Friday, July 04, 2025

Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Jefferson, James Otis, and reflecting upon how dependent America is, upon Americans' understanding our Declaration of Independence

Three quick points before getting to my annual reposting of Calvin Coolidge's speech on the "Inspiration of our Declaration of Independence", and to the Declaration of Independence itself - the first, which I went into a little bit of detail here, is that the Declaration of Independence is the vehicle through which those who care about what is real and true are able to become one people, Americans, and that its inheritance is not one of blood, but of understanding their shared ideals. To affirm:
'... these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...'
, is your ticket into the American body-politic, it is your passport to recite the later phrases with the rest of us, so that 'We The People' are able to form a more perfect union because we do hold these truths to be self-evidently true. It is how we are made 'e Pluribus Unum - Out of many, One' people, and our diverse origins and differences are transformed into interesting footnotes to our lives, rather than defining - or dividing - features of them.

The second point, is that with the Supreme Court striking a blow against the encroachments upon our liberty by the Administrative State, things are looking better for the restoration and preservation of liberty, than they have in decades.

The third point, is that our independence wasn't begun on July 4th 1776, that was simply the end of the beginning. And in what has been more terrifyingly clear with the 2020s, perhaps especially in how 2025 is unfolding, is how central to America that the Declaration of Independence and the ideas that animate it is, to there being an America (the geographical location of our nation) with Americans (those who understand and revere the ideas that made America possible) in it, and for either of those to be able to continue on for long into the future.

I'm not talking about each person having a copy of it - the document itself is meaningless and useless without a people who understand it. The Declaration of Independence only came into being in the first place, because there was a people along the eastern seaboard who understood its meaning well before it was written. Thomas Jefferson later commented that he made no attempt to be innovative or 'revolutionary' when writing it, but only that he intended it "... to be an expression of the American mind..." - is it an expression of yours?

John Adams, in the first quotation below, recalled that in his opinion the American Revolution actually began in 1761, when James Otis spoke against the 'Writs of Assistance' to an assembled crowd, calling out a wealth of classical allusions and a sweeping summation of history and of legal gems, which roused all of his listeners through a torrent of eloquence so profound that Adams thought it had sparked the revolution 'then and there'. Otis too expressed only the common content and passions of "the American mind", and so I ask you, if a new James Otis were to speak to us like that today, how many people living here in America would recognize any of what he summarized or recognize why it was important? Would those modern listeners be more likely to be moved by his eloquence... or to shrug it away with a texted 'TLDR' ('Too Long Didn't Read')?

How likely is it that we can long have either America or Americans in it, without the Declaration of Independence being both known and understood by at least a majority of them? And how well can it be understood by a people who've been 'educated' out of any familiarity with that history, its important ideas, and a perspective that values profound truths eloquently expressed?

Don't bother muttering against our schools, they have dropped the ball, intentionally, and they cannot be looked to for help in picking it back up. It's you who needs to do this, beginning with yourself, and counting on no one else to fill the contents of your own mind with what it has until now lacked. The internet is open to you, and I've provide the links you need here to get started. You and no one else are responsible, for America continuing to be populated with Americans... or at least with one (who can then tell another).

July 4th 1776, was the end of the beginning of America's Independence, it's up to you to ensure that July 4th 2025 isn't the beginning of its end. And to ensure that... you need to start back at the beginning. And where our independence began, according to a fellow that was in attendance at both events, John Adams, was when James Otis spoke against King George's 'Writs of Assistance' back in 1761, which as Adams recalled it,
",,,But Otis was a flame of fire! With a promptitude of Classical Allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events & dates, a profusion of Legal Authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous Eloquence he hurried away all before him. American Independence was then & there born. The seeds of Patriots & Heroes to defend the Non sine Diis Animosus Infans; to defend the Vigorous Youth were then & there sown. Every Man of an immense crouded Audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take Arms against Writs of Assistants. Then and there was the first scene of the first Act of opposition to the Arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the Child Independence was born. In fifteen years i.e. in 1776. he grew up to Manhood, & declared himself free.,,,"[emphasis mine]
I point that out, because it underlines the importance of what is perhaps most remarkable about what the Declaration of Independence's author, Thomas Jefferson, considered to be the least remarkable aspect of it - that he intended the Declaration as an expression of ideas that were familiar and commonly understood, by the majority of Americans, of that time, as Jefferson wrote to a friend in later years, about what it was meant to accomplish:
"Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c..."
That is why we are unique in the annals of human history, as being a nation founded upon ideas (those twits mouthing on about 'inherent American anti-intellectualism' can kiss my patriotic ass). And those common ideas, and their influence, continued to serve as strong guides for the later creation of our Constitution, can be easily found in even a cursory reading, between the charges of the Declaration of Independence against King George, and their reflection in our Constitution and the amendments to it, and ...
"To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World."
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
"HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries."
  • The first three articles of our Constitution, divides Govt into three branches, which prevent any one person or wing from attaining a monopoly of power over the others.
"HE has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance."
  • This is what our Constitution was expressly designed to forbid, which unfortunately is what the pro-regressive Administrative State, was erected upon it to encourage (as was our politically instituted educational system) - proof that Laws that do not live in the hearts and minds of the people, cannot protect them against themselves
"HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures. HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power."
  • Congress has control of organizing and funding the military budget, and while the Executive has command of the military, he can not do much, for long, without the further consent of the people's representatives, and in all ways, the military is under civil control.
"FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us"
"FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States"
"FOR cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World"
"FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
"FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury"
, and if you take the time to read both, you will find many, many, more points of harmony between the two.

But enough, onto Calvin Coolidge's speech, and a happy Independence Day to you all!

The Inspiration of the Declaration of Independence
Given in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 5, 1926:

President Calvin Coolidge
We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event that we annually observe the fourth day of July. Whatever may have been the impression created by the news which went out from this city on that summer day in 1776, there can be no doubt as to the estimate which is now placed upon it. At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgment of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world.

Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human
experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.

It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.

It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose they have become sanctified.

It is not here necessary to examine in detail the causes which led to the American Revolution. In their immediate occasion they were largely economic. The colonists objected to the navigation laws which interfered with their trade, they denied the power of Parliament to impose taxes which they were obliged to pay, and they therefore resisted the royal governors and the royal forces which were sent to secure obedience to these laws. But the conviction is inescapable that a new civilization had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.

We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them. The Continental Congress was not only composed of great men, but it represented a great people. While its members did not fail to exercise a remarkable leadership, they were equally observant of their representative capacity. They were industrious in encouraging their constituents to instruct them to support independence. But until such instructions were given they were inclined to withhold action.

While North Carolina has the honor of first authorizing its delegates to concur with other Colonies in declaring independence, it was quickly followed by South Carolina and Georgia, which also gave general instructions broad enough to include such action. But the first instructions which unconditionally directed its delegates to declare for independence came from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These were immediately followed by Rhode Island and Massachusetts, while the other Colonies, with the exception of New York, soon adopted a like course.

This obedience of the delegates to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land.

When we come to examine the action of the Continental Congress in adopting the Declaration of Independence in the light of what was set out in that great document and in the light of succeeding events, we can not escape the conclusion that it had a much broader and deeper significance than a mere secession of territory and the establishment of a new nation. Events of that nature have been taking place since the dawn of history. One empire after another has arisen, only to crumble away as its constituent parts separated from each other and set up independent governments of their own. Such actions long ago became commonplace. They have occurred too often to hold the attention of the world and command the admiration and reverence of humanity. There is something beyond the establishment of a new nation, great as that event would be, in the Declaration of Independence which has ever since caused it to be regarded as one of the great charters that not only was to liberate America but was everywhere to ennoble humanity.

It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.

If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination. But remarkable as this may be, it is not the chief distinction of the Declaration of Independence. The importance of political speculation is not to be under-estimated, as I shall presently disclose. Until the idea is developed and the plan made there can be no action.

It was the fact that our Declaration of Independence containing these immortal truths was the political action of a duly authorized and constituted representative public body in its sovereign capacity, supported by the force of general opinion and by the armies of Washington already in the field, which makes it the most important civil document in the world. It was not only the principles declared, but the fact that therewith a new nation was born which was to be founded upon those principles and which from that time forth in its development has actually maintained those principles, that makes this pronouncement an incomparable event in the history of government. It was an assertion that a people had arisen determined to make every necessary sacrifice for the support of these truths and by their practical application bring the War of Independence to a successful conclusion and adopt the Constitution of the United States with all that it has meant to civilization.

The idea that the people have a right to choose their own rulers was not new in political history. It was the foundation of every popular attempt to depose an undesirable king. This right was set out with a good deal of detail by the Dutch when as early as July 26, 1581, they declared their independence of Philip of Spain. In their long struggle with the Stuarts the British people asserted the same principles, which finally culminated in the Bill of Rights deposing the last of that house and placing William and Mary on the throne. In each of these cases sovereignty through divine right was displaced by sovereignty through the consent of the people. Running through the same documents, though expressed in different terms, is the clear inference of inalienable rights. But we should search these charters in vain for an assertion of the doctrine of equality. This principle had not before appeared as an official political declaration of any nation. It was profoundly revolutionary. It is one of the corner stones of American institutions.

But if these truths to which the declaration refers have not before been adopted in their combined entirety by national authority, it is a fact that they had been long pondered and often expressed in political speculation. It is generally assumed that French thought had some effect upon our public mind during Revolutionary days. This may have been true. But the principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations before the advent of the French political philosophy that characterized the middle of the eighteenth century. In fact, they come from an earlier date. A very positive echo of what the Dutch had done in 1581, and what the English were preparing to do, appears in the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that:
The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people

The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance.

This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise, entitled "The Church's Quarrel Espoused," in 1710 which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers.

While the written word was the foundation, it is apparent that the spoken word was the vehicle for convincing the people. This came with great force and wide range from the successors of Hooker and Wise, It was carried on with a missionary spirit which did not fail to reach the Scotch Irish of North Carolina, showing its influence by significantly making that Colony the first to give instructions to its delegates looking to independence. This preaching reached the neighborhood of Thomas Jefferson, who acknowledged that his "best ideas of democracy" had been secured at church meetings.

That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that "All men are created equally free and independent". It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, "Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man". Again, "The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth . . . ." And again, "For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine". And still again, "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state". Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.

When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature's God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say "The people seem to recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven."

No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit.

Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.

If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self government; the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that "Democracy is Christ's government". The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty.

On an occasion like this a great temptation exists to present evidence of the practical success of our form of democratic republic at home and the ever broadening acceptance it is securing abroad. Although these things are well known, their frequent consideration is an encouragement and an inspiration. But it is not results and effects so much as sources and causes that I believe it is even more necessary constantly to contemplate. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.

It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. They undertook the balance these interests against each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with checks against each other in order that neither one might encroach upon the other. These are our guaranties of liberty. As a result of these methods enterprise has been duly protected from confiscation, the people have been free from oppression, and there has been an ever broadening and deepening of the humanities of life.

Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live. While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great as that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power.

No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.

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Happy Independence Day America! **************************

In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

North Carolina
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts
John Hancock

Maryland
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

Massachusetts
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire
Matthew Thornton

Friday, June 27, 2025

What the Right misses in current events, that the Wokesters (Left & Right) never do

I've watched several news cycles come and go since I started on this post, and what eventually caught my interest in it then, has been evident in each of the newer news cycles since then, and in most of the ones preceding it. This particular incident is from four or five news cycles back, where a woman named Shilow Hendrix was videoed on a playground calling a child, and the person videoing her, the 'n-word'. This was the one where the videographer promised to punish her by making it go viral on the internet, which it did, but in an unexpected wrinkle, wound up reaping her nearly a million dollars through online contributions to a Givesendgo account. I'd initially described my attitude towards that at the time as being 'rabidly uninterested' in it, but as I poked about in the responses to it, and noticed these features regularly persisting across our news cycles, it turns out that despite the event itself being a few cycles behind the 'news', it's still very timely.

The best and most level-headed point for point commentary on that 'event' itself, came from Isiah (though you may want to gird your ears, because Isiah, as he describes it, is commenting from that part of New York City that uses the F'word as a comma). One of the worst features of the issue is that the worst parts didn't come from the pro-regressive Wokesters of the Left & Right ('a turd by any other name would reek the same'), but from the reactions to it from those of the Left, Right, and Center, who've been trying and mostly failing, to be 'Based' in their responses to it.

What nudged me into writing this post, was the responses to James Lindsay's response, to Matt Walsh's response to the video, which is what got me to finally watch the original video. Regarding Lindsay's commentary, aside from a couple minor digs at Walsh in the latter half of the last paragraph that didn't seem necessary, I agreed with his points and with why he made them, as well as with his conclusion that while Walsh isn't 'Woke Right', several of his takes on the issue are wrong in both particulars and principles.

There were three particular issues in Walsh's commentary that caught my attention, the nature of which I recognized from other news cycles before and since. Which can be picked out in Walsh's:
  1. ...opinion of what the 'actual issue' is and is not,
  2. ...opinion of what contributing cash to unsavory people in difficult circumstances, will and will not accomplish
  3. ...Miss Manners-like take on the proper usage of the 'n-word'.
1) The Issue is never about the issue...
The first part of that, begins at the 10.29 mark, where Walsh states what far too many people believe about issues such as this:
'...the most important parameter is that the person is white' [and] '...soley based upon...'
It's painful to still have to say this in 2025, but Race is not the issue. Despite all attempts to make it seem like the reason, Race and 'Whiteness', are not that. Not even when the issue is specifically about targeting 'white people' for the need to redress the systemic racism of their 'Whiteness'.

How can I say that "It's not about race!", when they actually say that it's about race? Easy. It's because their issues are never about what they claim to be about. You can see what I mean for yourself by asking yourself this:
  • Do you see the Woke Left embracing Thomas Sowell on the basis of his race?
  • Do you see the Woke Right embracing James Lindsay on the basis of his race?
  • Do you think the Woke Left began vandalizing Tesla's because of their sudden hatred for the way Tesla manufactured their electric cars & trucks?
See what I mean? Although Race was the vehicle, it was not what drove the Hendrix video, just as it's not what's driving the current news cycle's evasion of the nature of Illegal Immigration (or of "regime change" in the Israel/Iran conflict), and it's frustrating to still be addressing this in 2025, as if people have forgotten Alinsky's dictum:
"The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution!"
, which was the case in the 70s when Alinsky made his point, as has been the case since the Fergusson riots of 2014 here in St. Louis and on through the George Floyd summer of 2020, and it has been the case that has persisted case in education for decades, as I pointed out in these posts on SEL, DEI, CRT in 2021:
Appearances are meant to be deceiving - and destructive
What we are led to believe by all of this, and by the media reporting on it, is that it's all about Race, all about *whiteness*, and all about *white supremacy*, but... believe it or not, it's not really about race. If your reaction is "They're talking about racism, they're calling me a racist, it feels a lot like it's about race... and I'm not going to tolerate it!", that's understandable, and you know what? They understand that that will be your reaction too. Think about that. My dear binary ladies and gents, when the enemy has gone to such great lengths to prepare the ground for you to fight them on, you’d be wise to think twice before fighting them there.

IOW: It's a trap! Seriously. Don’t go there. They go to great lengths to make this appear to be all about race, but it’s not about race, and no matter how many actual racists are involved - and there are many - Race is just the most convenient means of sowing dissension and causing division; the easiest means of putting people on edge; the easiest means of pitting people against each other; which is the easiest means of turning people's good intentions into the means of subduing them, so as to seize more of what this is all about: Power.

Don’t take the bait, don’t bother telling them that you’re not a racist or that they are; don’t tell them they’ve got you all wrong; because those are the very steps that they want you to take, as they will lead you smack dab into the kill zone that they’ve prepared for you...."
The power the Wokesters are pursuing, feeds upon division and discord, which requires suppressing their opponents ability to reason well. If you keep that perspective in mind, it becomes clear that Race is simply one of those issues (along with illegal aliens, gender, class, 1%, etc.,) that the pro-regressive Woke (Left & Right) know will be an effective means of stirring up anger & division amongst Americans, which is what they use to further their actual purposes - the revolution. And as the bewildered owners of Tesla cars & trucks can attest to - having gone from being treated as a kind of cool, virtuous, elite, to being attacked as the scum of society, to being all but forgotten about in the current news cycle - whatever the 'issue' of the moment actually is, is nothing more than what the Woke think will most effectively serve their purposes at that particular moment, and they can & will spin around on a dime the moment they feel the moment has changed.

You might well ask just how much value there is in knowing that 'the issue isn't the issue', when weighed against the real harm that real people suffer from bearing the brunt of the issue being raised. After all:
  • Don't Tesla owners have very real cause for anger over the very real harm that's been done to them?
  • Don't Tesla owners have a real basis for seeking satisfaction?
Yes, absolutely and undoubtedly. And sure, for the Tesla owners to know that they weren't the reason they were targeted, is unlikely to make them feel a whole lot better. But be that as it may, wouldn't it be at best mistaken, and at the very least foolish & destructive, to propose making it up to those Tesla owners, by vandalizing Ford, GM, Chrysler cars, penalizing their owners, and forcing them to yield to Tesla's in traffic, as if those owners and their Tesla's were the issue?

Just as that special treatment would do nothing but stoke the same flames of agitation & division which the Wokesters' were intending to enflame all along, treating 'Race' or 'Whiteness' as issues that justify singling the particular targets of the moment out for recompensation, would be far worse than merely pointless and counterproductive.

I understand want to approach the issue logically and make a straight forward response to it, but you need to remember that the fundamental requirement of a logical argument is that your premises be true, and when you attempt to form a logical response that's based upon a false premise that they fabricated to set you up with, it's not going to improve your position at all. When you rush into the argument that they've prepared for you, like Walsh does, with logic, facts, & charges locked & loaded for a clear cut reasonable argument to a point they tricked you into defending, you're going to find that you've brought the proverbial knife to a gunfight as they easily brush your facts, premises, and arguments aside in the most irrational manner possible, while subjecting you to being smeared with charges you won't be able to reasonably understand, and which will leave you with no means for arguing against them.

To repeat, when someone who considers you to be their enemy, carefully prepares a battleground to battle you upon, it is unwise to go meeting them on that ground at the time and place of their choosing!

To borrow a phrase... 'Wake Up!' (ahem).

By allowing yourself to be sucked into angrily treating these issues as anything other than a pretext for screwing our entire society over with, you and those you associate with, are likely to get sucked into helping them advance the Wokester's goals. Don't do that.

2) Ideological incentives trump economic incentives (which undermine your ability to act on what is right)
The 2nd issue I saw was Walsh's hot take on using the power of Economics to shape society closer to his heart (!), in that he believed Shiloh Hendrix getting rich off her crude behavior, would provide *us* with the incentive & means for cancelling Cancel Culture. That begins at the 14.08 mark:
'... effectively ended cancel culture... and I think that's right...', and that the '...only way to disincentivize that behavior is to reward the person who's being targeted...', and that '... the only thing that can stop them, the thing that can make them think twice about doing this again, is if they know that instead of getting their target cancelled, they might accidentally make them rich. And more importantly, even than the money ...they must know that their attempt to isolate, to ostracize somebody, will fail...'

, and that at 15.50

'...that for every person condemning the targeted person to more, will rally to their defense...', and at 16.20 '...with this case, that assumption has been flipped on its head, because now the mob knows, that making them famous, might help them, rather than hurt them, rather than the fame being punished, it's being rewarded...'
Sorry, but on two levels, one being how incentives work, and the other being what ideological people are incentivized by, I answer an emphatic no.

Reminder, 'economics' was Marx's means of destabilizing the West, and 'Capitalism' was the term he used to 'polarize it, freeze it' the Free Market with.
In the first case, treating cancel culture as an economic behavior, is at the very least mistaking the nature of economic incentives. Haven't we all seen the Wokester's get publicly skewered in backlashes that financially penalized them for their actions. That happened with the case of Nick Sandman, the Covington High School student targeted by media at the Washington monument, who won millions of dollars in settlements from the Washington Post, NBC, and CNN. It happened in Elon Musk's lawsuit against Media Matters, and Peter Theil/Hulk Hogan's suit against Gawker.

With such obvious economics disincentives involved, have the media changed? No? Gee... it's almost as if something else is motivating them...isn't it? Clearly such 'economic issues' are neither incentives or disincentives for their ideological behavior, but you can be assured that they will double down on continuing to go 'Forward!', if such setbacks mean guaranteeing even more public focus upon the same divisive ideological messages they're using to divide us with.

Of course the Wokesters (Left & Right) would prefer to see the person's life they targeted destroyed - that's in the nature of those who look first to Power - but for them that small bit of destruction is just a 'happy side-effect', of the more destructive revolution they seek. Whatever the issue may have been or soon will be, they are chosen for their ability to stir up publicity and division across society, and they have no meaning for them beyond that (hello: Nihilists!), but so long as their revolution is being served, such small setbacks of prosperity for those they targeted, will be taken in stride as little more than 'unfortunate' collateral damage, so long as it furthers the division & discord that the initial action was intended to ignite in the first place.

So when they see one of their targets like Shilow Hendrix getting a million dollars, which stirs up even more publicity, and stirs up still more division amongst the 'normies' over 'someone like her' benefitting from it, and they take the bait of feeling targeted for 'being white', and that leads them more deeply into 'economic thinking' - then since they are only reaping more of what they initially targeted her for, to begin with - what is there for the Wokesters not to like?!

But to think that someone else - vulgar or not - being economically rewarded or penalized could be even a way, let alone the only way, to deter the ideological fervor behind cancel culture, is to utterly and completely miss what 'this' is all about. On just the 'economics of it' alone, it entirely misreads what 'economic incentives' are - valid 'economic incentives' aren't about what another person receives, but what you personally seek to gain, or avoid losing. And because of the way such incentives actually do work, when people see that those who've been publicly cancelled, could be actually gaining money from Givesendgo dollars because they were targeted, what that's most likely to incentivize is others of similarly questionable character, seeking out similar situations (staged even) so that they can try to appeal to the 'Based' internet and fill up their own Givesendgo's with mega bucks (which seemed to have already happened. Go figure), which, of course, is likely to garner still more of the very same publicity, division, and discord, that the Wokesters sought to inflame us with in the first place.

More importantly, the 'economics' of what 'this' is all about, is that getting you to think about all such issue in economic terms, as Walsh advises, is fundamentally engaging in the act of putting utilitarian ends over doing what is right & best, which cancel culture and everything which makes it possible and probable, fundamentally depends upon your thinking!

Or to picture their words:
James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames
Everything the Woke Left does is in service to its revolution. Every issue it takes up is just a crowbar against the society they hate. This is why you get things like Queers for Palestine and these LA riots. It's also all strategic, which is why a weekend of protest comes next.
Getting you to not only go along with, but to engage in the farcical 'ethics' of 'the Ends justify the means' (which is exactly what the modern field of Economics hinges upon - see my extended post 'Exiting the wizards circle'), is a means of causing your ethical sense to collapse, which is a huge incentive - and primary goal - for them.

The notion of using 'economic incentives' which have no value for the Pro-Regressive Wokester's of the Left or Right (are you using Marx's definition of Value, or Bastiat's?), as a means to end Cancel Culture, can and will have no worthwhile outcome. The Woke are not economically motivated - economics is often their means but it's not their motive - what motivates them is their ideology, and while they will be radically inflamed when they see that those they've attacked are benefitting from that attack - that's not going to incentivize them to back off, it's going to rile them up into going further & faster forward.

IOW, like the Tesla's, the person or issue being attacked is not the target, the narrative & disturbances generated from that attack, is, because:
'The issue is never the issue, it is always the revolution!'
They attack whatever particulars present themselves as seeming useful in promoting their ideology and/or the beliefs that they're associating with them, as that's the best means of elevating their ability to cause further divisions, so as to intimidate the 'wrong people', and further their revolution.

So, sorry, but no, Capitalism is not going to solve society's faulty and failing ideology, it's only going to provide its enemies more of what they seek, while producing more fire for the revolution - which actually is the only 'problem of production' that they passionately desire to solve. And prescribing Capitalism to cure a philosophical cancer, is at best philosophical malpractice and economic incompetence, and there will be no cure forthcoming from such a misdiagnosis as that, and no benefits will follow from whatever additional 'cures' might be prescribed based upon them.

3) If you don't use The Master's Tools correctly, they will use them against you
The third point that I saw persisting across the news cycles, is visible in Walsh's 'Miss Manners' approach to the issue of the proper use of the 'n word'.
20.30 '...totally indefensible...' (one side can say n word, other can't) ...' and ''...if it's wrong to say the word, then it's wrong for anyone to say the word, then they need to not say it...'
They don't defend using the 'n' word, because that isn't their point in using it. Your reaction to their use of the 'n word' is the point of their actions, and here you are thinking that the best plan is to start using the 'n word' as a means of taking a principled stand? To what?! Do you really think that the way they use the 'n word' is the result of a logical or grammatical error on their part? Do you really think that your principled arguments and logical corrections, are going to... what, correct their accidental logical & grammatical errors, and somehow teach or shame them into the proper usage of improper language?!


Really?! Well... thank you Mr. Helper, but I think you need to pay a bit more attention to what they think about your principles and logic ('Ah! Ahh! AHHH!!!' 😎).

See, for instance (as I noted in this post), how Audre Lord gave their answer to that approach, a great many news cycle ago:
That strategic intent was perhaps most vividly illustrated by Audre Lorde, the Marxist, black, lesbian, feminist, activist (do you feel "the exasperated etc” in that listing?), whose infamous statement has become a rallying cry of what Deconstructionism is all about:
"the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."
Get it?
  • The Master's House that they want to dismantle (deconstruct) is the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian West.
  • The Masters Tools which they've realized are of no use to them - and which they want to keep out of other people's hands as well, are Reason and Logic and the culture which values them.
Whenever their activist followers and functionaries do and say seemingly senseless, illogical, and unreasonable things, from demanding the use of ridiculous pronouns, to claims of being "non-binary!", or labeling you (meaning any Westerner of any color) as a 'White Supremacist', they're not doing so because they're fools, but because those illogical and unreasonable words and actions are the most suitable tools at hand in their Post-Modernist toolbelt, for them to utilize as 'the right tools for the job' of dismantling 'The Master's House', by producing reactions of discomfort and anger in you, which deconstructs its fundamental norms from within you.
Their 'unfairness' and irrationality are not a result of errors or inconsistencies, and they're not driven by the pursuit of the profit motive, what their actions are, are calculated attacks upon your Logos, and if you don't learn to shield yourself from them, instead of engaging with them (hello Trojan Horse), your mind is going to end up dead (say hello to the battlefield they've prepared for you to fight them upon).

Using the 'n word' is not about the word, it's about the attention it so easily inflames, so as to cause anxiety and division amongst Americans, in order to (wait for it...) further their revolution. And Walsh's plan to use such words to make a point and defend the language, is nothing more than accepting their engraved invitation to meet them on the battlefield at the time and place which they've very carefully chosen, for you to fight them upon.

Come on, do I need to say it again? 'Wake Up!' (sheesh).
'the issue is never the issue, it is always the revolution'!!!
Everything Woke (Left and Right) goes to sh*t
To think that the Pro-Regressive Woke (Left and Right) are going to act in accordance with the very reality they're revolting against, is foolish. Yet Walsh and most of the Right, fail to recognize that what they think of as being the reality-based perspective they're making their observations from, is not a perspective or conception of reality that the Wokesters are working from.

Your being offended by it, has no other effect than to further their goals. You are, as Stephen Coughlin puts it, reacting to the blast radius of the bombs that their dialectical airplane began dropping on you several news cycles ago, instead of looking upwards note to identify, target, and shoot down the plane that's dropping them (See his posts on the Dialectical Airplane, and xTweets on it being used to attack the Constitution).

If you take a moment to look at matters from a wider & higher perspective (which, BTW, is what modern schooling was designed from its start in the early 1800s to stop you from doing), it'll reveal that the goading particulars like 'whiteness' or 'white guilt' are little more than successful marketing campaigns for selling the woke Kool-Aid, and the 'normies' are putting their money down for it, hand over fist. See the threads on the subject from "Yuri Bezmenov's Ghost", and especially Melanie Bennet's (@finkledusty) excellent post: "Settlers, Colonizers, and the Politics of White Guilt"
"...When Indigenous activists say the land was never ceded, they are saying they did not agree to your presence. If the land was never given up, then you are on it without permission. And if you are there without permission, then you are, in their words, a settler, an uninvited guest, a colonizer. That language is not poetry. It is the language of eviction.

The Land Back movement is a political engine that lurks behind these acknowledgements. Its premise is simple: land taken, or unceded, must be returned. The implication, however, is far from simple. If the goal is to restore land to its rightful owners, then those currently living on it have a problem. You cannot be both a permanent citizen and a temporary trespasser. If you tell people for long enough that the land they occupy was stolen, and that they have no rightful claim to it, you should not be surprised when they begin to believe it. And once they believe it, you should not be surprised when Land Back activists begin to act on their demands.

The idea that land belongs inherently to a particular racial or ethnic group is not a new one. In another time and place, it was called "blood and soil." The Nazis used the concept to fuse national identity to ancestral land, arguing that a people and their territory were bound by bloodline. Outsiders had no place in this worldview because they did not share the sacred connection to the soil. Land was not just property. It was the vessel of cultural survival. The Land Back movement, while vastly different in moral tone and historical context, mirrors this framework in structure. It binds land to identity, and identity to legitimacy. The result is a form of ethno-territorial politics...."
While the Woke Left style the concept as "Land Back Movement", the Woke Right style the very same concept as "Heritage American" to do the very same thing. What We The People need to realize, is that both flavors of Woke benefit from whichever way the coin toss of affordance-based narratives (authentic/other, Sex/Genders, Rich/Poor, White/POC) turns out. They are all a means of nudging the populace into the same activist Praxis, and all of their 'competing' aims are used to halt objective thought in those who stop and react to them, so as to instill in the sense in everyone that only recourse we have for deciding our fates are contests of power (AKA: The Revolution).

Left or Right: "...the most intolerant faction will eventually enforce a rigid orthodoxy on its environment " if allowed the chance...".
The fact that Matt Walsh and so many others still fall for the current issues of the moment being all about the same old pretexts of race, economics, language (which are but the same old pro-regressive (Woke) concepts & theories in new clothing), is nothing but a win for both sides of the Wokester's coin being flipped, and a loss for the realist perspective which they imagine they are upholding. Big time. The mayhem of the moment are consequences, not causes. The anti-reality framework of the Pro-Regressive Woke (Left & Right), is what they use to instill, invoke, and utilize the 'benefits' of the chaos we experience from their issues, and our falling for it - pro or con - helps them to fan the flames of their revolution.

Steal their Motte and bomb their Bailey
If you want to fight back against the Pro-Regressive Woke (Left & Right), you first have to decline to be enraged by their provocations, and instead identify the Classical American Liberal principles that they're trying to avoid and subvert (and yes, you need to be familiar with them, to recognize them), in order to strip them of their rhetorical defenses and ability to attack you.

Without going into the details here (which you can find all the details of here and here), what you want to do is to steal their Motte and bomb their Bailey - their Bailey being the wild charges they rush around attacking you with, such as either 'We're being systemically oppressed by your whiteness!' or 'Whiteness is under attack!', and the Motte being the more reasonable sounding defense which they retreat to when called on the ridiculousness of their tactics, with something like 'We're just trying to be fair.'

It's important to realize that when you fail to look beyond their distractions and take the 'Race!' bait, you help generate the rhetorical energy they need to strengthen their evasions of the principle(s) that you should be relying upon. It's also essential to realize that your beliefs are the source of the 'strength' of their arguments; they absolutely rely upon your having only a vague sense of what is just and fair (and even less familiarity with the principles they try to make you evade), so as to employ Alinsky's 'use their own virtues/rules against them' tactic against you, so as to demand a concession from you (whether in support of DEI or 'Heritage American' policies) as a demonstration of your commitment to 'fairness', which unbeknownst to you is but a veiled attack upon the principle that could have saved you from it.

But if you can manage to step out of the perspective of whichever narrative they've generated, and identify the principle that they're aiming at subverting & distracting you from (which in the case of the 'Race' narrative, whether Woke Left or Woke Right, is that of the equality of individual rights before objective laws of justice), you'll find that their own narratives will provide you the means of unraveling them.

To do so, you need only reframe their narrative in such a way as to put the spotlight back onto what they're trying so desperately to stop you from engaging with, by feeding a completely negative version of it back to them, which brings it to the forefront of discussion. By combining that with clearly withdrawing your support from what they are expecting you to stand up for - fairness and justice - you force them to hold to their own rules (their claim that truth isn't objective and Power is all that matters), which with no support from you to prop them up, will force them to face up to their own pathetic reliance upon what you stand for - and that effectively flips their script.

NOTE: I'm not suggesting anything like using Alinsky's or Gramsci's rules, but only that you withdraw from them the aid of what you believe to be true, which is the only real strength they can count on, and the only strength that their system ever had! IOW: Shrug!

That may sound like a lot, but the explanation is way longer than the application of it needs to be, which can be as simple as something like:
  • "Well... if objective truth is an illusion and Power is what society uses to say what is right & wrong, and 'we' have the power, then why should we see a problem with systemic racism?
  • "If 'we' have the power, and everything is about power, doesn't that means that crushing the weaker folk, is the 'right' thing to do?"
    [You need to realize that this is what they want power over you, to do to you]
  • , and then to bring their walls down, ask them to give you a good reason (which they will resist, see "The Master's Tools" above) why 'they' shouldn't be imposed upon with every bit of power you can bring against them?... and say nothing more as you watch them try to squirm around the need to use or mention concepts such as objectivity, individual rights, an objective Rule of Law, and equal justice for all.

    This highlights the fact that in a power oriented system that has no concept of fairness (something that's only possible to one that respects what's real and true, and people are able to comprehend), anyone complaining of being oppressed by a greater power through 'systemic racism', is counting on you who believes in Truth over Power, to insist that they be treated fairly. If you withdraw that expectation of support, then the only defense they can give, is one that depends upon a classical Western understanding of what is real and true, along with a respect for individual rights under a justifiable rule of law, and doing so destroys their entire modernist position.

    And adding insult to injury, any additional response they might try to make, implicitly counts upon everyone's ability to recognize, and communicate, and understand, what is objectively true (which, it's worth noting, affects them like garlic, crosses, and holy water, affects a vampire).

    Personally, I think that it'd be best if we stopped helping them to get away with such narratives. How about you?

    Stop the cycle
    To close, I do not think that Matt Walsh is Woke (yet, though the adjacency that he's maintaining to those who are Woke Right, puts him on unsteady ground), but his & so many other people's reactions which mistake secondary effects for primary causes, become issues that further the revolution that the Woke (Left & Right) seek. Denying the existence of the Woke Right, which does exist and is using the issue every bit as much as the Woke Left is, for their shared goals of furthering the divisions needed for revolution - is blinding ourselves to half of the reality of what's going on.

    Every time we fall for identifying any of their particular issues of the current news cycle, as being about anything other than their ongoing revolution, we enable them to use our issues to pour further fuel on the flames of their revolution. The incentives they seek are not to be found in monetary gains or losses, or in winning debates, but in the divisions & disruptions they think are needed to tear down the Master's house - and again, you need look no further than how the controversies of Matt Walsh, Shiloh Hendrix, and advice on using the 'n word', are furthering their revolution on all sides of 'The Right'.

    We should stop doing that. In every news cycle

    Monday, May 26, 2025

    Re-membering Memorial Day, once again

    American war dead, Flanders Field, Belgium
    Remembering, once again... Memorial Day... it is enough to remember today those who have fallen in defense of our nation. But it's not all we can do, for them or for us, and to leave it there, I think, deprives them, and you, of an important part of what they died for. It seems to me that you can remember them even more completely if you will remember what it was that they gave their lives in defense of. If you remember why it was that their lives came to be remembered on this day, then you can in some sense repay them and also deepen your own position in your own life.

    Do you remember what Memorial Day was designated for you to remember? It has changed over the years, but it began as 'Decoration Day', back in 1868, on May 30th, a day chosen because it didn't mark the anniversary of any battle - an important point - as a day to officially mark, what people had unofficially been doing across the land on their own for some while, decorating the many, many graves of those who had 'died in the late rebellion'. After WWI, when many more graves were dug, the day was changed to Memorial Day to remember all of those who have died in service of their country, in all of its wars.

    But what does it mean to remember? What can it do? Remember... the members of our lives who were lost can never be re-membered... those who are gone are gone forever, but in the service of... what? Why did they give their lives? Why decorate the graves of soldiers, those who have gone before their time, lives which were violently lost... why? Family and friends will remember their fallen family and friends, they have no need of a national holiday to do that, there is no use for you who they do not know to pretend to remember those you never knew - but that is not what we pause this day to remember.

    What did their untimely deaths have to do with your life here and now?

    Does their death have any relevance to your life? Asking another question might put us closer to the trail, what relevance can your life have to your nation without remembering why they lost theirs?

    Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who gave their lives, the 'last full measure of devotion' in the service of the United States of America, but not just to their homeland - any country can do that, and they do - nothing exceptional there.

    But we are an exceptional nation, and simple remembrance will not do, because simply defending their homeland is not what they did or why they did it.

    Why did they do it? What did it mean?

    Maybe it'll help by looking at it from the perspective of the Oath which led them into the military life which put their own lives at risk for yours,
    "I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
    That is what they risked and lost their lives for, was it worth it? Do you grant their lost lives a value in yours? And that is the heart of it isn't it? Does the life they lost have value in yours?

    Well, if you can say the words "your life", as something you live, something which you value and have some measure of control over, then yes, their lives were lost in service of your being able to think of your life as yours, and that - that is something which should cause you a spasmed breath, one abruptly caught in your chest in reverence and awe... that another's last breath was let go as 'darkness veiled his eyes' not just so that you could draw your previous, current and next breath as you wish, but so you could do so in a state of liberty.

    Now I think we're getting closer to re-membering them and memorializing their life, through yours. Let's chase that a little further.

    What does it take to say 'your life'? What does it take to live your life? What must you do, absent simply having others take care of you, what must you do to live? First off, you must use your head, you must think... but just thinking isn't enough to continue living, after all, you could very well choose to think that by imagining very clearly and distinctly that your shoe would become a salmon if you declare it so, but such thinking would do nothing to advance your life. For your thinking to benefit your life, it must be productive, and to do that it must reflect reality... your life will continue on only if at least some of your ideas help you to transform the reality you face on a daily basis into those materials and conditions which benefit your life... food, shelter, etc, IOW 'nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed'.

    For your life, to be lived, you must be free to think, for your thoughts to benefit your life you must see to it that they respect reality - cherish truth -  for your freedom of thought to be anything other than a mockery, you must be free to put them into action, and again, for your thoughts and your actions to be a benefit to you, rather than a mockery, you must be free to retain and use that which your thoughts and actions have produced, and what they produce is called property.

    Today, for the lives we remember having been lost, to have meaning and value to us, your life must be able to be lived in the spirit which they gave their own lives up for, that of liberty; the liberty to live your life in the pursuit of happiness in your life.

    Those we memorialize today gave their last full measure of devotion in service of the document which makes that possible, the Constitution of the United States of America, a document which outlines the ideas necessary for ensuring your ability to live your life, in liberty and pursuing happiness. They gave their life for the ideas which best reflect the reality of life and the requirements of man living in liberty so that in his life, if he applies his thoughts to actions which serve to produce the materials he needs, that will enable you to live your life and pursue the happiness you seek in life, secure in that property which you expend the actions of your life in producing.

    The Constitution was designed to do just that. It was worth fighting and risking death for, because it was seen as the means to securing a life worth living for, for themselves, their families, and their posterity - you.

    The Constitution, was designed with a profound understanding of human nature in mind, and was structured in such a way as to give voice to the major perspectives of life so that:
    • - the people at large, concerned in the issues of the moment, shall have a voice in the House of Representatives
    • - the states shall have a voice through those people who have lived successful will have a perspective favorable for preserving everyone's property through their voice in the Senate
    • - these two perspectives shall be combined to use create legislation operating for the benefit of the people, within certain enumerated powers
    • - when both houses agree upon laws, the nation has a voice in the President as chief executive, to reject or sign legislation into law and see to it that the laws of the land are faithfully executed
    • - the law itself has a voice in the Judicial branch which is concerned that laws are applied justly to the people in whose name they were written
    These branches are structured in such a way, utilizing the famous checks and balances, so as to have just enough interest in the other branches as to wish to see them function well, as well as to wish to preserve their own branches from becoming slighted and unbalanced.

    The founders knew well that most states fall into ruin not under promises of harm but under promises to better the conditions of one group or another for the betterment of all. And so our system is designed to keep each branches desires to 'do good' in check, by the other branches benefit as well, and that none gains power over the others - each must see 'their point' of the other and work together, securing a state that enables you to live your life in pursuit of happiness.

    But the people who ratified the constitution didn't think that the original document, which united government into balanced cooperation, was enough to secure the liberty and freedom of the governed, and so they insisted that it also specifically uphold and defend a few key rights, Rights which long experience as Englishmen... and then as Americans deprived of those rights, knew would be required to prevent a new tyrant from turning their government against their liberty 'for their own good'. They demanded the Constitution be amended to secure the peoples liberty to live their own lives, secure in their property and associations and activities which seemed to them to best hold the promise of pursuing happiness through, and that produced the Bill of Rights.

    This foundation of government was and is an ordering of ideas, designed to enable each persons actions the liberty to act and secure their property without violating others rights in pursuit of the same, so that each person can have the incredible gift of being able to live their own lives as they see fit.

    This is the Constitution which was, and still is, worth fighting for, and risking dying for, because it makes possible the kind of life worth living, lives in which each person might choose to pursue; and the idea of living in service to that, of making not only your own, but others lives livable... is a glorious pursuit, and those in the military who offered up their life in service of it... they are truly worth our pausing on at least one day a year, in solemn remembrance of the life they offered up to make your life a possibility.

    Remember them, thank them, and with them in mind demand the liberty to live your life secured under, and securing, those laws which they gave up their life defending, do that, and you will truly be memorializing their lives and making their sacrifice worthwhile.

    In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields, Moina Michael replied with her own poem for Memorial Day:
    We cherish too, the Poppy red
     That grows on fields where valor led,
     It seems to signal to the skies
     That blood of heroes never dies.


    In Flanders Fields John McCrae, 1915.
     In Flanders fields the poppies blow
     Between the crosses, row on row
     That mark our place; and in the sky
     The larks, still bravely singing, fly
     Scarce heard amid the guns below.
     We are the Dead. Short days ago
     We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
     Loved and were loved, and now we lie
     In Flanders fields.
    Take up our quarrel with the foe:

    To you from failing hands we throw
     The torch; be yours to hold it high.
     If ye break faith with us who die
     We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
     In Flanders fields.