America’s Fundamental Transformation

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Sundance at Conservative Treehouse posted a piece on how America suddenly went off the rails, and it’s persuasive.  Here’s a big chunk of it:

. . . As some continue to say with jaw agape, WTF happened?

The answer “why” is not complicated…. not complicated at all.

In 2008, the ‘activists’ took control of government.

In January of 2009, the leftists, community organizers and activists took control of the systems they had opposed for the preceding 50+ years.

In January of 2009, and inflection point took place; an inflection point that no one realized in forethought, scale or consequence.

Starting in 2009, all of the systems of federal government were now under the control of the people who previously fought against the systems of federal government.  Everything since is an outcome of that inflection point; that’s why everything flipped.

All of it, and I do mean every scintilla of the thing; every single granular detail and example you can put in front of me can be traced back to that moment when the activists were no longer outside government railing against the corrupt system they hated.

Starting in January of 2009, the activists took power over the United States government, and every outside institution, including media, necessarily and ideologically followed that inversion.

Starting in 2009, the systems and institutions of the U.S government now came under the control of the radical activists.

In the eight years that followed, the mission of every institution was changed.  Government was weaponized on behalf of the leftist activists who now took control of it.  Everything thereafter is a consequence of this change.

When I use the word “suddenly”, it is only for understanding the inflections point that came as a consequence.  In actuality, the severity of change inside each institution took place over several years.  That’s why the intensity of the weaponized and corrupt systems became worse over time.

As each institution was infiltrated to become more aligned with the mindset of the activists, the institutions became more radical in their targeting and weaponization.

The activists went from being outside government to being inside government.

Suddenly, the left-wing supportive media changed mission priority from railing against corrupt government, to defending the corrupt weaponization of govt.

Suddenly, the FBI went from targeting domestic threats, to targeting only the domestic threats defined as against the interests of the left-wing activists.

Suddenly, the outside activists went from being defined as social elements creating turmoil, to social elements now being defended and even promoted.

This is why we see outside activist groups like the Dream Defenders, New Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and more recently ANTIFA, as protected and supported by the activists inside government now in control of the systems and institutions.

All of the social, cultural and political dynamics that changed traditional “liberalism” are easily understood once you realize and accept that activists took control of the power centers of the U.S. government.

Everything that followed, including our current state of social and political turmoil, is simply a natural conclusion of that fundamental change.

The radical activists are now in control of the institutions of power.  This core shift is what created the dynamic of a very visible two-tiered justice system.  Each institution was weaponized and continues to be weaponized against those who are not aligned with the activist ideology. . . .

Read the entire piece here.

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Hillsdale College and government funding

 

In the wake of the Stanford University debacle, Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) scores again with “Who Owns The University?”  The entire column (at American Greatness) is, as usual, full of excellent insights, but these paragraphs particularly caught my eye:

. . . After all, Stanford, and thousands of private universities like it, are not Hillsdale College. Hillsdale long ago lost trust in federal and state government due to their efforts to use their partial funding as a means of politically leveraging the college. And therefore, it has refused all public monies ever since. 

Left-wing major colleges or universities have not done the same because they rightly assume the federal government shares their commitment to radical progressive change. And thus, Washington gives them free rein to discriminate in admission, housing, and hiring, as well as to suspend constitutional protections for faculty and staff—if in service to progressive-regressive agendas. 

But that was then, and this is now. If Stanford’s sordid law school psychodrama taught us anything, it was that the law school mob felt they could threaten, smear, scream, disrupt and shut down a public speaker and do so with complete impunity. And they were right on all counts. . . .

Hillsdale College has stood out for years as dedicated to offering a classical liberal arts education, including American history!  They can do so because they refuse all state and federal funding.  Our household subscribes to their newsletter Imprimus, which always contains a modified version of a recent lecture by a recognized conservative, such as VDH.  Read his column here.

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Daniel Greenfield on Deliberate Destruction

 

Daniel Greenfield explains in detail why our downward spiral is the result of deliberate destruction:

Our Economic Misery Isn’t An Accident, It’s The Plan

Americans can’t afford to buy a used car or even gas because the Left doesn’t want them to drive. They can’t buy homes because the Left wants to destroy the suburbs and force everyone to live in megacities. They have trouble buying meat because the Left wants them to eat soy.

The same is true for the whole exercise in planned economic misery that we’re experiencing.

. . .

There are predictions that gas will hit $6 a gallon nationwide by the summer because the Biden administration has worked hard to raise energy prices and create artificial shortages. Biden’s people just got through once again sabotaging oil and gas leases because they want higher energy prices. $6 a gallon is not the result of political inattentiveness, that is the plan.

Inflation isn’t an unintentional accident either. . . .[I]nflation is doing what it’s meant to do, wiping out savings, and triggering retaliatory interest rate hikes to “cool down” the economy. The middle class ends up poorer and more vulnerable, government dependency rises and social mobility falls. Socialism starts looking better every day. That’s how it worked in the twentieth century and still works today.

. . .

If Americans don’t understand that our misery isn’t an accident or incompetence, but part of a plan then the downward cycle will continue to play out with increasingly worse outcomes.

Until the Left finally gets what it wants. And then the rest of us won’t have anything left.

Much more at the link here.

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America: out of order

 

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson nails it.  From American Greatness:

What explains an America that suddenly no longer works? 

First, all of these problems are self-induced. They did not exist until Biden [I would assume that when he refers to “Biden,” VDH means “the Biden Administration.”] birthed them for ideological or political reasons. Apparently, his administration wanted a changing, more favorable electorate and demography at any cost. 

. . .

Second, Biden has no solutions to these self-created problems because of the ideological restraints the Left has imposed on him.

The administration fears the anger of the hard Left more than the furor of the American people. So it will not change, preferring to be politically correct and a failure than to be ideologically incorrect and successful. 

Third, when people object, this administration answers either by blaming others for its self-created mess or by seeking distractions. Now it is faulting gun owners for the crime wave it fostered, supposed “white supremacists” for the racial tensions it fanned, and Putin, whom it appeased.

The common denominator? Biden knows that he inherited a stable, prosperous America and has nearly ruined it. 

Read VDH’s full column here.  But where is the good news?  Sundance at Conservative Treehouse sums up some encouraging and significant push-backs:

[A] more assertive, deliberate, strategic and determined MAGA movement is being noticed everywhere.  There are new combat rules in response to the leftist onslaught toward our children.  . . .

Leftist favorite Netflix, is hemorrhaging users and just lost 30% of its value.  Spotify just refused to renew the leftist idols, the Obamas.  The ultra-leftist Disney Corp just lost their special district status in Orlando, and leftist Twitter is on the verge of a hostile ‘free speech’ takeover by Elon Musk.

. . .

Click here for more.

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Liberals Keep Voting for the Progressive Left

 

Dennis Prager posted "The Left Is Evil and Liberals Keep Voting for Them" last week at AmericanGreatness.  As we head into the next election, maybe we can try again to explain to our liberal family member and friends. 

. . . liberalism and leftism have virtually nothing in common. In fact, leftism is the enemy of liberalism—as a handful of liberals such as former New York Times writer Bari Weiss, former Young Turk Dave Rubin and others have come to recognize.

The Left has never believed in free speech and has suppressed dissent wherever it has assumed power. Free speech is a pillar of liberalism, and it has always embraced dissent.

The Left rejects the anti-racist ideal of colorblindness. Colorblind is the liberal racial ideal.

The Left supports racial segregation—such as all-black dorms and separate black graduations. Liberals have always advocated racial integration.

The Left has always loathed capitalism. Liberals were always major advocates of capitalism—recognizing that only capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty.

The Left has always been anti-Israel. Liberals have always been fervent supporters of Israel.

The Left has always held America in contempt. Liberals loved this country. A liberal wrote “God Bless America.” No leftist would write such a song.

Leftists want to defund the police. No liberal does.

The list of liberal-Left differences is as long as the list of left-wing positions.

Yet, it is liberals who keep the Left in power. Were it not for the liberal vote, the Left would have no power.

Why do liberals vote Left? Why do liberals vote for those who have contempt for virtually everything they, the liberals, hold dear?

The question is all the more apt given that it is conservatives who protect virtually every liberal value. It is conservatives who seek to preserve free speech, racial integration, love of America, a strong Israel and capitalism.

So why do liberals vote for the Left, for the very people who hold liberals and their values in contempt?

Mr. Prager has answers;  click here.

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Starve the Big Tech Beast

 

Jim Daws has lots of DIY advice on switching from Big Tech services to alternatives offering more privacy and less bias.  His plan, posted at American Thinker, can be implemented incrementally, to make the transitions as painless as possible.

. . . Big Tech is wholly owned by the Left and they’re using that power -- unprecedented in human history -- to muzzle any effective opposition.

The sad part is that Big Tech’s control over the free flow information is almost entirely illusory and based wholly on our submission to it. Much in the same manner that consumers become zealously brand-conscious, we have come to accept that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have some innate value that makes them indispensable. We forget that Big Tech’s dominance has come about in just one generation and we can track a direct trajectory between the rise of Big Tech and the radical Left’s ascendancy. 

To have any chance of reversing this ruinous tide, traditional Americans must awake from their stupor and stop feeding the beast that’s devouring them. Thankfully, that’s much more easily done than say, defeating the British Empire, a bloody civil war to end slavery, or storming the beaches at Normandy. All it takes is a few afternoons at your desk to break the Big Tech habit and transition to emerging Alt-Tech options. But if we’re unwilling to do even that, we’ll prove unworthy of our legacy of freedom and prosperity and will get exactly what we deserve.

Here are some suggestions for escaping Big Tech’s death-grip. A quick disclaimer: while improved privacy and security is an excellent side effect of these suggestions, nothing on the internet is completely secure or private. My main goal here is to provide alternatives that will starve the Big Tech beast.

Ditch Windows and Mac operating systems in favor of Linux. This may seem the most difficult and disruptive action required of your Big Tech jailbreak but it’s far less so than you may think and absolutely essential. By allowing Microsoft and Apple control of your computing ecosystem you allow them to track your activities and collect private information. Once the government has labeled dissent as “domestic terrorism,” you can bet that the lefties in Redmond and Cupertino will be there to help monitor your political beliefs. 

Linux is a free, stable, secure, open-source operating system not controlled by Big Tech. . . .

On the web browser front, if you're using Google Chrome or Apple Safari, you should know that your online activity is being tracked, recorded, and sold to thousands of data brokers. Most of that data is used for marketing, but the sites you visit are a good indicator of your political leanings and activities and the collection of that data is ripe for abuse. 

A good alternative is the Brave browser. .  .

For the love of God, stop using Google search and Gmail. These two services provide the bulk of Google's ad and tracking revenue, which they then use to censor Google search results to block content their woke and H1B visa workforce find objectionable. Google search is the most powerful gatekeeper of information ever created and Google unapologetically uses algorithms to promote politicians and ideas they agree with and crush those they oppose.

Good alternatives are DuckDuckGo and ProtonMail . . .

If Jeff Zuckerberg’s and Jack Dorsey’s promotion and protection of leftist politicians and dogma during the 2020 election hasn’t convinced you to get off Facebook and Twitter, allow me to remind you that, among many outrages, Zuckerberg spent nearly a half-billion dollars subverting the 2020 election and both Zuckerberg and Dorsey censored stories of the Biden crime family’s blatant graft and corruption. Then, after the election, both banned the 45th President of the United States from their platforms for objecting.

More than any other tech service, users seem slavishly devoted to Facebook and Twitter and willing to sacrifice the nation and their freedoms to them. This effect is what empowered Zuckerberg and Dorsey to offend about half their customers… er, products, without fear of reprisal. 

. . .

Your transition need not be done all at once but make a list and begin your migration away from Big Tech. Choose tasks that are most easily accomplished and check it off. You will be surprised at how quick and painless the process is and how good responsible citizenship and freedom feels. 

Read the full article here.

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Still an uphill battle

Most of the metrics are up: the economy, employment, Main Street, jobs, etc.  And even though the impeachment charade should never have been validated by the Senate, many conservatives can be comforted by the fact that things are, indeed, getting better. Or are they?  Mark Bauerlein at American Greatness sobers us up again:

The election of November 2016, the elevation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the Mueller report debacle, the Iran turnaround, and other wins for conservatives may be satisfying, but they have not shaken the leftist lock on our institutions one bit. The simmering stew of LGBT rights, toxic masculinity, white privilege, disparate impact calculations, and Millennial social justice campaigns has become dogma in corporate America, media, higher education, K-12 public schools (and many private schools, too), Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Broadway, the art world, museums, libraries . . .

. . .

For the Left, outcomes trump procedure just as politics eclipses intelligence, conscientiousness, and competence. One thing I saw in more than 30 years in academia was that while leftists on the faculty were not always the brightest bulbs in the room, they often managed to populate university and department committees where policies were created and passed. While we were teaching and researching; they were reshaping the institution. We were getting on with our work, pushing our individual careers, getting our names in print, and believing we were advancing the field and the school. They were taking over. Put it this way: We were clueless, they were canny.

Donald Trump understands this. That’s one reason the Left despises him. He typically doesn’t bother to debate ideas and ideals, but this is not anti-intellectualism, as the liberal says. It is, instead, his awareness that politics is now, first and foremost, a battle of persons, not ideologies or tax rates or trade. The Kavanaugh episode proves the point, for this battle was all about the individual (which is one reason why Supreme Court appointments are so heated).

In recent times, conservatives have tended to focus on ideas. If, after President Trump leaves office, they don’t start thinking more about personnel, if they don’t consider the population of institutions as much as they do the structure of institutions, if they choose a leader who thinks technocratically instead of ad hominem-ly, we will indeed end up with the permanent Democratic majority liberal intellectuals have predicted for the last 20 years.

Read the rest here.

And a follow-up: One American News’s special report on FISA abuse (blogged here) is not at present scheduled for a re-broadcast.

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Democratic Party has gone rogue

A.F. Branco cartoon credit: Communities Digital News and Legal Insurrection

Karin McQuillan at American Greatness considers the lurch to the far left in the Democrat party. She concludes:

. . .All the Democrats have pledged to destroy America’s energy industry. Many have pledged to outlaw private health insurance. All have pledged to open our borders to all. None of them respect the Bill of Rights. 

This is all so bizarre in American terms it seems impossible. It is not only possible—it’s here. 

Campus culture, after eight long years of Obama’s interference, has come of voting age. They live in a hive-mind social media society, policed by mobbing, with censored sources of information. Through blacklisting, they have monopolistic control of our schools, colleges, media, and the high-tech corporate giants. They have won hearts and minds. It’s easy to do when those who don’t go along are destroyed. They enforce the diktats of their ideology ruthlessly. That’s their American dream.

Politics is very emotional for Democrats. They don’t care about jobs and national security, the two basic duties of the president. According to the Democrat primary, the fate of the world is at stake with the climate change crisis. Minorities’ existence is under threat by Republican “white supremacism.” They don’t want prosperity if it means some people—the hardest working, smartest, luckiest, most entrepreneurial, most self-sacrificing—can earn fabulous wealth. They see differences between people as unfair. They want sameness. They want to be given things, not to earn them.

There is no returning the hard Left to a harmless fringe. Their voters do not test their ideas or their policies by debate. They demonize Republican ideas instead of engaging with them. Far worse, they totally ignore real-world results. America’s success under President Trump, based on freedom for individuals, property rights, and free enterprise, only makes them angrier. 

These voters live in a subculture that tolerates no differing opinions. They are righteously determined to impose their values on the rest of us. 

This Democratic Party has gone rogue.

The entire article is here. Recommended.

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Free speech zones

image credit: commdiginews.com 

Rick Moran at American Thinker reports:

Florida legislature bans 'free speech zones' on state campuses

. . .

The very notion of a "free speech zone" is repugnant to democracy and an affront to the First Amendment. But with radicals firmly in charge, they make the rules and enforce their codes with little opposition so far from state education authorities.

It's a small victory, but a significant one nonetheless. It shows that we can successfully pushback against the radicalization of our schools and protect the rights of all to freedom of speech.

Full report is here. 

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