The Cons Are Alright

 

Kurt Schlichter speaks for me; perhaps for you.  Recognize yourself here?  If so, you’re an ally.  

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: We cons will be fine and we’ll win in the end, but it’ll take time and hard fighting.

…the old ways don’t fit, what worked before doesn’t work now…

I used to subscribe to The Weekly Standard and National Review, .. As for NR, it’s sad – you post-internet cons don’t dig it, but back in the day, Buckley’s baby was it. There was no other conservatism. When it came in the snail mail once every two weeks, you got your fix for another fortnight. …Now, ...I'd happily let NR burn. …

Does it matter if they left us or we left them? I tend to think that they were never truly with us. Have we really changed? On the surface, maybe. I used to be a hawk. I even went to a couple of the conflicts that all the smart people on our side said were super good ideas. And then I watched the utter failure of these same geniuses – a kid could nearly go from being a fetus to buying a Dos Equis in the time America’s been chasing jihadi banditos around the Hindu Kush to no avail.

I heard the lectures about free enterprise then realized that I wanted no part of being in the party that enabled mega-corporate pillaging of our middle class for the benefit of the Chinese communists.

And I watched Conservative, Inc., manage decline while filling its cruises, and then I watched the guy I defended from all the “Chimpy McHalibu$Hitler” slurs turn around and cavort with the people calling me worse….

The hell with these people.

We’re done with them, but not with conservatism. We carry that torch now. The True Conservatives™ sure as hell aren’t even pretending anymore – we just had a whole year of “The Conservative Case For Biden.” They care only about their cheesy little fellowships in DC at the Conservativish Forum for Freedom and Eagles and Taking Dumb Businessmen’s Money and More Eagles, where they scribble unread pap on lame blogs. They eagerly collect the tech titan’s 30 pieces of Bitcoin to join in the cancel chorus of conservatives who actually believe in something besides securing these dorks’ sinecures.

But we know it now. We see it, and there’s no unseeing it.

As the Lincoln Project – if you accept that Abe’s project was trying to score with teen boys – collapses, and we giggle, there’s no hiding the corruption of Conservative, Inc. Well, now there’s a new conservatism, and it’s going to happen without the Fredocon caucus.

Remember George Will? Me neither.

To reprise a cliché of my own making, Donald Trump was the avatar of our dissatisfaction with the garbage Establishment and the refusal of the useless, sclerotic and cruise-oriented losers allegedly on our side to defend our interests. It didn’t help that these credential-fetishizers … always despised us. Some were born snobs, and some embraced snobbery – there’s no snooty like “I got out of the trailer park and I gotta ensure no one ever makes that connection between me and my déclassé past again” snooty. But they all think we are stupid, borderline evil, and utterly unsuited to have a say in our own governance. In that, they express their class solidarity with the caste status neurotics of the left.

So, why my optimism?

Well, as we’ve seen, our opponents inside our tent are worthless. Moreover, our enemies outside on the left are buffoons. Ted Lieu? Adam Schiff? Toots Swalwell, the guy who actually thought the Chi-Com courtesan liked him because he was cool? These are singularly unimpressive people who project an aura of competence solely by appearing on camera. But they are stupid, and weak, and the idea that our enemies are these brilliant Lex Luthors crafting intricate conspiracies from their secret lairs is ridiculous. All this stuff happening now is not the result of some cunning strategy but of dumb luck, the inevitable cyclic nature of politics, and some mistakes by our own side (Did you ever notice how most of the things that went bad for Trump happened when he listened to Establishment Republicans?). These are not supermen – these sissies would probably cry because I just assumed their gender.

… Every answer we seek is within the Constitution and the documents that went into creating it. What we sell is freedom, prosperity, and human dignity. What the other side sells is, at best, a soft corporate/political tyranny of the mediocre.

And the most important factor is that we are now conservawoke. Red pilled, if you will. We see the lies. And we see the liars. That ridiculous XX-Jeb! hack Nikki! Haley keeps trying to happen and we keep laughing at her. ….

We’re done with GOP weather vanes who say whatever the Establishment tool in front of her wants to hear. Recently, Nikki! sat down with Tim Alberta of Politico and said… who cares? We had her pegged at “she sat down with Tim Alberta of Politico.” If you can’t tell who the enemy is, it’s you.

So? And? If freedom was easy, everyone would be doing it, and those of us who have read history from before 1619, and/or have resided outside this country can clarify for you that freedom as the natural state of man is most def not the case.

No one is going to give us anything but serfdom – you can have as much of that as you want, and gratis. But freedom has to be taken, one GOP state reforming its election laws at a time, one new conservative-friendly social media venue at a time, one action-packed and conservative-oriented series at a time.

My guess is that Donald Trump has played his (crucial) role and will move on after humiliating the Democrats again by scoffing at their latest puny impeachment. He will be a kingmaker and an important asset in bringing forward the new blood we need to re-energize us. Populism had a tough four years. We’ll take a breather for a bit, then charge. Look at our bench! Ric Grenell, Kristi Noem, Ron DeSantis, Rick Scott, and many more. Look at our expanding network of media outlets, not least of which is Townhall. Look at the new voices we’re seeing, often from the world of podcasting, and often of people who became at least conservative-curious because they saw the failures of the left (Tim Pool, Michael Malice, Adam Carolla, Joe Rogan).

And look at the doddering, failing enemy, presiding over the collapsing Potemkin village that is the failed Establishment.  Yeah, the cons are alright.

Jay Nordlinger shows how to get invited to the best parties

Jay Nordlinger and the rest of the NeverTrumpers at National Review are best described as cuckservatives.  A cuckservative is someone who has been losing the culture war against the Left for generations while doing well for themselves by writing for “conservative” publications and selling cruises to gullible conservatives in “flyover country.”  

If they run for office they promise to repeal ObamaCare, cut taxes, roll back regulation and appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court.  When they get into office they explain that those rascally Democrats get in the way of accomplishing all these things so vote Republican even more!  And when Republicans get both houses of Congress and the Presidency they'll tell you that it still isn't enough.  

The classic hallmark of the cuckservative is the dogmatic repetition of nostrums – like free trade – while ignoring the devastation this has on the millions who lose their jobs as a result.   

Their arguments are always high-minded and principled even as the Left eviscerates them.  They would not dream of fighting back, giving as good as they got because "that would make us as bad as them."  

In the political arena, they have perfected the art of losing like Boy Scouts while the Left kicks sand in their faces and eats their lunch.  I refer you to loser John McCain (whose staff destroyed Sarah Palin, and who told supporters not to boo Obama) and loser Mitt Romney (who demanded Turm apologize to Antifa and had nothing to say when the Candy Crowley jumped into the debate ring on the side of Obama).  They are terrified of appearing to be politically incorrect, especially when they might be accused of that most sinister of crimes against humanity, racism. 

For years they have lived on the patrimony of William F. Buckley who, while a flashy verbal gladiator, appealed to that part of the political spectrum that never connected with the working class.  What can you say about a man who runs for mayor of New York City and – when asked what he would do if he won, replied: “ask for a recount.”  Clever, and memorable, but indicative of the fact that Bill - who I admired - was a show horse. 

And for decades they have revered Ronald Reagan as the ultimate Republican politician.  Successful, avuncular, beloved by everyone on the Right as he was hated by the Left.  In fact, Saint Reagan was everything that the NeverTrumpers told us Trump is not.

So what does Nordlinger do when it turns out that Reagan was less than complimentary about African nations in the United Nations that voted against the US in recognizing Communist China?  Here’s the transcript: “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” Nixon interjected. Reagan forged ahead with his complaint: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”

That’s when Nordlinger throws Reagan under the bus.

"Many of us found this line sickening — especially the word “monkeys.”

Undiplomatic, perhaps, but it was a private conversation between Presidents.  To this day most of those African nations are poverty-stricken hell-holes run be kleptocrats, many of whose people cannot afford shoes.  Some of those leaders have - in my lifetime - actually eaten their enemies.  

Many of us find your asininity sickening, Jay.  Bend over because here it comes again, Jay.  You’re the reason that Trump is President, Jay; because normal people are pretty damn sick of the way the Left is able to define the words we are allowed to use Jay.  

 I call people monkeys all the time without reference to race.  My grandkids are little monkeys; is that racist? 

Trump identifies the Squad, a quartet of female Socialist anti-Semites, as America-hating left-wing bozos and the Greek chorus of Trump haters tell us that it’s racist and we’re supposed to believe that?  

 He refers to Baltimore as “rat-infested” and that’s classified as racist.  Is it Jay?  Because believe me, large parts of Baltimore are third-world areas and some parts of the city are deadly. 

Golf - has been defined by the Left – as “racist.”   

White skin is irredeemably racist. Israel is racist.  Criticizing Japan and China is racist (just ask VOX).  The “N” word is racist – unless it’s uttered by a rapper, then it’s stripped of its racism. 

 Other things that are racist: hoop earrings, Star Treck is racist, Dr. Seuss is racist,  Justin Trudeau is racist, Dunkirk is racist, Dove soap is racist, The word “clan” is racist, wearing latex gloves is racist, and Taco Bell is racist. 

Put a little pressure on Jay and he'll tell you that whatever any Conservative said is "sickening" because racist.

I have a word of advice for Normal people, if you find yourself under attack and jump into a foxhole, make sure that Jay Nordlinger doesn’t join you.  If the enemy doesn’t kill you, Jay will do that job for them, gratis. 

And, Jay, note that the vulgar Donald Trump managed to gut ObamaCare, pass a huge tax cut, reduce regulation and appoint two great conservatives to the Supreme Court all in face of the combined opposition of the press, Democrats, and many so-called Republicans.  That only makes you hate him even more because it shows that your and your kind are losers. 

It's about David French

When the right decided to agree with the left that bigotry was the only reason gay marriage wasn't a thing, it came with the full Folsom Street Fair accessory pack: florists and bakers must serve the gays; drag queens get to read your kids stories; trannies get to use the ladies' can and compete in womens' sports; everyone must use the correct pronouns and affirm that a boar is a sow; you're a bigot for not dating chicks with dicks.

Ask yourself, how much fight have you seen the GOP and supposedly conservative media figures put up on these issues?

As the Dossier Scandal Looms, the New York Times Struggles to Save Its Collusion Tale

Andrew McCarthy

Seven months after throwing Carter Page as fuel on the collusion fire lit by then-FBI director James Comey’s stunning public disclosure that the Bureau was investigating possible Trump campaign “coordination” in Russia’s election meddling, the Gray Lady now says: Never mind. We’re onto Collusion 2.0, in which it is George Papadopoulos — then a 28-year-old whose idea of résumé enhancement was to feign participation in the Model U.N. — who triggered the FBI’s massive probe by . . . wait for it . . . a night of boozy blather in London.

Read the whole thing. 

National Review Weenie on Trump - and the Horrible Fix the Republicans are in.

Donald Trump is running amok in the GOP china shop and gleefully tearing the place up.

They see no way out:

The key to Trump’s strength, which buttresses all his outrageousness, is that his supporters want someone to blow up the system. So there's almost nothing he can say or do that will discredit him in their eyes, and the least destructive scenario for his defeat — Trump blows himself up — will take some doing on his part.

What Lowry still doesn't get is that Trump is his creation, and the rest of the Republican Ruling Class.  You can only have so much contempt for the well-being of the Country Class before they pick up their pitchforks and storm the castle.  You sided with the Country Class in the culture war ... and lost.  At the same time you were destroying their economic base.  You were exporting their jobs and sacrificing their future on the alter of "comparative advantage."  It was a pain you never felt as economic powerhouses - like Wal Mart - were built on the basis of importing stuff all labelled "Made in China."  

The truth will only dawn when columns can be written by cheap labor in Asia and Lowry is given the pink slip.

Mark Steyn Disses National Review

Since the NR issue opposing Donald Trump came out, there has been a sharpening of the lines within the Republican party.  Steyn chooses his sides and NR doesn't come out well.

~National Review's initial reaction to Donald Trump's entry into the presidential race appeared a few hours after he launched his campaign under the headline "Witless Ape Rides Escalator". Their condescension has got a little subtler since then, and it's now gone long-form with an entire issue dedicated to the singular proposition: "Against Trump".

I've received a ton of emails today asking me what I make of the National Review hit. I used to contribute to NR, and I generally make it a rule not to comment on publications for which I once wrote. Just move on with your life, that's my advice. In this case, we parted on not terribly pleasant terms, and we remain co-defendants on the unending Mann vs Steyn et al law suit, which means I have to get on well enough with Rich Lowry so that he doesn't want to punch my lights out when we're sitting in the dock together - or, if things go really badly, sharing a cell.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding some contributors I admire, the whole feels like a rather obvious trolling exercise. As I explained yesterday, I don't think Trump supporters care that he's not a fully paid-up member in good standing of "the conservative movement" - in part because, as they see it, the conservative movement barely moves anything. If you want the gist of NR's argument, here it is:

I think we can say that this is a Republican campaign that would have appalled Buckley, Goldwater, and Reagan...

A real conservative walks with us. Ronald Reagan read National Review and Human Events for intellectual sustenance...

My old boss, Ronald Reagan, once said...

Ronald Reagan was famous for...

When Reagan first ran for governor of California...

Reagan showed respect for...

Reagan kept the Eleventh Commandment...

Far cry from Ronald Reagan's "I am paying for this microphone" line...

Trump is Dan Quayle, and everyone and his auntie are Lloyd Bentsen: "I knew Ronald Reagan, I worked for Ronald Reagan, I filled in Ronald Reagan's subscription-renewal form for National Review. And you, sir, are no Ronald Reagan."

You have to be over 50 to have voted for Reagan, and a supposed "movement" can't dine out on one guy forever, can it? What else you got?

Well, there are two references to Bush, both of them following the words "Reagan and". But no mention of Dole, one psephological citation of Romney, and one passing sneer at McCain as a "cynical charlatan" - and that's it for the last three decades of presidential candidates approved by National Review, at least to the extent that they never ran entire issues trashing them.

Will the more or less official disdain of "the conservative movement" make any difference to Trump's supporters? Matt Welch in Reason:

Many or even most of the people who make a living working in politics and political commentary—even those who think of themselves as outsiders, such as nonpartisan libertarians—inevitably begin to view their field as one dedicated primarily to ideas, ideology, philosophy, policy, and so forth, and NOT to the emotional, ideologically unmoored cultural passions of a given (and perhaps fleeting) moment.

I'd put that contrast slightly differently. The movement conservatives at National Review make a pretty nice living out of "ideas, ideology, philosophy, policy, and so forth". The voters can't afford that luxury: They live in a world where, in large part due to the incompetence of the national Republican Party post-Reagan, Democrat ideas are in the ascendant. And they feel that this is maybe the last chance to change that.

Go back to that line "When Reagan first ran for governor of California..." Gosh, those were the days, weren't they? But Reagan couldn't get elected Governor of California now, could he? Because the Golden State has been demographically transformed. From my book The [Un]documented Mark Steyn:

According to the Census, in 1970 the 'Non-Hispanic White' population of California was 78 per cent. By the 2010 Census, it was 40 per cent. Over the same period, the 10-per cent Hispanic population quadrupled and caught up with whites.

That doesn't sound terribly 'natural', does it? If one were informed that, say, the population of Nigeria had gone from 80 per cent black in 1970 to 40 per cent black today, one would suspect something rather odd and profoundly unnatural had been going on.

The past is another country, and the Chamber of Commerce Republicans gave it away. Reagan's California no longer exists. And, if America as a whole takes on the demographics of California, then "the conservative movement" will no longer exist. That's why, for many voters, re-asserting America's borders is the first, necessary condition for anything else - and it took Trump to put that on the table.

SORE LOSERS

Sam Francis called the American conservative movement a collection of “beautiful losers”. To look at them now, a more apt descriptor would be “sore losers”. The meltdown of the mandarins of Conservatism Inc. over at National Review about Donald Trump can only be seen as the last gasp of an increasingly irrelevant “movement”.

The heirs of Buckley would love nothing more than to exercise his inquisitorial powers over Donald Trump and the growing “Alt-Right” movement. Over twenty “movement Conservatives” penned diatribes against the Donald in the latest issue of National Review. For the most part, these barely rise above the level of “democrats r real racists guyz!” to denunciations of “nativism”, and faux patrician concerns about “vulgarity” as defined by Leo Strauss (I’m looking at you Kristol). What we are seeing is no more than the death throes of Conservatism Inc. in a wild temper tantrum.

...

The truth is, publications like National Review and the entire “Conservative” movement are nothing more than sinecures for a b-squad managerial elite on the Potomac. Like the collapse of the Soviet Union, the collapse of Conservatism has been swift and unexpected. They’ve even lost the RNC (Ha!) But with the destruction of this false opposition to our reigning liberal hegemony, a new opposition can take hold.

That’s where we come in. Donald Trump has been a great beginning towards restructuring politics in the United States. All in the last year we have seen moves towards nationalism, and even a nascent whiff of a white “identity politics”. Seizing the mantle of opposition brings new possibilities and new dangers. Of course, this is the only way forward.

Republicans Have Overestimated the Conservatism of the Base

David French at National Review:

I live in Donald Trump country. Maury County, Tenn. — like much of the South — was dominated by the Democratic party until just a few short years ago. Tennessee’s legislature didn’t flip red until 2008, and my own legislative district in my own “conservative” county was blue until 2010. Tennessee didn’t change dramatically between 2004 (when Democrats were in total control of state government) and 2011 (when control flipped to Republicans), but national politics changed. And — as Donald Trump is proving — they can change again.

If there is a consistent refrain among former Democrats (and there are lots in the South), it echoes Ronald Reagan: They didn’t leave the Democratic party; the Democratic party left them. That means many things, but it does not mean that they’re small government, constitutional conservatives. It means that while they may have been attitudinally “Tea Party,” they were never on board with the core substance of the movement.

So, what do my Trump-supporting neighbors prioritize? It’s a reasonable approximation of the “three-legged stool” of Reagan Republicanism, but with important philosophical distinctions from true movement conservatives. First, there’s patriotism, but it’s not a patriotism that implies or mandates a particular foreign policy or national-security philosophy. It’s embodied in a deep love for this country and a desire to defeat its enemies, but no particular commitment either to intervention or isolationism. They’re repulsed by the Left’s mindless multiculturalism and elite’s disdain for America, but they’re foreign-policy pragmatists. Fight when it’s smart, and don’t let political correctness get in the way of national defense. As the New York Times noted, a significant portion of Trump’s support comes from “a certain kind of Democrat.”

Next, there’s cultural conservatism, but it’s not the cultural conservatism of the evangelical Right. In other words, they don’t really care what anyone else does with their lives, but they’re unwilling to join the sexual revolution either personally or politically. They’re not crusaders in either direction, but they perceive the Left as attempting to draft them into a movement they find personally distasteful. When Bill Clinton said abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” he was tapping into this mindset — speaking to those who dislike abortion but aren’t willing to place it at the centerpiece of their politics.

Finally, there’s a commitment to economic opportunity, but it’s not embodied by intellectual devotion either to free markets or to small government. You won’t hear former Democrats crying out for social-security reform or changes to Medicare — unless those changes make the system more stable and reliable. And southern voters have proven that they’re more than willing to hand out generous, targeted tax breaks and subsidies to pull manufacturing out of the North or to welcome Japanese automakers to their new, union-free homes in Dixie. Call it “corporate welfare” all you want, but these new Republicans simply don’t care.

Immigration is a potent political issue because it hits each of these concerns. The patriot worries about the impact on national security. The cultural conservative is concerned about assimilation and contemptuous of the Left’s reassuring multicultural platitudes. And a flood of low-skill workers depresses wages and limits economic opportunity and stability. Combine these concerns with the South’s (and industrial North’s) longstanding willingness to embrace colorful, larger-than-life political figures, and it’s easy to see why Trump’s support map looks like this:

Indeed, as the New York Times noted, a significant portion of Trump’s support comes from “a certain kind of Democrat,” and he currently stands ready to pull up to 20 percent of Democratic support from Hillary Clinton.

The GOP underestimated Trump in part because it overestimated the conservatism of its own southern, rural northern, and Midwestern base. It underestimated the extent to which many of its voters hadn’t so much embraced the corporate conservatism of the Chamber of Commerce or the constitutional conservatism of the Tea Party as much as they had rejected the extremism of the increasingly shrill and politically correct Left.

And, yes, the size of this population calls into question the very process of building a national Republican electoral majority, but it also threatens Democrats who seem intent on drumming every blue-collar white male straight out of the party. At present, Donald Trump’s greatest electoral danger (at least in the GOP primary) is that his supporters are so alienated from both parties that they disproportionately choose to stay home. But if they turn out, and he can escape with a win in Iowa, the early primary calendar is largely a march through Trump country. America may end up with three distinct ideological movements: the progressive Left, the constitutional Right, and populist core that will now say of both political parties: I didn’t leave you. You left me.

Wisconsin's Neo Nazis

Bud Norman mentioned this Battering Rams in Wisconsin about the Nazi-syle reign of terror in Wisconsin against those who sided with Scott Walker.

This is America, where a citizen is free to express opinions and participate in politics without fear of retribution. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, but the ideal seems to be slipping away. The diminution of fresh speech is not just a matter of the increasingly confined parameters of polite opinion, enforced by boycotts and restricted career opportunities and the howling of mobs, or even the usual heavy hand of government, such as the harassment of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service or the politicized prosecutions by the Department of Justice or the extra regulatory scrutiny applied to those businesses donating to the wrong candidates. It has now come to the point that armed agents of the government have been invading homes, seizing property, and bullying ordinary citizens into silence for no reason other than their political beliefs.

If this sounds like the most far-fetched sort of paranoid right-wing fantasy, we’d urge you to read David French’s chilling article, headlined “Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought it Was a Home Invasion,'” at The National Review. Although there had already been scattered reports about the outrageous “John Doe Investigation” that a renegade prosecutor and a rubber-stamping judge had launched against various groups that supported Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to reform the state’s collective bargaining laws regarding public sector unions, a fishing expedition which was eventually halted by a higher court that rightly considered it a clear attempt to intimidate the prosecutor’s political opponents into silence, only now are those targeted in the investigation coming forward with stories about doors being broken down with battering rams, computers being confiscated, children being terrified, neighbors being scandalized, and dozens of heavily armed police officers shouting warnings that no lawyers were to be contacted and no was to be told. The descriptions evoke Nazi-era Germany or the Soviet bloc, but it happened in Wisconsin, the birthplace of the “progressive movement.”

Norman notes that even though there has been some coverage of these outrages against innocent citizens exercising their free speech rights, the media - never a supporter of conservatives - is either spiking this story or continues to spread the smears of wrongdoing against Walker and his supporters.  That's why the rogue prosecutors and judges in Wisconsin went ahead with this, the media had their backs.

The NR article itself is more detailed:

The Church of What’s Happening Now.

People of my generation still remember Flip Wilson’s comedic role as the Reverend Leroy, pastor of The Church of What’s Happening Now.



What's happening is that Flip Wilson's church is the new establishment.

What the uproar over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act illustrates most clearly is that the era of religious tolerance is over. There is a new church in town, and it’s established … and its ministers, bishops and popes are members of the media. Its enforcers are, as always with established churches, the courts and the government.

Centuries ago in England you were precluded from certain professions if you were not Church of England. Members of competing churches were second class citizens and quite often persecuted.   They were not allowed to worship God in their own way.

When the US was established the First Amendment to the constitution was written to prevent the Federal government from designating any denomination then in existence as the official church. The idea was partly a reaction to the religious persecution of unpopular sects in Europe. But it was also based on the very Christian belief that man’s duty to God was higher than his duty to the State, and the State should not get between a man and God.

Quite a bit has changed.

The Left is overwhelmingly secular – in the traditional religious sense - and does not believe that there is a higher power to which mankind owes allegiance. In their view it is only logical that the claim to an allegiance to something greater than the State is considered akin to either delusion or blasphemy. At the same time it adheres to the belief in the dream of the perfectibility – or at the very least improvement - of mankind via the State.

It's an assumption based not on reason but on faith.  The most murderous regimes of the 20th century were based on the belief that the State could create a better human.  The Communists has their "New Soviet Man," the Nazis had their "Ubermensch."  Unfortunately on the way to perfectibility some who resisted the program had to be liquidated under that assumption that you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Despite the failure of the dream in Germany and the USSR, the faith has not died.  In this country its firmly established in large, influential parts of the culture.  It has all the earmarks of a faith based religion. It's a Church without a supernatural God but the State as substitute. It has all the power of an Established church.  It can get you fired if you don't beleive and threaten to burn you if you deviate from the path.  This Church of What's Happening Now's doctrine is constantly evolving, a Shapechanger, morphing virtually daily as prior cultural norms are discarded in all parts of life, in custom, views of other cultures and religions, in sexual identity, in morality, in language, in the food that we eat and the air that we breathe, even in dress.  As new ones are adopted, they require internal as well as external assent among the flock. And as the new Established Church rules our lives we are required to mouth the words in its catechism and sing the hymns of praise to our new Lords lest we bring the wrath of the clerisy on us.

Yuval Levin in NR:

That religious freedom is not a freedom to do what you want, but a freedom to do what you must. It’s not a freedom from constraint, but a recognition of a constraint higher than even the law and therefore prior to it and deserving of some leeway from legal obligations when reasonably possible…

Madison put the point this way:

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to Him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.

It is important to note that Madison was making this case not in the context of arguing for permitting the free exercise of religion but rather in the context of arguing against the establishment of any religion by law. His point was that no one ought to be compelled to affirm as true a religious tenet he took to be false and that no one should be compelled to participate in a religious rite that violated his own understanding of his religious obligations. This is not exactly an extension of the traditional Anglo-American case for toleration. It is a Madisonian correction to the Lockean ideal of religious toleration in a society with an established church.

If Christians are now required to place the requirements of the Church of What’s Happening Now and deny the commandments of their God we are witnessing the destruction of the First Amendment. George Stephanopoulos may be the new Reverend Leroy, but do we really want to be subjects of this clown?  

"...history’s happy predestination..."

I found this term amusing, and so apt as it applies to the delusions of Obama: the childlike belief that history favors him and his fantasies.

Speaking recently about the Islamic State’s beheading of an American journalist, just before another tee time, President Barack Obama assured the country that “the future is won by those who build and not destroy.”

At a news conference on Thursday Obama admitted in so many words that “We don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with the Islamic State, but he seemed to retain his usual faith in history’s happy predestination nonetheless. He and his Secretary of State have dismissed Russia’s massive land grab as a sign of weakness and an embarrassingly out-dated way of doing things, assurances have been made that all of that even more old-fashioned beheading and crucifying and slaughtering that the Islamic State gang has been up to certainly “has no place in the 21st Century,” and thus far these messes have dominated the news thoroughly enough that no one in the administration has been obliged by the press to explain why another aircraft carrier is needed in the South China Sea. “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” as the president is fond of saying, to the point that he had it woven into the Oval Office carpet, and we are expected to share his confidence that the aphorism will prove true no matter what befuddled efforts America might make.

A couple of smarter fellows over at National Review have already written convincingly about Obama’s childish faith that the good guys always win in the end, no matter how wimpy their good guy ways nor how ruthlessly bad the bad guys might be, but we would add that such fantastical notions are characteristic of modern liberal thinking about almost everything. Not just foreign policy, but economics, social issues, and the very nature of man.

I have written prior to these columns about this very subject:What is it with Obama's blind faith in the inevitable march of history? 

Allow me to quote myself:

Barack Obama gave a speech, the thing he does best, with a ridiculous premise embedded therein, something he does almost every time he opens his mouth. Often it’s fields of straw men he’s destroying. This time he’s referring to that inevitable march of history he and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, is fond of invoking.

It goes something like this:

“This is the 21st Century and X is just not done in this century. So X will inevitably fail.”

The fact that this is the 21st Century was supposed to have stopped Putin from swallowing the Ukraine piece by piece.

In Obama’s last statement in Martha's Vineyard, before heading back to finish his round of golf, was that

"One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century."

Who is this "We" Mr. Obama? ISIL disagrees. And, in fact, it’s reported to be attracting thousands of young people who have spent most of their lives in the 21st Century. They think ISIL is the path to the future and are willing to die for ISIL and their Muslim faith.

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Is that reference to the 21st Century a theme that Obama’s speech writers throw in because it polls well. Or is this what the Obama really believes. It would not surprise us because the “March of History™” is a familiar theme in Marxist thought. And versions of Marxism were part of Obama’s formative years before he became President.

Victor Davis Hanson:

He also believes history follows some predetermined course, as if things always get better on their own. Obama often praises those he pronounces to be on the “right side of history.” He also chastises others for being on the “wrong side of history” — as if evil is vanished and the good thrives on autopilot.

When in 2009 millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest the thuggish theocracy, they wanted immediate U.S. support. Instead, Obama belatedly offered them banalities suggesting that in the end, they would end up “on the right side of history.” Iranian reformers may indeed end up there, but it will not be because of some righteous inanimate force of history, or the prognostications of Barack Obama.

Perhaps it's Obama's personal path to the highest office in the land, as totally undeserved as his Nobel Peace Prize, that gives him the feeling that he, like King Canute, controls the tide. There is a sick feeling that the man is not only a deluded narcissist, but a dangerous fool. A belief which seems to conflict with the observation that he is so fundamentally corrupt that he's evil.  But that may be a false choice.  There is no rule that says the deluded cannot be evil.  There are at least three prominent examples in the 20th Century and they ruled Russia, Germany and China.  I am quite sure that the 21st Century will be no different.