That sums it up, doesn't it?

On Civil War - very interesting

Dr. Jack Devere Minzey, born 6 October 1928- died 8 April 2018, was the Department Head of Education at Eastern Michigan University as well as a prolific author of numerous books, most of which were on the topic of Education and the Government role therein.
(Editor's note)This was the last of his works: Civil War: How do civil wars happen?

Dr. Jack Devere Minzey

Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can't settle the question through e******ns because they don't even agree that e******ns are how you decide who's in charge. That's the basic issue here.

Who decides who runs the country? When you h**e each other but accept the e******n results, you have a country. When you stop accepting e******n results, you have a countdown to a civil war.

The Mueller investigation is about removing President Trump from office and overturning the results of an e******n. We all know that.

But it's not the first time they've done this. The first time a Republican president was elected this century, they said he didn't really win. The Supreme Court gave him the e******n.

There's a pattern here.

What do sure odds of the Democrats rejecting the next Republican president really mean?
It means they don't accept the results of any e******n that they don't win.
It means they don't believe that t***sfers of power in this country are determined by e******ns. That's a civil war.

There's no shooting. At least not unless you count the attempt to k**l a bunch of Republicans at a charity baseball game practice.

But the Democrats have rejected our system of government.
This isn't dissent. It's not disagreement. You can h**e the other party. You can think they're the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next e******n.
When you consistently reject the results of e******ns that you don't win, what you want is a dictatorship.
Your very own dictatorship.

The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to Democrats, is its own.
Whenever Republicans exercise power, it's inherently illegitimate.
The Democrats lost Congress. They lost the White House. So what did they do?
They began trying to run the country through Federal judges and bureaucrats.
Every time that a Federal judge issues an order saying that the President of the United States can't scratch his own back without his say so, that's the civil war.
Our system of government is based on the constitution, but that's not the system that runs this country. The Democrat's system is that any part of government that it runs gets total and unlimited power over the country.

If the Democrats are in the White House, then the president can do anything. And I mean anything.
He can have his own amnesty for i*****l a***ns. He can fine you for not having health insurance. He can use the IRS as his own police force and imprison citizens who speak against him.
He can provide guns and money (Fast and Furious) (Iran nuclear deal) to other countries to support his own agenda, and watch while one of America's Ambassador's is d**gged through the streets and murdered doing nothing to aid our citizens. His power is unlimited. He's a dictator.

But when Republicans get into the White House, suddenly the President can't do anything. He isn't even allowed to undo the i*****l a***n amnesty that his predecessor illegally invented.
A Democrat in the White House has 'discretion' to completely decide every aspect of immigration policy.
A Republican doesn't even have the 'discretion' to reverse him. That's how the game is played That's how our country is run.

Sad but true, although the left hasn't yet won that particular fight.

When a Democrat is in the White House, states aren't even allowed to enforce i*********n l*w.
But when a Republican is in the White House, states can create their own i*********n l*ws.
Under Obama, a state wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom without asking permission. But under Trump, Jerry Brown can go around saying that California is an independent republic and sign treaties with other countries.

The Constitution has something to say about that. Whether it's Federal or State, Executive, Legislative or Judiciary, the left moves power around to run the country. If it controls an institution, then that institution is suddenly the supreme power in the land. This is what I call a moving dictatorship.

Donald Trump has caused the Shadow Government to come out of hiding: Professional government is a guild. Like medieval guilds. You can't serve in it, if you're not a member, and if you haven't been indoctrinated into its arcane rituals if you aren't in the club.

And Trump isn't in the club. He brought in a bunch of people who aren't in the club with him.
Now we're seeing what the pros do when amateurs try to walk in on them. They spy on them, they investigate them, and they send them to jail. They use the tools of power to bring them down. That's not a free country.

It's not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an 'insurance policy' against Trump winning the e******n. It's not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It's not a free country when the media responds to the other guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media. It's not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an e******n because the guy who wasn't supposed to win did.
Have no doubt, we're in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and a l*****t Democrat professional government.

Well now Pilgrims and Patriots, having read the above I suggest two things;forward this very timely, very important analysis to those whom you believe think like you do and make sure you v**e on every E******n day!

I'm 79
Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18.
Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told
that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men k*****g their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims r**ting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers;" of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery;" of Muslims mutilating the g*****ls of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Sharia law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that, out of tolerance for other cultures," we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach h**e in America and Canada, while no American or Canadian group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance..

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight g****l w*****g, which no one is allowed to debate.

I'm tired of being told That drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we All know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-wh**ever for their problems.

Yes, I'm damn tired . But I'm also glad to be 79.. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughters and grandsons.

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served
five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.

There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless
each of us sends it on! This is your chance to make a difference. "I'm 79 and I'm tired." If you don't forward this you are part of the problem.

I'm 79 and I'm Tired

By Robert A. Hall


God Bless America!

Not sure if attributions are correct, but great paper:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/

An Open Letter to Greta Thunberg
You are not a moral leader. But I will tell you what you are.
Mon Nov 11, 2019

Greta Thunberg:
You have declared yourself a leader and said that your generation will start a revolution. You have comported yourself as a credentialed adult and c*****e c****e activist who has fearlessly addressed politicians and world leaders. You have dropped out of school and declared that there isn’t any reason to attend, or any reason for you to study since there will be no future for you to inherit. You have, rather than attend your classes, been leading Friday Climate Strikes for all students in your generation across the globe. Your attendance at oil pipelines has been striking. There, you unequivocally declare that all oil needs to remain in the ground where it belongs.
I shall, therefore, against the backdrop of your activism, address you as an adult rather than as a child.
In September of 2019 you crossed the Atlantic in a “zero carbon” racing yacht that had no toilet and electric light on board. You made an impassioned plea at the United Nations in which you claimed that, “we have stolen your dreams and our childhood with our empty words.” You claimed that adults and world leaders come to young people for answers and explained in anger: “How dare you!” You claimed that we are failing you and that young people are beginning to understand our betrayal. You further declared that if we continue to fail your generation: “We will never forgive you.”
You have stated that you want us to panic, and to act as if our homes are on fire. You insist that rich countries must reduce to zero emissions immediately. In your speeches you attack economic growth and have stated that our current climate crisis is caused by “buying and building things.” You call for climate justice and equity, without addressing the worst polluter on the planet China; the country that is economically annexing much of Africa and Latin America. You dare not lecture Iran about its uranium projects -- because that’s not part of the UN’s agenda, is it?
You proclaim that we need to live within the planetary boundaries, to focus on equity and “take a few steps back” for the sake of all living species. You resent the hierarchical distinctions between human and animals and entertain no qualitative distinction between a monkey, a malaria-infested mosquito and a snarling hyena. You mouth slogans such as: “We have set in motion an irreversible chain reaction beyond control,” and you advocate for universal veganism on the Ellen DeGeneres show. You do not buy new clothes, and you don’t want the rest of us to either. You want us all to stop flying in jet planes without giving us an alternative as to how we would re-t***sform our financial and trading systems—to say nothing of our personal enjoyment of the world—without regression to a primeval era. Few can afford to cross the Atlantic in a $6M zero carbon yacht financed by rich people who made their wealth by the very means you condemn as loathsome.
There are a few things that we, the rational adults of the world who are not bowing to you like guilt-ridden obsequious Babbitts need to say to you, Greta.

First, we did not rob you of your childhood or of your dreams. You are the legatee of a magnificent technological civilization which my generation and the one before it and several others preceding it all the way to the Industrial Revolution and the Renaissance, bequeathed to you. That growth-driven, capitalist technological civilization has created the conditions for you to harangue us over our betrayal. It is a civilization that eradicated diseases such as small pox from the word, and that lifted millions out of abject poverty in a universe you think is dying and decaying. It assured you a life expectancy that exceeded that of your ancestors. Most likely by focusing on economic growth which you demonize, and scientific advancement, that civilization will further enhance a robust quality of life and health for your descendants.
Here is a hard t***h to ponder, Greta: if the great producers of this world whom you excoriate were to withdraw their productivity, wealth and talents—in short—their minds from the world today, your generation would simply perish. Why? Because as children you have done nothing as yet, with your lives besides being born. This is what we expect of children until such time as they can be producers by learning from their elders. You are understandably social and ecological ballast. You are not yet cognitively advanced to replicate the structures of survival of which you are the beneficiaries.
Children are important installments on the future. We have invested in you. It is you and your smug generation which think they have nothing to learn from the older ones who are failing themselves. Whom do you expect to employ the majority of you if you have neither the job credentials or life competency sk**ls to navigate the world? The future unemployable-skipping- school-on-Friday obstreperous children?
The t***h, as one anonymous blogger aptly put it, is that your generation is unable to work up to forty hours per week without being chronically depressed and anxious. Its members cannot even decide if they want to be a boy or a girl, or both, or neither, or a “they.” They cannot eat meat without crying. I might add that your generation needs “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” as pre-conditions for learning in school. Its members have a pathological need to be coddled and protected from the challenging realities of life. Your generation is the biggest demander and consumer of carbon spewing technological gadgets and devices. An hour without any of them and too many of you succumb to paralyzing lethargy. Your generation is the least curious and most insular set of individuals one has ever encountered. Your hubris extends so far that you think you have nothing to learn from your elders.
Yes, we have betrayed you: by capitulating the world of leadership to bored, attention-deficit children who spout bromides, platitudes and slogans that a rudderless and morally relativistic culture accepts because a significant number of its denizens have become intellectually bankrupt and morally lazy.
The logical endpoint of your ecological vision would see us living in primeval conditions eking out an existence in jungle swamps in which we would regard poisonous snakes and man-eating tigers as our moral equals. We would have to adapt ourselves to nature rather than adapt nature to meet our needs, like all members of civilized civilizations do. Your vision would see us foraging for mushrooms and plants without knowing which were inimical to our digestive systems. Under your system we would swelter from heat, die from rampant plagues and starvation because there will be no air-conditioning units, no sophisticated plumbing and irrigations and sewer systems, no anti-bacterial soap made from animal matter, no pesticides and chemicals to sanitize our food and drinking supplies: just one primordial swamp of human putrefaction.
If civilization is left in the hands of your ecof*****t supporters we will be living in grass huts, drinking animal feces infested water, and shrinking in fear from polar bears instead of k*****g them for food when they attack us.
Greta, living in complete harmony with nature is the death of creativity. Understand this. All great civilizations were forged in the crucibles of proper exploitation of the earth. Those who lived on land with oil and did nothing with it never had a right to it in the first place. Non-usage of God’s resources is the cardinal sin because it results in the un-development of our human capabilities, and makes us indistinguishable from beasts.
Your generation needs to be taught the morality of wealth creation, rather than only parasitically benefiting from it. The only revolution you will lead is one into nihilism and civilization regression. You need to learn about the moral case for f****l f**l. You owe it to yourself to understand how as, Kathleen Hartnett White has detailed, the harnessing of the vast store of concentrated energy in f****l f**ls allowed mankind, for the first time in human history, to escape intractable constraints and energy limits that had left all but the very privileged in total poverty and depravity. Before the Industrial Revolution all societies were dependent on a very limited flow of solar energy captured in living plants for subsistence needs such as food, fuel and shelter.
But we, the creative enterprisers, will not go back to the Dark Ages. Your philosophy can be summed up as follows:
What was good for my anthropoid ancestors is good for me. Do not rock the boat, or even build one as that will require cutting down a tree. Do not disrupt nature. Do not dare to see the earth as rightfully belonging to us. We don’t have the right to use our brains in a manner that can t***sform our needs into a material form. Let’s conveniently forget that production is the application of reason to the problems of survival. Let’s all diminish the grandeur of man and his luminous potential. Crush the Thomas Edisons of this world.
The apocalyptic world vision you hold has been a strip landing for those who have h**ed progress throughout history. Your apocalyptic predictions have been made for millennia, and, we’re still here. We will still be here long after you’ve grown up and we have forgiven you for skipping classes, thereby lowering the intelligence quotient of an entire generation.
*
Jason D. Hill is professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His areas of specialization include ethics, social and political philosophy, American foreign policy and American politics. He is the author of several books, including “We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People” (Bombardier Books/Post Hill Press). Follow him on Twitter @JasonDhill6.

*
[Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Another great (& short) video from Prager U.

https://www.prageru.com/video/goodbye-america/

It is in Amazon Prime

Airforceone: Did you not read the topic the Mexican government had already agreed to 5,400 troops back in December so they just added another 600 and that was fine with Trump. Trump makes it sound like 6000 were added when 5400 are already agreed to.

Reply: Were the 5400 deployed in Dec or any time since?

I am guessing that the troop deployment is actually taking place. Since they have not deployed troops since the Mexican "promise" earlier this year, it would seem that Trumps tariff promise put boots on the ground.

Thanks.

Where did you kearn that 5400 troops were already there?

Are you missing a zero? My newspaper says 6,000 to the Mexican Southern Border.

Attributed to Alyssa Ahlgren

I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of Democratic candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around. I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it. Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose. These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought. We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty. One. Times. Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful.

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest e*****rates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”

Never saw American prosperity. Let that sink in. When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Now, I’m not attributing Miss Ocasio-Cortez’s words to outright dishonesty. I do think she whole-heartedly believes the words she said to be true. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided. My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress.

Let me lay down some universal t***hs really quick. The United States of America has lifted more people out of abject poverty, spread more freedom and democracy, and has created more innovation in technology and medicine than any other nation in human history. Not only that but our citizenry continually breaks world records with charitable donations, the rags to riches story is not only possible in America but not uncommon, we have the strongest purchasing power on earth, and we encompass 25% of the world’s GDP. The list goes on. However, these universal t***hs don’t matter. We are told that income ine******y is an existential crisis (even though this is not an indicator of prosperity, some of the poorest countries in the world have low-income ine******y), we are told that we are oppressed by capitalism (even though it’s brought about more freedom and wealth to the most people than any other system in world history), we are told that the only way we will acquire the benefits of true prosperity is through socialism and centralization of federal power (even though history has proven time and again this only brings tyranny and suffering).

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country. People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, elect politicians dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism. Why? The answer is this, my generation has ONLY seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, or see the rise and fall of socialism and c*******m. We don’t know what it’s like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.

With the current political climate giving rise to the misguided idea of a socialist utopia, will we see the light? Or will we have to lose it all to realize that what we have now is true prosperity? Destroying the free market will undo what millions of people have died to achieve.

My generation is becoming the largest v****g bloc in the country. We have an opportunity to continue to propel us forward with the gifts capitalism and democracy has given us. The other option is that we can fall into the trap of entitlement and relapse into restrictive socialist destitution. The choice doesn’t seem too hard, does it?

What is next - Soylent Green?

HI, I have been reading OPP for a while now and I just have to reply. So here goes my 1st post.