President Clinton has an extended, walk-on-speaking role, portraying herself. It will use archival news footage, and be a fictional account of her struggles to win the Democratic nomination and her valiant effort to secure the electoral and national votes to win the election, based roughly on her autobiographical book from 2016, What Can Happen. The screenplay would be penned by Robert DeNiro with Margaret Atwood (author of The Handmaid’s Tale). Gwyneth Paltrowwould portray Clinton in most of the scenes, and Jeff Goldblum would play her loyal Secret Service Chief.

The President would host a special dinner in the White House for news reporters, Hollywood celebrities, and members of Congress who criticized Donald Trump before and after the 2016 presidential campaign. She would give special plaudits to actor Peter Fonda and comedienne Kathy Griffin. Fonda was famous for calling for Barron Trump to be kidnapped from Mrs. Trump’s arms and locked in a room with pedophiles, while Griffin gained notoriety for posing with a fake decapitated head of Donald Trump to express her opposition to the candidate’s policies. Charles Schumer, Senator for New York, and Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, also attended the dinner, and would be praised by the President for their steadfast and often vociferous opposition to Donald Trump.

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/the-folly-of-multiculturalism/

Exactly how beneficial to a society is multiculturalism, this word that is so celebrated in the West?

First one must first define the word: It is “the view that cultures, races, and ethnicities, particularly those of minority groups, deserve special acknowledgement of their differences within a dominant political culture.”

Note the immediate inaccuracies within this standard definition. “Races,” which indicate a people’s innate physical makeup, are conflated with “cultures” — which are neither innate nor physical, but learned and metaphysical.

This mix-up explains why for many in the West, the word “culture” often conjures at most physical, surface differences — “exotic” food or dress. In reality, cultures are nothing less than entire and distinct worldviews with their own unique sets of right and wrongs, often rooted in a religion or philosophy. Cultures bring much more than, say, the convenience of having Indian cuisine down the street.

As Anglo-French historian Hilaire Belloc once explained it:

Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it — we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today.

Put differently, all values prized by the modern West — religious freedom, tolerance, humanism, gender equality, monogamy — did not develop in a vacuum but rather are inextricably rooted to Judeo-Christian principles which, over the course of some 2,000 years, have had a profound influence on Western epistemology, society and, of course, culture. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270478/how-talk-leftist-friend-about-tommy-robinson-danusha-v-goska

A cozy wood fire burns in an open-face brick oven. Soft piano music floats through a smooth jazz repertoire of American standards. Porsches and Maseratis cruise past the window. Two women approach, embrace, and kiss each other’s cheeks.

RACHEL: Wanda, it’s been too long. Great to see you. You have to tell me all about your new book.

WANDA: Great to see you, too! I love your new glasses. And I want to hear all about your youngest. She just bought a condo with her fiancée, no? It seems like just yesterday they were playing with dolls.

WAITRESS: Have a look at our menu.

WANDA: Thank you. Listen, Rachel, you know me. Always obsessed with current events. I want to ask you to sign a petition requesting that British Prime Minister Theresa May free Tommy Robinson from prison.

RACHEL: So, what looks good? I think I’m going to try the arugula and pistachio pesto pie. You?

WANDA: Oh, I’ll just get the usual. I see you have your laptop with you. I can find the Tommy Robinson petition and you can sign right now.

RACHEL: Aren’t you going to tell me about your book? And don’t you want to hear about the condo?

WANDA: Of course, of course. But I thought we’d get this signature out of the way so we could relax and talk about fun things.

RACHEL: Sigh. So, who is Tommy Robinson? (Rachel opens her laptop and Googles “Tommy Robinson.”)

WANDA: Tommy Robinson is a human rights activist and a citizen journalist. He’s now a political prisoner, imprisoned for exercising his free speech. He’s a champion of victimized women. You care about women’s rights. You care about free speech. I know you do. I know you’d want to sign this petition.

RACHEL: Wanda, are you serious? Look at this. Is this the Tommy Robinson you are talking about? Nazi? White supremacist? Far-right extremist? Wanda, what gives? Why are you supporting this man? This is not like you.

My father Mardoqueo Isaac Salomon was born in Poland in 1905. He was a physician who obtained his medical degree in Geneva, Switzerland where he met and befriended Zeev Vladimir Jabotinsky who persuaded him to leave Europe. When he graduated from medical school, he was denied visas to Palestine and America. Desperate to leave Europe he enlisted in the Bolivian Army which needed doctors for the Chaco War with Paraguay (1932-1935). My lovely and reluctant mother followed him. They lived in military tents in snake infested jungle where he went on patrols in a muddy river on boats encircled by piranhas. He rose in the ranks, was promoted to Surgeon General, changed his name from Mordechai to its Spanish equivalent Mardoqueo and after the Chaco War he settled into a peaceful life in Bolivia where we were saved from the horrors of Europe where all our relatives – grandparents, aunts, cousins- were herded into camps and killed.

At the age of forty, he obtained visas for our family and we came to America where we took buses throughout the United States in an effort to find a place to settle. We crisscrossed cities- Omaha, Chicago, New Orleans, El Paso, Las Cruces, New Mexico, Huntington, Alabama, and finally the Bronx where he passed his medical licensing exam and he opened a medical office and practiced until he had a stroke in 1979.

My brother and I reflect on Papi on Father’s day. He was loving, but pedantic, strict and demanding. But, most of all he was brave and adventurous and unique. rsk

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jordan-peterson-and-conservatisms-rebirth-1529101961

Jordan Peterson doesn’t seem to think of himself as a conservative. Yet there he is, standing in the space once inhabited by conservative thinkers such as G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr. and Irving Kristol. Addressing a public that seems incapable of discussing anything but freedom, Mr. Peterson presents himself unmistakably as a philosophical advocate of order. His bestselling book, “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos,” makes sense of ideas like the “hierarchy of place, position and authority,” as well as people’s most basic attachments to “tribe, religion, hearth, home and country” and “the flag of the nation.” The startling success of his elevated arguments for the importance of order has made him the most significant conservative thinker to appear in the English-speaking world in a generation.

Mr. Peterson, 56, is a University of Toronto professor and a clinical psychologist. Over the past two years he has rocketed to fame, especially online and in contentious TV interviews. To his detractors, he might as well be Donald Trump. He has been criticized for the supposed banality of his theories, for his rambling and provocative rhetoric, and for his association with online self-help products. He has suffered, too, the familiar accusations of sexism and racism.

From what I have seen, these charges are baseless. But even if Mr. Peterson is imperfect, that shouldn’t distract from the important argument he has advanced—or from its implications for a possible revival in conservative thought. The place to begin, as his publishing house will no doubt be pleased to hear, is with “12 Rules for Life,” which is a worthy and worthwhile introduction to his philosophy.