liberty


“Its hour come round at last” 1

My mind keeps coming back to Yeats’ 1919 poem, “The Second Coming.” He wrote it shortly after World War I, knowing that nothing had really been resolved. In retrospect, we know the answer to his question, “What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”

We also know the answer to that question today in America. We see again that “the best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.” There’s plenty of noise opposing Trump, yet too little broad-based opposition. Congress is, with a handful of exceptions, divided between the Minion Party and the Coward Party. Outrage should be building to the point of besieging the White House, but as far as I can tell, it’s declining. People’s idea of opposing Trump is to put “#Resist” into a social media hashtag.
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Words for defending freedom

Here’s a list of suggestions for effectively opposing Trump’s power grab. I don’t claim to do all these things well; some of them could be notes to myself. Feel free to quote from here, but consider linking back to this post.

Promote principles, not factions.

Focus. A few well-made points are better than a laundry list.

Anger weakens your case, and cursing rarely persuades.
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The Democratic Party has abandoned America 1

I am furious at the Democrats. They are cowards who won’t stand up to a president grabbing as much power as he can. To a man who has literally portrayed himself as king and pope. To a man who says he doesn’t know if he needs to uphold the Constitution.

To be precise, I mean the office holders and leaders in the party. Voters have to choose a party if they want to vote in primaries, and they choose where they think they’ll have a positive effect. They don’t necessarily like what the leaders are doing. But I have utter contempt for nearly all the Democrats in Congress.

The Republicans in Congress are despicable, with rare exceptions like Rand Paul. They’re actively collaborating with Trump to enable abductions of people and maintain a fake “emergency” so he can impose ruinous taxes on us. But that’s not the topic here. The Democrats are supposed to fight this. They don’t feel like it.
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Some vandalism and a look at the MAGA mindset 3

My rear windshield has a decal with the text, “My cat is smarter than your president.” On Monday I noticed that several letters were no longer on the windshield. Some were still on the car, in the gap between the windshield and the trunk lid. Given that so many letters came off at once, It was most likely vandalism. I don’t think any of my neighbors did it. The day before, I parked in a large public lot in Massachusetts for several hours. Most likely it happened then, and I didn’t notice till the next day.

Windshield sticker with missing letters indicated by brackets: "My [c]a[t] is sm[art]e[r] than your president"
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ICE: America’s Gestapo

“Geheime Staatspolizei” means “secret state police,” usually shortened to “Gestapo.” It was the Nazis’ enforcement bureau, the ones who snatched people without charges and sent them away to prisons or execution. In the United States, it’s shortened to “ICE.” Its masked thugs have snatched people off the street, not presenting any criminal charges, and shipped them to offshore hellholes. So far I haven’t heard of its intentionally killing anyone, though people have died in its custody.
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