Scalia's death does not (in my mind) signal that war is inevitable. I reached the conclusion that war was coming from a different line of thought. Consider this: despite having been in elected office for a thousand years, Bernie Sanders is considered an outsider. Donald J Trump is certainly an outsider, and it's arguable that the three candidates with the best chances of taking the Stupid Party nomination are all outsiders to some degree. An all outsider election in the fall is distinctly possible. (As an aside, the name Donald J Trump reminds me how so many cartoon characters have J as their middle initial: Elmer J Fudd, Rocket J Squirrel, Homer J Simpson...)
What the attraction to so-called outsiders tells us is that both sides think their mainstream parties aren't doing what they want them to do. The important part is that the liberty minded people on the right feel that the last 15 years or so have been a constant assault of never-ending threats to personal liberty and desperately want our country back. The left feels that the last 15 years haven't gone anywhere near far enough and desperately want (arguably) Bernie Sanders to complete the fundamental transformation to a socialist republic. You've seen the anti-gunners saying that Obama hasn't gone far enough; the same holds for those who want single payer health care (where killing patients is a feature, not a bug!), and the entire Nanny State. We desperately want a country back where personal liberty and determination can live again; they desperately want a country that never was!
Those two views are fundamentally incompatible. There isn't a single step that can be taken in the direction of more liberty that doesn't conflict with the leftist's views, and there is no step the leftists can take that doesn't take away more liberty. A presidency farther to the left than we are now will simply destroy the republic. You know, Bernie, if Hillary Clinton thinks your plans are economic nonsense, you just might be too far out there:
“This is not about math. This is about people’s lives, and we should level with the American people,” Mrs. Clinton said. She then repeated a jab at Mr. Sanders’s reputation as a truth-teller that she would return to during the debate: “You need to level with people about what they will have at the end of the process you are proposing. And based on every analysis that I can find by people who are sympathetic to the goal, the numbers don’t add up.”I'd like to be more cheery and optimistic about this, but I see two outcomes possible a year, maybe 16 months from now. In the worst case, Bernie Sanders or the Hildebeest gets elected. They appoint a doctrinaire anti-gun lawyer like Eric "brainwash people about guns" Holder to the Supreme Court and within six months, Australian-style confiscation starts. Does anyone not believe that starts open civil war? On the other hand, someone with a strong constitutional belief system, say Ted Cruz, gets elected and starts working toward restoring personal liberty, cancelling Executive Orders that violate the separation of powers, cancelling the extra-congressional regulations from the EPA or the FCC for example. Perhaps they figure out a way to kill off Obamacare. Does anyone think that people on the left, some new version of Octopi Wall Street, won't riot over having their freebies curtailed? We're not talking about EBT cards showing $00 balance, just ending some of the more recent giveaways.
No, I think it would be a miracle to get to 2020 without open civil war going on, and I don't think Justice Scalia enters into it at all.
Read it somewhere else earlier, but:
ReplyDeleteScalia may be the Franz Ferdinand of our times.
I just wonder Who In The Cosmos I got so pissed off so as to make my life here happen during "Interesting Times".
ReplyDeleteI've often thought I was born too late, but like picking your parents, it's not something you have much control over....
The power of the Supreme Court cannot be over stated. If a liberal justice is appointed along with the liberals already on the court we will quickly go to hell in a hand basket. I say this regardless of what happens to 2nd amendment rights in the courts. There is so much they can and would screw up. Scalia's untimely death may not be the 'cause' of all our future problems but it will certainly be a significant factor. I have zero faith in the Rinos and in fact I would not be surprised to see them negotiate away the advantage they hold in congress and give Obama his appointee. Each of those who stab us in the back will have their reasons and believe they got something of value for this "small" concession but in the end we will all pay for it.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth you can count me as one who doesn't think there was foul play involved. If there was, if Scalia was killed to give Obama this opportunity than all I can say is we are so much worse off than I believed.
There won't be a war over guns. I'm as tin-foil hat, pro-gun, liberty minded as they come but seeing is believing... they may shoot your dog and knock your door down across the street to confiscate, but the Oathkeepers will do the raid "because 'a confidential informant' reported you were distributing marijuana within 700 miles of a school" or some other reason that jackbooted thugs use to justify throwing stun grenades into baby cribs, and "although no drugs were found, the house was found to contain now illegal firearms and HUNDREDS of rounds of ammunition, and 'authoritehs' are investigating possible links of the suspect to ISIS." How many guys who like to hunt deer and ducks or shoot some IPSC on the weekend, are going to take the drastic steps that would automatically result in the 100% certain forfeiture of their life or comfortable lifestyle to start x-ringing "the stack" from 200 yards down the street in support of their fellow gun-culture guy? None. There may be initial Maryland style non-compliance by many, and a few scattered, "I'm not going to take any more of this" front-door stands ending in a lawful, hail of bullets (or maybe a burn-down by CS grenade) execution of an otherwise-upstanding citizen,but the criminal charges and penalties (suspension of your state-provided medical care privileges - since that would also likely be in effect?) relating to possessing firearms or contraband will start getting too onerous to ignore. Just recently, I was completely taken aback reading keyboard-screaming blather about "going in and shooting those terrorists" -from among the useful idiot class, who were thousands of miles away and had no idea what the Oregon issue was even about - any rebel actions would have little support from joe armchair, who gets his information about "those terrorists" from a steady drivel of propagandized misinformation fed into his vacant stare by state run media. (And there is a LARGE contingent there, one just has to google "Bernie Sanders supporters".)
ReplyDeleteThe fellows in the picture with the M-4s and "gofast gear"? How many vacation days can they take if the leviathan jackboots decide to just wait them out, while collecting .gov salaries paid by the taxes of those they're fixing to murder or imprison? How long before the suitcases full of sex toys start arriving in the mail? What's their supply chain/logistics source and how will it get through 200-500 .gov police that have joined the "License-to-kill-domestically Force" with 4 or 8 or more years daily experience of kicking doors, nighttime combat, COINS operations and actually pulling the trigger on armed goat farmers overseas? (Oh yeah, they'll be overwatched 24/7 by DHS drones with thermal etc... remember Obama's dream of a domestic army? It's achieved self realization already, complete with armored cav and airpower.)
On a more realistic, but no more cheerful note, given a choice between Hildebeest, the Communist slob and the TV personality/Master of crony capitalism with the flyaway hair... I'll have to take the lesser of the two evils. I'm not convinced for one red second though, that Trump will bring us any security relating to what liberty we have left if he's elected. That just scares the @$%^ out of me. Let's face it... Obama faced enormous (but still not sufficient) headwinds from public opinion and outrage against his policies because he... came out up front and told us how exactly he was planning to stick it in us.
I have the dread suspicion that with Trump, issues will sneak up and become the glorious new law of the land without that warning. And I have zero doubt that he'll keep the handout tap open to avert that unrest. God Help this Nation. We certainly need it now, as ever.
"They appoint a doctrinaire anti-gun lawyer like Eric "brainwash people about guns" Holder to the Supreme Court and within six months, Australian-style confiscation starts."
ReplyDeleteI'd be interesting to see the chalk talk of how that would work.
If guns could be confiscated by executive fiat, they certainly would have in '93 or '09. The Supreme Court cannot pass laws. So I'm lost at how you get to "Australian-style confiscation in six months" given the scenario as quoted?
"On the other hand, someone with a strong constitutional belief system, say Ted Cruz..."
ReplyDeleteThat's funny, Cruz being constitutionally ineligible to be president, ever.
Absent a constitutional amendment.
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