The Canons of Conservatism, “Those Other Guys”, and the Veterans, A Preamble

Tags

Communist Agenda, Conservatism, Constitution, Democrats, Education, Elitism and Class, military and veterans, Progrerssives, Religion, Veterans, Veterans' Tales

The twelve Apostles receiving inspiration from the Holy Spirit and composing the Creed Illumination by Somme_le_Roy_f.10v – Date: 1295 (Wikipedia)

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

William F Buckley, Jr. was the founding figure of modern conservatism in America. He wrote God and Man at Yale when he was 25, and wrote many books afterward until he died in 2008.

But he had an extra dimension which seems to have been lost on the newer generations of conservatives, which I’ll discuss here.

In 1960, at age 35, in his home, WFB and several other “founders”, penned the Sharon Statement, which became the founding statement of the Young Americans for Freedom, (the YAF) which went on to become the central conservative campus organization for over 50 years.

I never joined, as I was not a conservative in my college days.

It was not until 1964, and the Goldwater campaign, that I became aware of Mr Buckley, who was then still not yet 40, 4 years younger than my dad, who subscribed to National Review that year and sent back- issues to me every few weeks or so.

By the time Ronald Reagan was elected, and I was 35, I had been a conservative for only four years, but never disagreed with National Review in all those earlier years about conservatism, just still holding onto my own brand of “Civil Rights liberalism”.

Like many liberals of my generation, my error was in believing government could do good things, which, later reading and real-life experience proved to me was wrong-headed and that the Founders knew exactly what they were doing when they designed government small, and left the people in charge.

In 1976 I had my Road to Damascus moment while in the Army, during the Ford-Carter campaign. I read a Mary McGrory column in the Arizona Republic where she stated (and I paraphrase) that “Modern Liberalism stands for the proposition that all human conduct should be subject to the political process.”

At that instant I ceased being a liberal, and never looked back.

The Sharon Statement, which I link here, while aimed at defining the YAF, is essentially the Canons of Conservatism. Virtually every conservative, including #NeverTrumpers, would agree with it, if they’d bother to read it.

So I recommend every millennial and Gen X’er to do just that.

But in 1960 it was written for college students who already possessed a core set of principles that inclined them to see threats to democracy, internal and external, and the freedom found in free markets and the uniqueness of America in the first place[…]

Continue Reading

We Can’t Takes it No Longer

Tags

Brett Kavanaugh, Conservatism, Democrat Party, Elitism and Class, law, Lindsey Graham, National Review, President Donald J. Trump, race and culture, Republican Party establishment, William F Buckley

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

When his turn came to talk, had Brett Kavanaugh walked out to his desk, sat his notes down, then walked around the table and walked up to Dick Durbin and popped him square on the nose, he couldn’t have made his case more masterful.

He took off the gloves, which in the Republican world of Washington, no one ever considered an option anymore.

It’s Thursday, October 4. and the shock of the way Brett Kavanaugh made his case on Thursday, September 28, has still not worn off.

By Sunday, the Democrats were clearly no longer on offense. Kavanaugh was no longer an attempted rapist, a serious felony offender justifying many years in prison, (I’ve defended just such cases) but now a drunk…including some talk of being a bar brawler. Without using a shillelagh (stick) or driving a car recklessly, we’re now only talking about a misdemeanor, where jail time is rare indeed. Certainly no more punishment than Code Pink or Antifa gets for breaking up a congressional hearing.

Yes, though Kavanaugh has dropped from a felony rapist to a college kid who got loaded every weekend…but who always seemed to still get straight A’s anyway for seven straight years…and not those crip courses over in the Sociology Department either…the Democrats are still trying to keep the alleged violence of that original assault claim by portraying him as a violent drinker[…]

Continue Reading

One Ring to Rule Them All

Tags

2018 election, Ayn Rand, Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford, Conservatism, Democrat Party, Donald Trump, Education, Elitism and Class, Lord of the Rings, race and culture, Veterans' Tales

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

When a political end trumps personal destruction of the innocent, we know we are among evil people, from Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, to DiFi, to CNN and dozens more.

The cynical indifference to the infliction of pain and suffering on innocent people is the greatest sin…

…cold blooded murder or rape not even close seconds…for it is a judgment against the greater society.

It’s not that there is still not a scintilla of evidence that supports the assault claim by Ms Christine Blasey-Ford, for that only points the finger of guilt at her. A single soul lost to burn. Happens every day.

But when men and women, feigning conscience and good faith can hide behind their high offices in the fortress of an institution seen by the People as the fountain of law and justice and honor, and are not only willing but attempting to destroy good men and their entire families for a shallow political end, or perhaps only for mere spite and malice of a personal nature, they are betraying everything that is holy to this Republic.

I know what you’re thinking, I’d like to be building the scaffold right now, but we really need to diagram these people so as to better understand their Game:

Ayn Rand, in her 1971 essay, “The Age of Envy” and which I referred to as “Children of the Damned” in my 2013 essay, diagrammed these players.

Haters: Miss Rand portrayed the school culture of Christine Blasey as that of privileged spoiled children, only in high school, as Christine was a few years away from being taught the hate part in college, only the self-indulgence part, K-12. The appetizer before the entrée[…]

Continue Reading

Nike Swooshes America

Tags

Business and economy, Conservatism, Corporatism, Dicks' Sporting Goods, Nike, Patagonia, Progressives war on America, Progressives War on Donald Trump

Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

So many pieces, so little time.

An awful lot of points of national survival converge from this little misstep by Nike in re the Matter of Colin Kaepernick as their new #JustDoIt poster boy.

The first piece of the jigsaw is why do so many corporations these days get away with throwing their “brand” and potential profit margins under the bus, when both are treasures their boards of directors and management in publically-traded companies are required to protect? By law?

Nike took a five point tumble when they launched the new Kaepernick campaign a few days ago, but have gained much of it back. And sales have increased, so any notion that Nike may lose money long term is premature to call. In fact, overseas, where America (and Trump) is seen as an enemy to European political and ruling class anyway, Nike’s stock may go up.

Brand analysts are guarded about the long term risk Nike has taken, and may profit from it, since most of Nike’s buyer-base are high-end spenders who are largely indifferent to patriotic themes, National Anthem and such, but virulently opposed to ideas that are sold to them as racist.

I’m most taken  by the notion that Madison Avenue largely sees America as little more than a “brand” that can be bought and sold.

Hold that thought, for in the up-scale buying market, everything, including ideas, have to be sold. They are rarely learned or discovered anymore, either from intellectual inquiry or by personal observation.

Brand analysts know this, even if most of us don’t. And they’ve known it for a long time. And their best paying jobs are in politics, not in selling retail products.

In the Kaepernick case, it’s almost as if some market guru came to Colin three years ago and said, “Since your career’s not going anywhere anyway, let us pitch this idea.” Maybe they even sent in the succubus.

Don’t laugh, this is perfectly plausible.

So in a related story, people thought Dick’s Sporting Goods would suffer when they distanced themselves from the NRA brand after the Parkland shootings in February. But they had actually stopped selling assault-style rifles long before, in all but a few subsidiary stores, after Sandy Hook in 2012. Dick’s is down over 10 points since Sandy Hook (close to 25%) but up about 5 since Parkland (2017), so the retail chain’s financial condition may have little to do with the NRA or its 2nd Amendment position.

While publically traded, Dick’s is still a family company and its brand loyalty is nothing compared to the iconic name of Nike and its swoosh.

But Dick’s sells Nike, so we’ll see as the NFL season progresses if they can dodge a second round of outrage from an even broader audience[…]

Continue Reading

“Adultery”, per Radar O’Reilly

Tags

CNN, Conservatism, Education, Elitism and Class, JFK, Kaitlin Collins, millennials, Mollie Hemingway, Radar O'Reilly

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

Anyone under 40 will not remember, and certainly find no modern relevance in Radar O’Reilly, played by Gary Burghoff in the M.A.S.H. TV series, 1972-1983. He was a 20-something corporal in an Army surgical hospital unit in the Korean War. It was a comedy.

Everyone else in the camp was older than Radar, who was straight off the farm in Iowa, a true innocent.

A comedy that hasn’t weathered all that well with age, MASH re-runs are still available on some cable networks, and YouTube, but after 35 years, Radar is the only character that has maintained his meaning in world that has otherwise passed that kind of story-telling by.

It was Radar who coined the term “adultery” to refer to mature people, grown up’s, who probably in his world, were still in their 30s’, such as the surgeons and an old crusty camp commander who appeared to be over 60. He looked up to them and learned from them. People had to grow more quickly in those days, and can still be found among the military veteran community, which is why we should treat them better and listen to them more intently.

So, I wonder if Radar’s adult-equation would work out so well today?

You see, JFK had only been dead 7 years when the film version of MASH debuted. And JFK, the president of the United States, had been only 46 when he was shot, and 43 when he was elected.

A decorated war hero, Lieutenant Kennedy commanded several PT-boats in the Pacific War, having one sunk from under him. He was 26 at the time. So no one thought he was a kid when he was elected in 196o. He was only young[…]

Continue Reading

The Two Faces of the Deep State and “the People”

Tags

Bureaucracy, Conservatism, Democratic Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Donald Trump, Elitism and Class, KKK, National Review, Religion, Tea Party, The Left, U.S. Constitution

(Wikimedia Commons)

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

So when they say “the FBI, or DOJ or CIA said this, or did that” – your first thought should be, “Which one?” Especially if it’s the media telling you these things.

Also, never forget that is has been this way since at least JFK.

In 1998, a man asked me to help write a book directed at the very people who are now taking back the country, one piece of government at a time. I complained to him that he was asking me to write a book for people “who don’t read.” He said, “Yep.” He died in 2006, and I’ve been trying to write that book, one chapter at a time, ever since.

The Deep State

A little history: For all I know elements of the deep state have been around since Wilson. Those are the career bureaucrats who will move mountains to do things their way, and always protect their jobs, and grow their numbers when the opportunity arises. That’s just part of the human condition, and yes, the Founders understood this. It’s as in a bureaucracy’s DNA to want to do this as it is a deer’s need to rut every autumn.

If governments through the ages have had a fixed star, it would begin with their Bureaucracy.

In the debates over how the new Constitution of 1787 should look, one constant both Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans seemed to agree was that the size and power of government should depend entirely on the people’s control of the men who both could increase the size and mission of government, and also raise the money to pay for it.

Despite their animosity towards one another, the Federalists and Republicans were of one mind about keeping the federal government very lean. The idea that the federal government should want to grow did not begin until the formation of the Democratic Party and Andrew Jackson, 1824-28, when the spoils system was first introduced…after all the lions had passed away.

But they finally got an income tax in 1913 (16th Amendment), (count the years, by generations, 126 and 4) which, while very, very small, its fine print enabled Congress to increase it almost at will, and then, 19 years later, 1932, with the Great Depression, and the next generation of Progressives called in to fix it, (FDR and the New Deal), the government grew like mushrooms in a rain forest. Many of those programs survived well into the 60’s, until LBJ could replace them with a new set of programs, The Great Society, which haunts us still[…]

Continue Reading