How I Learned to Be A Crank and Love It

So, yes, I’m officially a crank and I relish it. It’s pretty freeing (if perhaps dangerous spiritually). It’s nice not to care what decent people think. For the first time in my life I don’t feel that Democrats have the “high moral ground” on issues like the poor or the border or “the little man”. I no longer feel Republicans need to speak their truth softly or modestly. Nope, it’s all war, spiritually and politically. 

I feel sorry for the financial person from Fidelity today. Of course she was dying to get me to talk to a financial “expert”, even after I told her we already have a financial advisor.  So here was my spiel in response (wasting her time alas, poor soul):

"That’s actually a very interesting topic. Do we really have experts any more? If you look at every institution, whether political or medical or financial, it seems like there’s this void of authority and credibility. I’m sure your team at Fidelity are great, but even the Federal Reserve doesn’t really know what’s going on so how can Fidelity?  When I grew up Alan Greenspan was like a god, the best central banker of all time, but now he’s been much discredited after bubbles he created resulted in the 2008 financial crisis which we’re still feeling the effects of.... "

She said she understood what I was saying but that her team knows sooo much, much more than she does, and they are really high quality individuals...and she left her email information. 

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So the gift of another hot “summer” day. Reading is the magic, especially good reading. Augustine is amazed at himself and wonders why people travel to seas and mountains and pass over themselves. Chestertonian.

Few excel more than I do at doing nothing. Chesterton claimed the same, but wrote some crazy 5 million words during his lifetime so I think he’s fibbing. Fortunately for him there was no Twitter, or TV, or 24-7 news sources. 

Tammy Wynette had trouble writing songs in the happy stretches of life and I get that. Nothing produces words more than unhappiness, if only to vent. When my dog Max was driving me crazy, he inspired me to write about him. Now, not so much. Stories demand conflict, and without conflict there is no story. Which is why I wrote mostly about politics now, alas.

I’ve also written trip logs when inspired by beauty or adventure or inconveniences, but I don’t travel like I used to.  I like to write about nature occasionally but there’s no market for nature writing.

Passion and writing are intimately linked. But good writing, and useful writing, requires an audience and a passion that is meaningful.  The only subject where those meet might be spiritual writing since people are religious animals whether they realize it or not. 

One has to consume a lot of experiences of God’s love to write spiritually, I think, and I surely spend too much time reading politics which is, in some ways, anti-spiritual writing. It locks you on worldly things and, worse, it generally displays humanity at its worse (see George Soros).

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One of the questions of our time is: “How does God win this seemingly losing and lopsided battle with humanity?”

A Bible commentary has this to say: 

“The essence of the mystery lies in the fact that our limited minds cannot fully understand how the inevitability of the success of God’s plan fits in with human freedom. Human freedom must play its part “because the beverage of man’s salvation certainly contains the power to benefit all, but if one does not drink it, one is not healed”. Nor is it possible for us to understand the mystery of how God can allow some people to be rejected despite his desire that all should be saved.

The coincidence in God of infinite justice and infinite mercy is another unfathomable mystery. All that we really need to remember is that God always offers man the opportunity to change and repent. The Church invites us, therefore, not to close our heart to God’s invitations: “O that today you would hearken to his voice! Harden not your hearts”... In Romans 9, Paul defends God’s freedom to be patient and merciful toward sinners, not his freedom to punish sinners."

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A rather poetic offering from St Augustine in his most famous book, ending with how only the human can see the invisible (it’s our super power): 

And what is this? I asked the earth, and it answered me, “I am not he.” And all that was upon it answered me the same way. I asked the sea and the depths, and all creeping living things, and they answered, “We are not your God. Seek above us.” I asked the stirring air, and all of it, with all its inhabitants, answered, “the philosopher Anaximenes was deceived. l am not God." So I turned to the heavens, sun, moon, and stars, and they too responded, "Nor are we the God whom you seek." And I replied to all the things that encompass the door of my flesh, "You have told me that you are not God. Tell me something about him." And they cried out with a loud voice: "He made us." I questioned them, thinking about them, and their splendor gave the answer.

And I turned to myself and asked, "Who are you?" I answered, "A man." And behold, within me there was present to me my soul and my body, one internal and the other outside. By which of these should I seek my God? I had sought him in the body from earth to heaven, as far as I could send messengers, the very light of my eyes. But it is better to seek by the inner means, for it was like a presiding judge before the bodily messengers that reported to it the answers received from heaven, earth, and all therein, all who said, "We are not God, but he made us." 

Is not this bodily splendor apparent to all who have intact senses? Why, then, does it not say the same thing to all? Animals, both small and great, see it but cannot ask it this, for they have no reasoning set over their senses to judge the reports that they bring forth.

But men can ask it, so that the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made (see Romans 1:20). However, when men love them, they become subject to them, and subjects cannot judge. And creatures only speak this answer to those who can judge. 

Texas AG Ken Paxton on Why Georgia Went Blue & Texas Stayed Red

Starting around minute thirty, Texas AG Ken Paxton explains how the Texas House has prevented election fraud from being prosecuted and how close Texas was to being stolen like Georgia has been since '20. 

Riveting interview and Paxton rightly says that the number one issue is voter integrity and whether future elections will be allowed to be stolen. 

The Unrestricted Warfare of the Left

Interesting to see how prescient a book published in China in 1999 was, written by two senior colonels in the Chinese military. It described how the plan going forward was “unrestricted warfare” not confined to the battlefield.

I couldn’t help but think of parallels in our own country that’s reflected in how warfare between conservatives and liberals has reached into every area that can be engaged, from corporations, to “lawfare”, to media suppression and censorship. We’re seeing unrestricted warfare here by the Left. 

Published prior to the bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade, “the book has drawn the attention for its advocacy of a multitude of means, both military and particularly non-military, to strike at the United States during times of conflict: Hacking into websites, targeting financial institutions, terrorism, using the media, and conducting urban warfare are among the methods proposed....The author Qiao was quoted as stating that ‘the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden....The United States breaks [UN rules] and makes new ones when these rules don't suit [its purposes], but it has to observe its own rules or the whole world will not trust it.’” 

An excerpt: 

“This is warfare in the age of globalization. Although the boundaries between soldiers and non-soldiers have now been broken down, and the chasm between warfare and non-warfare nearly filled up, globalization has made all the tough problems interconnected and interlocking, and we must find a key for that. The key should be able to open all the locks, if these locks are on the front door of war. And this key must be suited to all the levels and dimensions, from war policy, strategy, and operational techniques to tactics; and it must also fit the hands of individuals, from politicians and generals to the common soldiers. We can think of no other more appropriate key than "unrestricted warfare."

On the Wealthy Giving Up on the Wall Street Journal

Interesting commentary from Cornell's Dave Collum: 

“They say that in order to propel yourself politically, you have to succumb to the blackmail bait first. You get corrupted first and then you acquire power.  Which is why I think it’s possible that the pedophile ring has geopolitical implications - if you record someone having sex with a minor you own them forever. By the way, they say the same about Hollywood. You’re not going to get good parts until you subject yourself to the kind of control where they can say, ‘now we own you’.” 

Seems plausible since it’s obvious studios and corporations want to control their talent, which is why Fox News initial interview with Glenn Beck was so threatening. He was getting a job with the network and they were already playing hardball. 

Perhaps an analogy for government is that it’s a rock sitting on the ground. As long as you just see the rock, you think everything’s as it should. But if you turn it over you see all these worms and scorpions and rank decay. 

I always thought Mike Pence was generally upright but now wonder about his role in January 6th riots. His story has changed and he was caught in a direct lies refuted by his aides and others. And it’s not the sort of lie where you simply don’t recall correctly, nor has it been that long ago. It’s also telling that he’s the only Trump aide who is not being prosecuted by the Justice Dep’t.  I suppose if you say what they want you to say you’ll be safe. 

Ultimately the main surprising thing about Trump for me is how thin the gruel is that they got him on. Usually with that laser-like focus on him for eight years you’d think they’d come up with better, especially given how loose Trump is on just about everything (starting with his taxes). 

As it’s often been said, you can indict a ham sandwich but some ham sandwiches are more hammy than others. It’s said the average citizen commits multiple felonies a day so how much more a president living with a lot more rules?  “We live in a society that has criminalized more things than we know or understand... Harvard University professor Harvey Silverglate estimates that the average American citizen commits three felonies per day.” 

So the wonder is that Trump was so docile that they could only get him on: 

a) Russia hoax

b) Ukrainian phone call (which turned out, in retrospect, to be perfectly reasonable given Biden’s corruption) 

c) His call to Georgia asking to try to find 11k fraudulent votes (reasonable request)

d) his role in January 6th where he said that people should march to the capitol & peacefully protest (lol)

e) that he didn’t surrender federal documents when facing a subpoena.   

Only the last one seems to be a crime and even that one is simply a product of the deep state raiding his home (probably illegal).  Hillary famously did the same thing when she destroyed her emails in response to a a subpoena.

So we face the fascinating struggle of '24 in which we have one candidate with a better presidential record and is persecuted by the government versus a rotten, corrupt candidate.  And it could be oh-so-close!! Why?Because of the fantastic array of sources that the irresistible deep state force possesses, starting with the media. 

A third of the country has been lobomotized by mainstream media, another third knows what’s going on but don’t want to say anything because it’s “against their team” (Dems or Washington General Republicans), and a third who gets it (MAGA). (Kudos, btw, to socialist Doug Lain who in Compact Magazine admitted that the Left should be deeply skeptical of the '20 election results, adding "We should take in the fact that the Democrats are attempting to imprison their main opponent.”

Even the rich don't take the Wall Street Journal very seriously anymore. From an interview with capital manager Eric Weinstein: 

"Most of [the super rich and well-connected] have given up on the retail notion of reality. If you have a worldview that allows you to listen to NPR, read the Wall Street Journal, The NY Times...whatever that point of view is, most of the very powerful rich people I know have checked out at a level that is astounding. They don’t believe that they can afford to depend on normal institutions."