Tag Archives: american politics

LIBERTIES, FREEDOMS AND RIGHTS

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American liberties, freedoms and rights are not to be confused. Their interrelations and differences have not always been understood, especially in the Ante-bellum South. Since the Civil War and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, Americans have used the Court to define actions and impose restrictions. However, today these guardians of the Constitution, the justices of the Supreme Court, are losing the game of this Republic, Nine to Zero.

Liberty is the general state a human being is in when standing on Earth, alone. It is an unmonitored state of existence where anyone can do whatever is pleasing. Liberty in the human mind means that everything in the imagination is 100 percent real. Move, talk, gesture – does anyone hear or see? It is liberty, and it is absolutely embedded in the hearts and minds of Americans. The government and other Americans usually don’t interfere with expressions of pure liberty. (see a short discussion in T.H. Breen, The Will of the People, (2019).

Freedoms originate in society, and impose restraints on liberty with rules: Freedom of Speech/ Press, Avoid libel, slander, incitement and privacy laws; Freedom of Religion, Limit extreme cult practices; Freedom of Assembly, No mob activity; Freedom to Petition the Government – No threats to life or property. Human beings claiming to exercise liberty have taken expansive views of freedoms, beyond restraints, laws and customs.

Americans have always had citizens ignoring limitations provided by freedoms. Individuals and groups moved into the Frontier to avoid the restraints. Within our lifetimes the “cultural” movements of the 1960s attacked and brought forward behaviors and challenges, changing what was tolerated and accepted. Some people were libertarians; other were libertines; individuals claimed the mantle of anarchy: “Do his own thing.” Left and Right movements today scream for freedoms, the protection of society. They say little about liberty. This is a moving area of law: To protect itself and the free society, restraints against liberty founded in freedoms are usually accepted, well known and frequently enforced.

During this Country’s founding, citizens knew such claims were wrong and perilous, full of “rebel spirits more dangerous and difficult to reduce.” One can not be licentious, “acting under sensual passions,” departures from civil norms. (See T.H. Breen, The Will of the People, last chapter.) Reason is necessary. Why? It is in the Constitution.

The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Rights cannot be founded on individual passions, emotions and urges. Rights need objective criteria. One unenumerated right widely recognized by Americans, is the right to privacy, a work in progress. Circumstances arise, some being emotional and personal, and others are founded on bedrock principles of society. Yet all Americans claim this right and some want it extended. This Country, assessing and considering facts daily in piecemeal fashion, arrives at what is permissible.

An issue of interpretation arises. What is a Right? Madison in his Report of 1800 observed “technical phrases” from the common law could be used to define current usage, especially for persons seeking original views or original meanings of the Constitution. A Right goes beyond a license. It was in that category of endowments akin to privileges and immunities. They have been in Western society since the Middle Ages. Monopolies were rights once given to certain entities or individuals: The East India Company of the Boston Tea Party was such a monopoly. Rights can be modified and changed, as circumstances change. In Great Britain the monarchy had that power. In the United States the people are sovereign and should use processes and procedures set forth in the Constitution., whether legislatively, by amendment and frequently by the courts.

Originally, a right gave liberty to act exclusively within a specific area of land or commerce. It is not a freedom, but it was specific to the person(s) identified with the right. Concepts of Rights have broadened since 1789, but Rights do not always produce identifiable behaviors and circumstances which society can withstand. Rights are identified in the Constitution: Right against Self-Incrimination. (Fifth Amendment); Right to Bear Arms, (It is not, Freedom to Bear Arms.) (Second Amendment), which may not be as expansive a right as is proposed today. Society might be able to restrict and limit activities associated with rights – which are not freedoms – more broadly.

An American problem today is talking through one another, using the same words with such force and certainty to assert “plain meanings” which conflict and contradict: “I have my rights!” “I have freedoms!” Many of those Americans are claiming liberties. It is widely accepted that words and terms do not have fixed meanings, yet words and terms are becoming toys, playthings to toss around to keep opponents off balance. They are losing their significance. The Courts, including the Supremes, must act and decide according to which facts before them give rise to Liberties, Freedoms or Rights.

GENESIS OF QANON

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Hunter Thompson originated QAnon. He advanced the Thompson Report concept in a book or periodical proposal to his publisher in 1968, The Gonzo Papers, Vol II, p. 15-16. Thompson called it root-hog journalism:

[15] “We have to keep in mind that various outrages are in fact being planned, and that I probably wouldn’t have much trouble getting a vague battle plan…but of course that wouldn’t be enough. I’d have to mix up fact and fantasy so totally that nobody could be sure which was which. We could bill it as a fantastic piece of root-hog journalism – The Thompson Report, as it were. This courageous journalist crept into the sewers of the American underground and emerged with a stinking heap of enemy battle plans – and just in time, by god, [16] to warn the good guys what to watch for. Oh, I would have a ratlin good time with it…I could even compost a fictitious interview with Guru Bailey, the Demo chieftain, during which I try to warn him of this impending disaster and he reacts first in anger, then with tears, throwing down hooker after hooker of gin during our conversation. And a private chat with Johnson, who heard of my dread information and summoned me to the White House for a toilet-side interview with two recording secretaries – a bracing fag and a nervous old woman from New Orleans – taking notes on a voice writer(s) – echoing my words, and Lyndon’s, for the private record.

…(The Case of the Naked Colonel…did you ever see that? A fantastic story and absolutely true..a Pentagon colonel found naked in his car, passed out on the steering wheel with a pistol in each hand… no explanation.)

…Richard Nixon… calls me at my Chicago hotel, during the course of my research and offers me $20,000 for my information…then a meeting with Nixon and his advisors, they want to exploit the freak-out…but an argument erupts when one elf Nixon’s aide makes a crude remark about his daughter – undertones of drugs and nymphomania, Julie, caught in the 14th green at Palm Springs with a negro caddy at midnight, the caddy now in prison, framed on a buggy count.”

It is shameful that the Republicans can originate nothing of their own. The Reps have to reach into the 1960s and Hunter Thompson’s prowess for their journalistic ideas to produce fantasies. The Nixon fact might be raw in 1968, but today anything goes, do your own thing, I have freedom. Every Rep. believes that. They bare all and welcome any overt violence by fragile white people, exhibiting truly hippy behaviors like those manifested during the 1960s in San Francisco., and later elsewhere. Indeed, most of the participants of January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in Washington DC looked like hippies – unshaven, unclean, sneering, uncontrollable, likely on meth…

Thompson’s media proposal is being used by the Reps today.

DON TRUMP ZERO

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In an ill-conceived, poorly written op-ed piece, David Gelernter failed to get points across while trying to key on four issues. His trivality is titled, The Conservative Resistance is Futile, July 6 2017, and once again The Wall Street Journal has tossed a jumble of words onto its editorial page whilst asking readers to make sense of them.

What does Gelernter mean by culture? Good writing where sentences logically support one another and complete paragraphs is not present. Instead, he gives snippets, stuff that is populated from the Internet; his ideas are cluttered, the writing is cliched.

The biggest glob blocking Gelernter’s argument is Don Trump. He is anathema to the American people. He goes far beyond vulgar; he is rude and offensive so no right-minded American would invite Don Trump into his house, especially if females were present. Americans who like Don may learn that wives are cows, this opinion expressed by a guy having two scoops of ice cream bankrupting the country by adding calories to the national debt. Being fat and boisterous is not part of American culture.

An American cultural phenomenon prizes that which is said with humor, fun and understatement which is more penetrating and longer lasting than ideas presented in anger, hate and spite. Gelernter’s world is perverse; he believes Trump’s unAmerican ways preferable. Therefrom it’s easy to determine that Trump and Gekernter have no sense of humor. They’re from New York City. There’s no humor there. Don Trump seems to relish hate. New York City may need a public relations campaign to rid hate from the fabric of its existence.

Trump is a business guy who promised competence from Day One. Nope! Republicans have been hard at work on a Health Care Replacement bill, although the party had met and discussed the issues for six years. They have no idea what they are doing. Remaining permanently stupido, Don Trump has criticized Congress many times rather than attempt accommodations and facilitate the passage of new legislation. Compromise is not part of Don Trump’s universe. However, there are many deals he has to make with the Russians who don’t care if Don Trump hates.

The Republicans will eliminate any move to reform taxes and the tax code, yet they will try to give the rich more tax breaks. It is a formula to enlarge the public debt as much as President Obama did. The wealthy need more cash to support their greed. The Republicans should take heed. The last year of low taxes will be 2020. In 2021 a Democratic Congress and Executive will double taxes on the rich.

Should the Republicans resist Don Trump and his self-serving tax policies free-loading on the public treasury? One of 100 tweets from Don Trump makes sense. The remainder are evidence of a weak wandering mind incapable of logical thoughts and full of errant items of hate. That’s why Don Trump sticks to twitter, a form of speech and culture. Twitter Corporation may not be profitable and will fail, but it will be Don Trump’s cultural contribution to America. But the country has changed. Americans once believed what was good for General Motors was good for the country. No one believes today, what is good for Don Trump is good for any citizen of the United States of America and secondly, good for any human being on earth.

What sort of culture should Conservatives adopt? They apparently like the same music liberals do. Don Trump had difficulty hiring artists to perform at inauguration balls. Do Conservatives favor acoustical instruments over electronic instruments? Do they like partner dancing, or the free-lance stuff where you might see your date in the next county – Don Trump in search of his date might engage with four women as he goes. How about painting? Does Don Trump want a Hans Holbein version of the Duchess of Cleves, or is he like Oliver Cromwell, “paint worts and all?” It is likely any painting will liposuction off 150 pounds; Conservatives and Don Trump are vane. They know history never gets in the way: Everyone looks at Holbein’s painting today and considers Anne of Cleves a fair looking woman.

So what’s happened to Conservative versus Don Trump versus the Liberals? Don Trump figures he can make statements by portraying himself in tough guy situations, in cartoons. Like the good fat Kraut he is, Trump is a fighter pilot [too obese to be a pilot] shooting at a civilian airliner destroying CNN. In another he sucker-punches a figure representing CNN. During World War Two the German Army was manly when attacking women, children, old men and civilians, but they turned tail when facing British, Russian, American soldiers and others from freedom-loving nations. This fat Kraut should remember these historical facts.

So while Gelernter and others are admiring and on their prayer rugs hoping for the best, they are on their own. The American people will not be intimidated.

MAKE A MOVIE

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It had to come up, and it did. I was exchanging views about Congressional Investigations into everything Russian, including ingredients for Ruskie salad dressing. My opponent said that the two elderly Republican senators were unAmerican. I stopped and asked for a clarification. The senators were anti-Trump which likely means they are full-red-blooded American males who are anti-Russian.

I asked, “Do you know of a book called The Manchurian Candidate?” There was hemming, hawing and harrumphing. “Perhaps you saw the movie?” Frank Sinatra was in the first which suffered from the lack of good song and dance, an absence of Marilyn Monroe and no hint of ballet.

There was a second The Manchurian Candidate, but I never saw it. I don’t know which big stars were in it; it was therefore a dud.

Now is the time to remake The Manchurian Candidate – third time’s a charm. I’m very encouraged. It’s good for business when Americans have had had Presidents whose career and job performance generate movies. Bill Clinton had loads of movies made about him – President as murderer; President as philanderer; President as corrupt. Bush and Obama were cinematographically uninteresting. But the new guy – let’s see what entertainment does with him.

TEN CENT HEAD

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Yahoo is running a story about Julian Assange, courtesy of Pamela Anderson, once of the sunny beaches of Bay Watch. It is Oscar time in Hollywood; apparently Pamela Anderson doesn’t have much to do here. She is inspecting the sewers in Europe.

According to Anderson, Sweden is progressive. Scandinavians are returning to Viking ways. They are understanding about crimes involving sex. Rape is OK. Assange is rumored to be dating Anderson, who never gave ex-husbands so much time. Assange is innocent! Once a proponent against molesting children, Anderson’s new quest is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Other than committing acts making him a sexual predator in almost every state in the Union, Assange hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2015-16; he joined with the Ruskies to obtain and release emails from the Democratic Party. Every American, Left or Right, knows the email hacking and the release are unAmerican and illegal, except Pamela Anderson. She obviously believes no email hacking occurred; Julian told her so: Everyone has forgotten about the election including Assange’s hacking.

Pamela Anderson should know better, except she may be retarded – an imbecile – a moron – an idiot. Or is Anderson a Democrat so doesn’t remember what happened last week, last month, a year ago? Your choice – publicity or oblivion?