We're not usually news hounds, but if you don't already know, NBC has banned Ann Coulter from future appearances on their network news shows and affiliates. I assume Lady Ann was being paid.
      Since well before the 2006 mid-terms we'd been writing Roger Ailes at FOX, O'Reilly and anyone else who would listen, that if they really wanted to distance themselves from the mainstream media, they'd do two things: One, fire Geraldo and two, draw line in the sand that any talking head or politician who appeared on one of their shows and lied would be barred for life, and publically denounced. A One-Strike-and-Out policy.
      One-upped once again. With a running start of two years, at least, and the prospects of embarrassing God knows how many public figures for telling lies, instead NBC fires Lady Ann Coulter first...for telling the truth.
      No matter what Fox does now, it will just look like they're getting even.
Blakely
     

      Using a formula employed by Bernard Chumm, who's just gotten back from a week mushing dogs in Alaska:
      Resolved: We can't re-win the government and rescue the Constitution by merely learning more.     
                        We can't re-win the government and rescue the Constitution by listening to talk radio.
                        We can't re-win the government and rescue the Constitution by clinging bitterly to our guns, Bible and Constitution.
                        We can't re-win the government and rescue the Constitution simply by voting.
                        We have to do more...
                         ...and that requires some more of our time.

       This is a dilemma Moses Sands and I discussed at length years ago, as we wrestled over his book. I argued that he wanted to write a book that the intended audience would never read. He argued, "Yes, they will...once they understand the stakes. I'm sure you'll grab 'em early with that...just like a good mystery. Hook 'em in Chapter One." (That was my job.)
       I reclama'd that even if they knew everything that had to be done, and really understood the blueprint of their House, and what had to be done to protect it, and throw out all the trash that had sneaked in, and then pass it on to the next generation...once they came to that spot where they had to turn off the football game, or give up a movie, they'd put it off. The popular culture owns them, I argued. There's too much involved in their lives just keeping up with the Desperate Housewives while trying to raise a family. Husband and wife are both working jobs just to keep 3 cars running, a TV in every room, the kids in useless pastimes (Moses never could understand the psychopathy of video games). Just in taking out the garbage or cutting the grass they think they've been cheated of precious time.
       "Oh, I see." Moses replied. "It's like the one-hour laundry service a fellow gets at church...if he still goes. Sings, prays, and listens to the preacher...if he ain't talking about tithing. Just being there, that one hour, is his tithe. Then he feels better when he leaves, maybe even pausing to reflect on a thing or two. But come Monday morning he's back to admiring that girl with the big knockers in customer service."
        Moses "put his whole mind to it" and came up with a formula as to how much time a man and woman had to dedicate to their House, depending on the current state of their House, of course. Recalling Fibber McGee, he said most people would argue that their House was in a lot better working order than it really is...thereby requiring less work to fix it. Again, it was my job, in Chapter One, to convince them it was worse than they thought.
       "Common sense," Moses started out, "tells a person that it requires less effort to prevent a thing from happening than it does fixing it, once broke." Preventive maintenance. "It says it's easier not to let uninvited guests in the door in the first place than it is to jerk 'em away from the dinner table and throw 'em out. And it's absolutely a lot easier to begin passing the blueprints of your House in easy doses onto your kids when they're about ten than it is to wait til they're sixteen and try to get them to swallow it in one gulp. Sixteen's a tough time for learning new things, especially if they are as dull as a blueprint."
 
        That was a few years back, and I still have the outline of that chapter...only it isn't quite on point with what we face now, inasmuch as Moses wanted to prevent from happening what has in fact already happened. But he was aware of the possibility. "You know, when the river's rising, and you've got no place else to go (VB: America doesn't), you don't just keep hoeing your garden. You stack sandbags, til your arms fall off, if need be. And you lay on extra provisions, and put 'em on the top floor or in the attic. And you prepare to defend your property against looters. You postpone all other forms of recreation to do these things.
         "But most of all, you make common cause with your neighbors. Only that may not be the easiest of undertakings, as you've probably hacked off a couple of them. And even if you are all on the same page, likely you'd all be elbowing each other to see who gets to be leader. You can take the boy off the playground...
         "I'm not saying you have to put on a coat and tie, mind you, but you do have to go to meetings. Maybe not at the county building ...more like a basement. Just three or four of you. But eventually you'll find others are doing the same thing and before you know it, you won't be able to fit them all into a football stadium. That's what "trickle up" democracy was always all about.
         "I was reading about John Adams and he reminded me that you have to look for leadership, and wisdom, but not only in yourself, but in others. Adams was the cement, even among men he really didn't like very much. He was wise, not smart, to play that role.
         "Those were extraordinary men on several levels, I'm sure, but not on that one point of teamwork. A common purpose always brings forward common sense, which is open to even the most ordinary of people to use. Military types call it "mission". Mission first, always mission first.
         "And once you set out to do a thing, you never, never, never quit."

Next Time: The Constitutional Tithe: Resistance and Wrecking

        
      
     
   

    The past 18 months, we've been posting here about the nature of Freedom and the nature of Anti-freedom. Now that the results of November 4th are in, those several thousand words can be reduced to a few. And there is a simple math equation which can be written this way:
    If you believe in the US Constitution, and the rights of every human being, as it reveals, to be "self-evident", securing the right to pursue "life, liberty and happiness" (yes I know these word are in the Declaration of Independence), and that this is the essence of not just the American republic, but the essence of all humankind's desire for freedom, then you will have to accept that you are now in the MINORITY in America.
    What to do? What to do?
     Persuade?
     I think not. Even as the average American is no longer in tune with the Constitution, or those liberties, in part due to a narcissistic popular culture, but more so, a cynical education establishment, still we believe the core sentiments of the Constitution to be part of the American soul. I think we are still the majority, although it is very unlikely to show up in a vote for many years to come. Therefore, making more and more people aware of what they have just lost will not bring about a greater voice at the polls. A first rule of socialism is, once in power, you move quickly to cement that power and make sure you are never removed from power by the same methods you used to attain it.
     Without a major sea change in Congress the people will not take back power through the vote. I know most conservative talking heads disagree, but  I think they are looking at protecting their rice bowls more than anything else. I hope they are right, but fear they are wrong, and believe we need to proceed using a worst-case, not best-case scenario.
     A simple truth: The political class is no longer afraid of the People.
     What to do? What to do?
      Go get Ol' Betsy from over the mantle?
      Actually, this is what They would like you to do, and I'm quite sure, a few of you will, sadly influenced more by half a bottle of Jack the Black than the Constitution. They already know who has 80% of the guns in America, and would love nothing more than to have an excuse to come get them, and a few single solitary drunks, standing on their front porch taking pot shots at the first innocent patrol car to drive by may be just that excuse.
      True, it would be nice to be able to go to bed every night for the next four years, knowing that Congress has had to barricade itself in barracks behind the Capitol compound "green zone", going to work each day in underground trams rather than limos, and having to sneak out of town, returning to their home districts on stealth USAF shuttles, as they do in Afghanistan, and do their districts' business in the dead of night in undisclosed locations.
      It would be nice to see all the bureaucrats and "Big" establishments, Education, Labor, even Business, have to sneak to work each day through rear entrances disguised as dock workers, janitors and domestic servants. It would be nice to deprive them of what they want most, which is to parade before us as our betters.
      That's what I mean by fear.
      But, alas, the prescience of Barack Obama is one step ahead of us, for it is "not for nothing" he wants to form a National Security Force. I just don't know which group will be living in a walled and gated community. But there is almost for sure plans for that sort of contingency already. A popular uprising against the political class is already being attended to.
      What to do? What to do?
      Sure, the political class no longer fears the People, and it is clear that we have no direct power to influence the ruling 59% of that class. They will move ahead as if we were not here, no matter how many more of us see the light as the next two years unfold. So Rush Limbaugh and the like hold no answers to this problem. More knowledge won't fix anything. A deeper understanding of just what liberalism, or socialism, really is, won't matter. Just being better people, and clutching our Bibles, or our Constitution, or both, while maybe preserving our souls, will do little to restore these basic rights of Man back to Man.
       Many of you will fall back on the age old question, which (I'm doing this without research today) I believe John Stuart Mill addressed 200 years ago, namely: If a democratic peoples vote out the existence of democracy, is that vote valid?
       The answer is unequivocably "No". The Constitution lays out a set of rights that belong to Man just by being born. While "socialism" may be lawful in the sense that the state can then coerce people to abide by its dictates, it is not lawful in the transcendental sense. Read the "Right and Duty" part of the Declaration. It is a statement as to why it is morally right to break the law. Hundreds of Germans in 1945 were hung because they obeyed the law rather than violated it. 
       We just rarely get to see the stakes so clearly, as they did in Philadelphia. This fight, from 1776 til now, has always been a struggle between absolute Good and absolute Evil in terms of human liberty. There has has always been law. Only which law? Evil has just shown, and will put exclamation marks to this point in the next four years, that there is no middle ground, as so many of you would like there to be. They are now The Law.
       We have a duty to respond and take it back. Majority rule can never remove or alter our unalienable rights. Just remember, fewer than 25% of the American people fought for, and handed Liberty over to the rest of the people by running John Bull and George III from these shores. It is a law of nature that the majority, in almost any fight, will stand by and wait to see who is winning before choosing sides. America is a nation of shop keepers and this is what shopkeepers do. It is in their nature. 25% will have to do.
       What to do? What to do?
       We've already written that we need to make the political class afraid of us once again. Although cauldrons of boiling tar, feathers, even keel-hauling are an appetizing picture, I don't think we can make that work these day. (Damn!)
        We have already posted that we need to be looking to the long view, making local and state legislators fearful of us, thence, sending off a new class of politician to replace the old. New leadership all around, that's what a real sea change is all about.
        But we also know this grass roots counter revolution will not go on unnoticed for very long. The feds can be relied upon to reduce the powers of the states (the Constitution be damned...hell, it already has been for years in this regard), and the states can be relied upon to reduce the power of local counties and cities...all with a view to reduce the power of the people to "trickle up" that change at the top.
        What to do? What to do?
        Today I add (and these are my thoughts, not necessarily those of my colleagues) that we need to "convince" CONSERVATIVE members of Congress to change the tone. While I hold George W Bush to be a fine Christian man, his "change in tone" has allowed the taste for the Constitution and human liberty to be slapped clean out of our mouths. I have not quite figured out whether, or how, I can forgive such a vanity...but when honor and Christian belief are used to destroy such a fine thing as human liberty and the Constitution, it is indeed a vanity, not a virtue. Dante put it at Circle Four of his Inferno. God will judge. Insha'allah.
        For instance, a few days ago, I watched Tom Price, (R-GA 6) interviewed on Fox News about the stimulus package being floated by the incoming Obama administration and the Democrat congressional leadership. Dr Price was right on in his factual analysis...drearily so. I wrote him and asked to to pep it up a bit. After all, being right on the numbers, the issues, the philosophy, hasn't seemed to matter the past few years. While being right, conservatism has lost considerable ground. So has the GOP. And no, it ain't just the economy.
        Maybe it's in the delivery? Maybe, instead of sounding like an Episcopalian Sunday School teacher, more people might sit up straight if conservative legislator's came off more like Hell-fire-and-damnation Constitution-thumpers.
       In Price's interview I didn't hear a single "corrupt", "criminal" or "stupid"...God, how Lefties hate being called stupid. Is "wrong" the toughest word these guys know?
       The next day, Sen Mitch McConnell, (R-KY) said almost the same thing, again, almost the same way. To me it is inconceivable to be in the same chamber as a Harry Reid, or Chuck Schumer, just to name only two, and let the opportunity pass to publicly state what smarmy sonsabitches they are, at least once a day. Talk about building a better mousetrap, the media would be rushing to my door every day, just to see what new cuss words I've come up with. (I have a thousand at least).
        In my view, conservatives in Congress need to get a 100 emails, faxes, phone calls and letters per day, not asking, but demanding that they up the ante and change the tone. Moses Sands had a term "putting the skunk eye", or mark of anathema, on a person. Tell them, we'd better not see you on the golf course, or at a black tie function, in the same camera shot with Harry Reid. If you want to hang out with prostitutes, we'll be happy to send along an extra $100 a week so you can drive over to Baltimore for a couple of hours. 
        I already know what Mitch will say. And most of the others. Gotta go along to get along. Hold the lines, hold the lines. No matter, just keep repeating it. It may take awhile, but it will sink in. If not, let them know, if this new tone is really against their nature, we'll get someone else. You don't carry nice to a knife fight. Their rice bowl is really yours. Let them know that.
         What to do? What to do?

         What I have just written...and you can judge yourself its value...is right out of the Sol Alinsky playbook, as amended for modern, internet-based "community action." It is what had the Democrat leadership streaming to the dailyKos Convention in 2006. It is what got Bush "impeached" dozens of times over around the country. It is what turned many Americans (a majority?) against the war in Iraq...and against their own heritage of liberating oppressed people. It is what caused a few Marines to be called mass-murderers...by an ex-Marine (Semper F-U!).
          At the beginning I stated the only way we can win back Congress through the vote is with a sea change. The Republican Congress will not do it on their own volition. They will not do it without a cattle prod.
          There is a small window of 2-4 years, who knows?, but if these things are to occur...you have to be the ones who makes the "Red Sea" part.
Vassar Bushmills.

   Rod Blagojevich may not be Richard III, but he certainly is in the final act of a Shakespearean play. Only, is it Historie, Tragedie, or Comedie? Or all of the above.
   Local media here (Virginia) is playing the Tales of Blago, (Son of Drago, vampire-slayer) up as a comedy, and Blago as foole. His public announcent yesterday that he was appointing Roland Burris, Illinois AG, to the vacant senate seat of Barack Obama was met with deirisive laughter from both liberal and conservative media. Even the talk shows chuckled.
   We're not so sure.
    Illinois may not be the most corrupt state in the country (North Dakota is, according to USA Today), but the stakes in Illinois are much more than just Jerry Lundegard's Oldsmobile dealership in Fargo. In fact, they can be downright deadly. We think Blago and his attorney are playing their cards in dead earnestness...and playing to win.
    A few days ago we wrote that Illinois Dem's, and the Obama camp, had to deal with Blagojevich swiftly, and politically, for reasons that remain unknown. But his legal case in court, and Blago knows this, is pretty good, and looking better every day.
    Even though caught in a lie about contacts between his staff (Ron Emanual) and the Governor, Obama moved quickly to neutralize any possible skeletons under the bed that Blago might reveal. With the media hovering like helicopter moms, Obama is untouchable. That really isn't the story anyway.
    Many Illinois legislators have skeletons, too, and Blago undoubtedly can help dig those up, so impeachment is not yet a done deal. A trial in the House, then a vote in the Senate is not just a cake walk. Forget the public polling by the media.
    We're no experts in the areas of law involved here, but Blago's attorney is, and it does seem he holds far more powerful legal cards than we're being led to believe. Blagojevich may like to bluff, but I suspect his attorney doesn't in these circumstances, so I'm guessing his actions such as moving forward to appoint a new senator is based on sound law, and on a sound assessment as to where he stands as sitting governor.
    For instance, the courts (not politicians) can order the Secretary of State to sign off on the Burris appointment. Blago knows with this device he can throw the case into the Courts where he's likely to get a fairer hearing than in the Senate well. And he can also delay.
    As for Burris, Senate Democrats have pledged not to seat him. I'm not sure the courts can force them to. But maybe. That's another obscure area of law mayber only Scalia and Kennedy know anything about. Again, an interesting legal question. But the Republicans might be willing to seat him. Though a liberal, Burris seems like a decent fellow, so he might do well caucusing with the RINO's.
   
    From our point of view, Rod Blagojevich is playing his cards pretty well, as best he can. His impeachment can take weeks. In the meantime, the courts will try to sort out the Burris appointment, which, best we can tell, is valid so long as Blago remains un-impeached.
When he shows up to sworn in later in January, there will much gnashing of teeth. Harry Reid deserves nothing more tha to lose a seat to the GOP.
VB

   

     I recommend reading my 2007 piece on this subject and Vassar Bushmills' little opus, You Lie, We Hang You, at GreatAmericanZeroes.com, since the "lie with legs" is one of the cornerstones of Leftwing ascendency on the internet...as well as one of our targets.
    We're putting our money where our mouth is with this Guide since, not long ago, we thought this might be a good book idea in order to raise money for the Institute. But events on November 4th scrapped those plans since the things that have to be done have be done rather more quickly than I'd envisioned in 2007. (If this is your first visit to this site, we're analysts, so not bloggers in the conventional sense. If you like what we write, then go an do something beyond chewing your cud. At least pass it on.) Do something that moves conservatism forward.
    This Guide is all about doing something. I'm putting this into the public domain because, for one, what I've said here isn't really a trade secret, just common sense, with a splash of go-gettum And two, it won't hurt if the Enemy knows all these "secrets" as they have absolutely no power to counteract them...except through arrest, imprisonment, and the eventual guillotine.
BC

    RESOLVED: The Left wing has captured the internet highway, chastising Truth, Honor, Reason, Common Sense and Good, forcing them to retreat into the alleys and side streets, while allowing Dishonesty, Dishonor, Stupidity, and Evil to pass, toll free, and roam the highway at will. (Would any conservative like to debate this?)
    RESOLVED: That little armchair blog where you now reside is not really on the main internet highway. It is down one of those side streets. So quit fooling yourself with those congratulatory notes to one another about the superiority of your arguments and your intellects. You had you butts handed to you on a platter on November 4th...by that same little foul-mouthed army who indeed are far lesser intellects than yourselves. (Would any conservative like to debate this?)
    RESOLVED: That while there are many things that need to be done to move conservatism back to the high ground, not only by true conservatives and protectors of the Constitution, but also by ordinary citizens of Good Will, a major front in this coming Fight must be the retaking of that internet information highway. If the Left wishes to stay there, they must be forced to fight for every inch of territory. They must not be allowed to utter even a single lie that goes unchallenged. And they must be held publicly accountable for the consequences of the words, their acts and the secret supplications of their hearts. This can only be done with face-to-face confrontations on internet sites where they now prowl.

    A cautionary note: You may wish to hear Henry V's pep talk as Shakespeare described it , but real history also shows that not only at Agincourt but a generation earlier, at Poitiers under the Black Prince, twice the French lost major battles despite having far greater forces, in part, because their nobility would not deign to dismount and fight alongside commoners on foot.
   This is but one of several Achilles Heels of the Left. But if this is also true of you, and you also are unwilling to dismount and fight the common Enemy shoulder-to-shoulder with, and for, your redneck cousins (whose shoulders you no doubt also stand upon), then please, read no further.
    And get off my g-d'd page.

    Now, how to proceed.
1: KNOW THYSELF
    The Enemy comes in all ages, sexes and educational levels. The anonymity of the internet is a great protective shield for all participants, not just the Left. One can disguise name, location, sex, even age and educational level...to a degree. It's a place where a 90-pound weakling can growl like a lion, and hiss like a cobra. It may be easy for a 15 year old to "sound" like an 21-year old if he knows his stuff. But 25? 30? At some point he will push the envelope too far and be discovered...perhaps a casual reference to a word, an icon or song that is peculiar to Millenials. These can be dead giveaways. On the other hand, it would be impossible for me to try to pass myself off as a 20-something, or maybe even a 30-something. But I can do Forties....I think...and Seventies for sure. Moreover I can sound like a professor or a truck driver. It's a skill we've acquired at the Sands Institute. Rule: Keep 'em guessing, but don't overplay your hand.
    Females can even pass as males sometimes, but the trained eye can pick up subtle differences in syntax, even emotion. I know this to be true from the radicals I'd known during the 1960s. I can spot a radical babe just by her sneers. When George Eliot wrote Silas Marner in 1861 Charles Dickens read it and said, "This was written by a woman." (Mary Ann Evans). You can't fool the pros. And on the internet, you don't know who's one and who's not, so be careful.
    Experience also brings the same limitations. Experience is the sum total of everything you've ever done, seen, read and heard. Every time you think, if only to yourself, and certainly when you speak, you reflect that experince. I've actually been out Route 66, a highway which is no more, at the same time a TV series by that same name was on. Speaking of television, I can remember black and white vividly. And 3 cent stamps. And colored-only water fountains. I've been through college (twice), hitch-hiked to Mexico and back (twice), run after whores in Juarez, Taipei, Bangkok and Angeles City, seen people in unimaginable poverty, under the whip, and in bondage with a boot on their neck. Here at the Sands Institute we've all seen those "dead eyes" of socialism Vassar wrote about a while back. But we've also seen them recently liberated, smile, and tears well up in them in joy and gratitude. I cried too.
    Watching "Leave it to Beaver" on Cartoon Network, or National Geographic, or reading Uncle Tom's Cabin or Dickens just isn't a suitable substitute. But they are still experiences, and make up your whole. Rule: Don't try to fake your experience or your knowledge. We all have to come to the table with our own tool box. Making the most of it is what matters most. Yours will continue to grow while mine is slowly grinding to a halt, with little more than stories to tell, hopefully with a little wisdom embedded.
    What most of you have is more knowledge, more keenness of wit, and more experience than the Other Side. That's enough to expose them publicly. That's enough to win.

    I'm not suggesting you describe yourself exactly as you are, keep 'em guessing, just don't exceed your limits of believability. One of the things I've learned is they will start parsing everything you say to find some flaw as soon as you've gotten under their skin. It's ironic that they'll believe an "Al Jezeera" headline as gospel if it fits their template, but will spends hours trying to prove you wrong, but that's how it is. This is a good thing, as it means they take your presence seriously on their highway. With any misstatement of fact they will jump all over your credibility, which, since factual truth is supposed to be in your arsenal, can cause problems. They are much like mainstream Democrats who will rail at Republicans for professing a fealty to Honor, even as they fall short from time to time. Better not to profess any honor at all is the Democrat view. In their view, that is how one can die blameless. (I don't believe St Peter sees things that way, but what I know is that only one us is wrong, and only one of us can afford to be wrong.)

2: PICK AN ISSUE, PICK A TARGET
   Trust me, there is no issue that can be of interest to you that doesn't have a small army of Left wing bloggers out there attacking and infesting it. Find it.
   Rule: The more knowledgeable, and more importantly, the more passionate you are about a thing, the better you will play the Game, so we recommend that you weigh in on subjects that are of importance to you, and which you know something about.
   The Things You are Passionate About: As you know, the things conservatives are passionate about are generally tiered, from the Philosophical to the Factual. The War in Iraq, the climate change fraud, the bailouts, the mortgage meltdowns, all have major philosophical planks, from Truth, Liberty, to certain laws of economics or anthropology (human nature), even common sense.  You can and should be prepared to fight at both these levels, especially since the Enemy usually only fights on one. Another Achilles Heel.
   Conservatives are (supposed to be) passionate about the Constitution, and all the doors the Constitution holds open so that men and women may enjoy Liberty. These are philosophical planks the Left does not even possess, but which they must keep disguised, for they cannot come out in support of the opposite, can they?...servitude, class-based elitism, or sympathy for terrorism....even though the logic of their positions always takes them there. They have to adopt the labels of liberty and Good. "Hypocrisy is the price vice pays to virtue."  This is part of their veneer. Your mission is to strip it, one layer at a time, and lay them naked.
    Here at SICCM, we're also passionate about factual truth, as we can find no free society that has a general disregard for it that survives very long. G K Chesterton wrote in the 1930s that the rich can do without democracy, and they can also do without standards of morality. Only the common man needs those things for his (the masses') society to survive. (That's a paraphrase of separate quotes from GKC). When the rich rule, society generally hobbles down toward vulgarism and barbarism, much as commoners in Europe lived under aristocracy for a thousand years. It's a pit that is almost impossible to climb out of....which is why that "rising out" took place one ocean and one continent away. Rule: Attacking the absence of truth (fact) is the quickest way into a Left wing bloggers nightmares for almost nothing they say is fact-based.
    Another Achilles Heel of the Left is the absence of any understanding of immutable laws in any form, from those guiding human conduct to those guiding the planets. The Right's failure to understand that this is the Left's greatest weakness has so far been their greatest strength, for no one seems to know how to deal with it. Deconstructive thinking, which provides the basis for most Left-wing thinking, appeals to their narcissism, and provides that almost anything can be true if they just want it to be badly enough. Our view on deconstructive thinking is that it is a cynical device created by "handler" Leftists so as to allow spoiled children to be able to wish a world into existence that 1) doesn't exist and 2) in which they are at the center. (It arose from the education establishment, I might add.) The old Communists were masters at this in Europe in the 1930s. These sonnenkinder can then become susceptible to manipulation from above. It's a kind of spiritual lollipop, a sugar teat, given to a child about to throw a tantrum, a child who almost never hears the word "no".  Indeed, they've become little more than stormtruppen marionettes, moving in concert with others, without ever knowing exactly why or how.
    In fact, this is one of the reasons many conservative bloggers don't like to do battle with this crowd. They refuse to debate under any kind of rules; of logic, fact-checking, let alone decorum, making up the rules and their facts as they go along. In a word, they're exasperating. If you are to prevail, you must be aware of this going in, so be patient, and be willing to step outside the four corners of your frames of reference. Once your understand their field of play you can negotiate very well, I'm sure.
    This is also why, to many conservatives, they are viewed as irrelevant in American politics. But our view is that this is precisely why they are so dangerous, not only to democratic politics and the Constitution, but to culture in the larger sense, for (here's one of those immutable laws) they thrive on a nihilistic world view that can destroy a civilization with the absoluteness of a hydrogen bomb.

    Understanding the battlefields:
    I am quite sure you are better than we are at negotiating the mine field that is the internet, especially blogs. We're old. But we've noticed things there that perhaps you are not aware.
    For instance, as you know, when a person sets up a blog site, he immediately invites his friends to that site, creating a network. His friends may be college chums, regional friends in a certain locale, or issue-oriented colleagues. (None of my friends, or VB's, or St George's even know of this site, or that we are associated with it. There's a reason for this.)
    When I come to your sites I can see your blogroll, as well as any associations of bloggers with whom you might network...the Minnesota Conservatives, Virginia Student Progressives, Bacchi Ball Enthusiasts of eastern Oregon, etc. In nature blog sites are forums for the exchange of ideas among people with similar interests, and a way to disseminate to others within your circle information they may not have. When you read Michelle Malkin or Matt Drudge, or hear it first on Limbaugh, you pass this new news on to your network, just in case they missed it. When global warming supporters issue yet another questionable finding you immediately go to a known credible watch-dog site, read their take on it, then pass that on, plus your own observations. Some of you are quite good at it, very dedicated, and quite talented. We've seen. You also have Snopes or some other fact-checking site bookmarked. What we have here, then, is a dissemination of information and really little more. There is no call to action or arms, real or implied among conservatives. The idea among conservatives and most other normal people still seems to be that knowledge is power. Tain't so. Just ask the Jews of Europe.
    Left wing networks spread information around differently than conservative sites do. We here at the Sands Institute are trying to unravel this network, for the Right has nothing like it. It is sinister, dark, but also well funded and pretty good at accomplishing goals. There truly is an invisible hand(s) coursing information through their veins in ways that is unknown to you, with the intent of stirring immediate action, not merely disseminating information. Some blogs are those invisible hands, sending to other, intermediate "management" blogs, then to others who are mere conduits (the mules), to the end of the cycle where we find action cells. Throughout there is an implied call to action...although for the most part, that action is little more than taking the information a level or two deeper, and raising the decibel level. But it almost always ends up in the computer of an "action agent" who will move to a phone call, a letter, organize a mob with signs, or head a local action group taking a petition to city council to impeach George Bush, or prompting John Murtha to stand before a microphone calling Marines murderers. Murtha's office, as well as those who could call him personally, had hundreds of calls from these unknown sources before he strode out to that microphone.
    Trust me, the original disseminators, the invisible hands, know these things are all lies. They are not the useful idiots. They are players. But they also know the well-placed, hard hitting lie today, if repeated often enough, and quickly enough (rat-a-tat-tat), will have legs that will stand long past that lie being exposed, several months later. They also know they have that army to give it legs.
    We spotted some of this little tactic in researching the genesis of the Haditha lies. The original Time Magazine Haditha story itself was a speculation, nothing more. It only insinuated a mass killing. Rumors. Maybe. Maybe not. I thought it was innocuous. The writer wrote it from his hotel in Baghdad relying on emails and accounts from people, it turned out, who were Sunni partisans (working for the BBC!)  posing as a humanitarian group. However, within 48 hours of this story hitting the news stands (where it made no real impression on its own), the story was all over the internet blogosphere of a mass murder. There can be no doubt that this had been planted and distributed in advance. It was from those internet sources, not Time Magazine, that John Murtha got his "facts". It would be several weeks before Time would come back to follow up on the story, after no doubt calculating that it would be in their best interest to run with the story rather than recant it. They still had no concrete facts. By then the story had taken on a life of it own...with not one single "fact" proven or perhaps even provable. The lie became truth and stayed truth long after it had been proved a lie.
     The manipulators knew well the vanities of its puppets, and the short attention spans, and ultimate passivity, of the public. (We've all seen this is real life, or maybe even profited from it, as when Mom says don't drink any more soft drinks, but when you walk brazenly by with another in your hand, she looks up, then immediately has to decide if she wants to stop and drop what she's doing in order to punish you, or let it pass. Many of you know this thought process. Invariably (except with my mother) you not only win, but you come away with a new hat full of knowledge you can exploit in the future. The public, alas, is like your mother, not mine. They let thing slide...if it requires an effort.
       This is instructive as to the power, and also the synchronization, of the Left wing blogosphere. They are interconnected in ways you are not. On deeper analysis we can see the "community action" work of people like Sol Alinksy, updated for the internet. (Alinsky's book, by the way, is a must reference, for while his inspiration may have been Karl Marx, and his goal Socialism, his tactics are there for all, even conservatives to use. Besides, we have the majority on our side, something Alinsky could never have.).
       We're trying to break the code of this synchronization (Bushmills smells Soros) and believe it to be similar to the way Al Qaeda forms cells, which itself was taken from the way Algerian separatists formed their cells against the French in the late 1950s, where everyone has a network of only a few, with perhaps only one link or contact outside that network. About this research we will be more discreet, for there is much still to be learned, but this network is "geometric" in design and thought. Very clever, very sophisticated.
 
    Picking the Fight and Site: First, get a toy wooden pistol. I'll explain. Not everyone will let you in, or allow you stay. First you have to register, with a password, you know the drill. (Recommendation: Take a name that is distinctive and easy to Google. If you have something clever to say, it will get around more quickly.)
    The further you move up the Leftwing food chain the more difficult to get in and get a response. A lot of prominent people have blogs, Right and Left. But they also have followers who cling to those blogs. Don't expect to go to Keith Olbermann's blog at dailyKos and expect him to respond when you call him out on some lie. He's long gone by then. But what you will find there are his sycophants, chewing up and regurgitating what Keith said in pretty much the same way 'Bama fans did at the ESPN game blog before the Florida game. How many ways can you say "we gonna win, we gonna win"?
    What kind of sites? Any blog site that has a popular following has groupies.They are good place to graze, as well as just read to get a sense of the style and tenor of the Enemy. DailyKos has a lot of vanity among its site managers as well as some of their regular bloggers, so after awhile, they may even join in themselves. If they do, carve a notch in you pistol. But they may also decide to block you. Don't fret, and don't worry about the notch. You've just been acclaimed as better than them. Move on.
    They are at the top of the food chain, exceeded only by the science and academic blogs, which, unless you're ready for the Bigs, you don't need to try. (We would like to see some of the conservative and ethics- based science blogs get a little more involved in the blogs of the Other Side. Perhaps, if we can kick up enough dust at the mid-to-lower levels of the blogsophere, here, they'll be inspired to jump in.)
    Then there are the regular run-of-the-mill issue-oriented or generalist progressive Left wing blogs, the mules. Just Google "anti-war Blogs" and you'll come up with 100's. The same if you Google "anti-Christian", or "progressive blogs". As I said, pick a subject. These are harder to break into (but worth the try, we recommend 2-3 tries a week) for the the same reasons conservative blogs are difficult to break into. They are there for the writer's own amusement and the use of a close circle of friends. They really don't care what other people think and don't want to join a debate, and are rarely at the computer more than an hour or so a day. If you can get in, and get anything started, carve a notch. Many however, are a little higher up in that cell-network I described, above. They are part of the chain, which is why we want to probe them. They are mid-level handlers. We are hoping to be able to out them by following their traffic patterns in the near future. As an aggravation, I want you to try to hit two-three a month. Just don't expect results. (See our Feedback notes below.)
    There are also open-forum sites, such as Glumbert (Canadian), eBaumsworld, and of course YouTube, where people all over the world come to watch funny videos. These are no-holds-barred forums, a magnet for bottom feeders, but as my colleague Streamline found out, a place where you can debate in front of literally hundreds of people as an audience. Making the other side look like liars, wrong, stupid, or just childish in front of a crowd is a very good, and if you're a Christian, healing thing, for there is nothing that can more quickly cause a miscreant to go look at himself in the mirror as when he's been made the fool in front of others. Rule: Always be aware that others, who aren't commenting, are nonetheless "listening". Many times, they, and not your foil, should be the real objects of your argument. Once you established your mark (a grifter's term), start preaching to the audience.
    Most of these videos are innocuous. You've probably had a few sent to you, but never checked the chatter. Many however, poke fun at Bush (a lot). I suspect Sarah Palin is there, too, and poor gullible, stupid Christians are the object of many videos. As well as the Japanese.?? Videos that are as old as two years are still getting new looks, so the comments there can be fairly recent. Rule: We recommend you stay with comment streams that are only a few hours old.
    Every day you will find a new insult to either your religion, your country, or Truth. Debates (sic) are basically in real time, almost like chat rooms. And you will find very early on a gang of people commenting in each of them, who roam the territory almost as if it were their own, with some really nasty language. You can make your own profiles of these people (an interesting hobby, by the way), a couple I've seen are certifiable and worthy of study by psychologists (There's something about the give-and-take of these mobs that reminds me of Capote's In Cold Blood  and makes me thank God they aren't all out together in a car on a Saturday night caper. There's a sinister synergy there. This type of imagery will also pop up in some of the political and anti-war blogs, and dailyKos. It gives you an idea of the caliber of minds that are driving the lower ranks of the Left. Tolkein may have had it right. They are orcs. Taken from behind those computers some of those people could be real storm troopers, not just yapping wannabes.) One of my colleagues has had a great deal of success in dealing with one of these mobs. Oh, they still roam free, but they are a little afraid of him. But what's more important, when he started he was an army of one. Now he is an army of  five or more, and two of their original seven or eight have disappeared. Where did they go? Got a job on day shift? Grew up? Got bored? (Rule: Most Lefties are bullies, and really don't like the taste of someone else's knuckles.)
    We also think SodaHead is a good place to look, as you can start your own fights simply by posing a question for their poll. Or you can join in on other issues that appeal to you. Pay attention to when posts have been made, for when people leave one of these polls, unlike eBaumsworld or Glumbert, they stay gone. It can dry up very quickly. I also noticed on this site that there are almost as many Right wing idiots as there are Lefties..so it's a good place to see many of your own closely-held beliefs mirrored by some genuine low-lifes.

 3: LOBBING THE FIRST STONE:
    Rule:  Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Most Lefties state their opinions as facts, engaging in what has become the most dangerous and most craven lie in America today. It is a disease. (See Bushmills' article.). I generally tell our Scat Patrol to leave opinions alone unless they are based on "facts" that clearly are not true. A simple inquiry, "Is that an opinion or statement of fact?" will get a quick answer. The untruth is always the best foot in the door, as you already have its author on the ropes. All you have to do is practice until your entry becomes an art form. Rule: Don't save your best swing for last. Sucker punches won't work for very long. You are the heavyweight. They are the 90-pound weakling. It's just for you to proclaim it. Be ready and able to hit their first pitch out of the park. Trust me, you can.
    Rule: Try to make a comment in as close to real time as you can, so that reply comments can be read and answered by you. The best debate is one that lasts an hour or more, so once engaged, stay committed. Always make the other guy break it off.
    Rule:  Once in, plan to stay. Lefties tend to be quitters if they think you're getting the best of them. Make them break it off. Then check tomorrow, same time, perhaps even at another posting on the blog. They like to jump from subject to subject (or video to video) as a form of evasion. If you caused them to break off the fight last time, they won't be glad to see you, and since, they too are often guests on the site, they really can't get you tossed. (This by the way is a thing people who own their own blog site can do. They can look over, then expel any comments they don't want to appear in public. Conservatives also do this. We've long wanted conservatives to cut the filters and allow more scatalogical language and arguments onto their sites, so long as the arguments are substantive.) Rule: One thing a scat-tongued cusser hates most is when you can beat him without using a single m-f'r, g-d, or c-s'r. "Oh thou shite-ing bovine!" We don't disapprove of limited profanity, but it must be cleverly placed and inserted, preferably just under the rib cage. Once you've made contact and gained points (remember your pistol?) check every day to see if this guy shows up again. Usually he will. But if he doesn't, you might even search his name as he may well go to other places, as well. One of our Scat-men tracked one guy to another site. He hated it when our guy showed there, too. His worst nightmare: knowing he's being dogged. Finally he may even change his ID, re-register, and come right back. So look for similarities among newbies when an oldie suddenly disappears.

    Setting the Hook: An Example
    What you are trying to "hook" (this is a lot like trout fishing in that you often have to try a lot of casts, and even tie on different flies before you can get them to rise to the bait...hence my internet ID, Chumm or Chummin)...is a writer caught in a lie, or a position that philosophically is contradictory with his stated position. For instance, it doesn't take long, a few questions at most, to fillet away the "invasion" or "illegality", "war for oil" arguments of the Left about Iraq. Forget about winning those points, i.e. changing their minds. That's not how you "win" in these fights. They think that's where you are going, so, when you cite the exact language of Congress' authorization, they will (most likely) come back with the Bush-Lied-WMD refrain (thus, in their minds, invalidating Congress vote, although Congress had several chance to do just that very thing, but never would). At this juncture you can bring up, however you choose to use it, the fact that their notion of illegality then, is a figment of their own creation, perhaps because of narcissism, stupidity, clairvoyance, pick your pathology. They are deathly afraid of being shown to be stupid, by the way...a classic sign of insecurity.
    It only takes three or four back-and-forth's, you providing official records, them citing anti-war sites, even Al Jeezera. They think it's done, and are about to retire, and you hit them with the big ones. Make it personal.  (We use this to great effect, it's part of our stock arsenal.)  "Hey, one of the things that has always made Americans different to every other country in the world is that we have always been willing to lay down our lives for our neighbors. People we don't know. (Cite John 15:13). There are thousands of white crosses in France from WWI and WWII. And over 600,000 white men died in the Civil War freeing a colored people most had never even seen before.
     "Are you saying you disapprove of this? Would you rush to the aid of your neighbor if you saw thugs beating him up next door, or would you just cower under your desk? Would you at least call 9-1-1? We just freed 25 million Iraqis. Are you say thing this is a bad thing?" (Remember, other are watching.)     
      At this point you own the floor, for there is no honorable retreat for the Leftie. He can't admit he's a physical coward. (He usually is.) He can't say he wouldn't lift a finger to save his neighbor. (He wouldn't.) He can't say he's really in favor of totalitarian thuggery, as Saddam imposed. He can't say he a Terror-Symp (although indirectly he is).  All he can come back with is "Well, the Arabs can't handle democracy. It's not in their world view." (We can prove otherwise, by the way.) At which you counter that little bit of condescension with a "That's exactly what the State of Virginia said all the way up until 1968 about black people. Are you sure you want to stand on that?"
     As you strip away each level of veneer from this person, you've laid bare his soul. He/she may be socialist, a communist, but most are little more than "me-ists" defining themselves entirely by what they hate. What they know of Marx you can write on the back of a postage stamp. What they hate is America, God, or a host of other things that are attainable by everyone. Their mantra is: If the masses can get it, we hate it. These are alienists, with a hole in their soul.
     The good news is that many, even most, will grow out of it. But many won't.

 4. STYLES OF ARGUMENT
     "Do unto others...". It's true, you will be well advised to avoid arguing in the same manner as that which makes your own spine stiffen. I know a head of an English Department, old-fashioned Liberal NOL (Not of the Left), who, when backed into a corner in an argument will  lead a parry with "As everyone knows..." meaning of course, if you don't know it, you're as dumb as a bag of rock. This line of attack is merely annoying when used by an arrogant so-and-so, but downright insulting when that thing that "everyone knows" ain't even so, as we see now especially in the Al Gore approach to selling man-made climate change. He does that all the time, and if he weren't a former vice-president protected by Secret service, I'd knock his block off. In fact, I whispered to one of my friends, who got caught in the cross hairs of one of those insipidities at a dinner party recently, "Go ahead, slug him. I can get you off. No jury would ever convict you."
     Condescending arrogance is the first shelter of the know-nothing. Watch for it. Rule: Just don't use it yourself, except as parody or satire. (They hate being mocked...effectively. It is the quickest way to make them change their manner of speaking.)
     Most Lefties argue with the ad hominum and the strawman. Hitler used the Jews, Lefties use Halliburton, Carl Rove, etc. They even use "capitalism" as one, even though few can tell you what it is. Every issue the Left raises begs for a deeper inquiry into 1) their knowledge system...what they actually know about a thing, say, progressivism, liberalism, Marxism, socialism, the Constitution (which most insist they love and defend), 2) their belief system...what they truly believe about these things, and 3) their reason system, i.e., their ability to put two and two together; their ability to see logical consequences. Conservatives own this field of battle, if we'll just go there.

5: WINNING
   By opening these closets and laying bare their skeletons, Leftists will generally fall into two categories: Deceptors and self-deceptors.
The first group, Deceptors, are committed Marxists, socialists, or maybe only opportunistic Me-ists seeking to be part of the power grab  now going on (It is a sweet job, if you can get it...to be on the management side of socialism.) They know what they are saying is a libel, and they also know where you are trying to lead them...into a trap. Don't look for confessions from this group. Don't expect them to change their minds. Your target is the audience. Your arguments, against an unseen audience of say 50, may cause 5-10 to become doubters. That's the best you can hope to do...but that's pretty good. But even the Deceptors will come away with a sense that they had lost ground. It is dispiriting to have your real game revealed. Just remember, debating a true socialist is not the same as debating a pretender. These are the ones with something to lose if they are exposed.
    Self-deceptors, the far more numerous, are easier to cause to stumble for many of the questions you will ask them will be the first time they'd encountered it. Just what is a fascist? A communist? Did Stalin really do that? Did George Bernard Shaw actually write that?
    Of course, all these "I didn't know that's..." are subliminal, unspoken, but one of the great lessons of human kind is that only a very, very few who are proved wrong will ever stand on a peach crate and announce it to the world. Most will simply and quietly change their behavior.
    That's how you know you are winning, by picking up in their tone, cadence, and language that they've started thinking about things differently. Remember, you are not out to smite these people. You first want to win them over, or get them to retreat from the field. You are doing God's work in this regard. You have offered up the hope of redemption (secularly speaking). When those have all been sorted out...then we smite the rest.
    We like the use of clever one-liners to go along with your factual arguments, and suggest you make a list. This may sound incongruous from the length of this article, but after all, this is little more than a one-hour lecture. (In fact, you have my permission to take this Guide, condense it, alter it into more a form more suitable to your needs), and hold your own lectures or group session. You can even do so without attribution. Just spread the word.)
    As part of my arsenal, to go along with my experiences, I have a collection of notes, Chesterton's quotes, The Portable Curmudgeon, 2548 Best Things Anyone Ever Said, The Cynics Lexicon, a couple of books on foreign language quotes, including Latin. Bushmills is a fiend for Mark Twain, but he also has a lot of direct Moses Sands quotes. The internet is full of great quotes that might be worthy of use. We even have a couple of stock terms, such as dixit insipiens (thus spake the fool), Oh Thou Shite-ing Bovine, even Bolshevik! which VB uses in lieu of b-s from time to time. Even Shostakoich sounds like a swear word.
   If you write a good argument, even a single line, save it for future use. Pass it around, in fact. Most of your colleagues will give you the footnote credits. We also try to. (You can see what we're trying to start here. Huh? Close you eyes and look forward a few years.) Getting a reputation online can be valuable, as a few Lefties may want to come gunning for you.
   If you haven't already gathered, it's obvious, for our purposes that you enter these frays as a group, a Scat-patrol of sorts. One of you may scout a site, then move in, then bring in others as the debate picks up heat, or go in a swarm. Since you will always live to fight another day, you can try several approaches just to see which works best. Or, you may be a solo hot-shot pilot. A lonely sentinel. (That's how my friend in Georgia does it.) Some want to create a personna, while others may (one I know, who's hooked on Batman) want to use a different ID each and every sortie...always just a joust, a jab, and pain in the jaw, then a shadow.

6: FEEDBACK
    Which leaves to why do this at all...and first among firsts is that you satisfy certain inner needs; being a part of a real fight  against Evil, which, trust me, is far more rewarding than exchanging holier-than-thou quips about the stupidity of liberals with your mates. As to style, we have patrol members who like Batman, the Scarlett Pimpernel, Zorro, but also the Mag Seven, Kurisawa, Legalos...make you own list.
    But our Movement really does need this. These people need to be shown they cannot have the internet highway as their private domain. We can take that away from the, in the process, neutralizing many of their soldiers. The remainders can be made to retreat, further and further back into more protective recesses, but what you will have done, say in five years, will have interrupted some of their action-based communication system, and perhaps equally as important, lessened the power of their noise. You will have made the wheel less squeaky, which in turn, will make the next move to the microphone by the likes of John Murtha less likely. Politicians should always be afraid, but the Constitution wants them to be afraid of the Good...which right now, they are not.
     You may even want to launch a counter-offensive. If so, I wish you'd go after Chuck Schumer for that bombshell he dropped causing the run on IndyMac back in August. Look at the trickle down on that little criminal act. The California attorney general is said to be looking into it...just as the Ohio attorney general is said to be looking into the public release of Joe the Plumber's personal files. See!!!!! That''s the difference the other side made. Schumer and Brunner would have been gone by now, in jail, jail, jail, had our side had the energy, not to mention to the cause of right, that the Lefties do.
      But there will be other chances. Watch and wait. And build your networks, 2-3-4-5 at a time.

     What we need at SICCM is your feedback. No attaboys, mind you, real feedback as to what's going on. St George Frederick is in the Balkans right now, but when he returns he's going to open a new page at GreatAmericanZeroes.com to celebrate any and all of you who go out and pick fights with these cretins. I'm not sure how that page will be set up, but it is his first priority in January. We need you to let us know what's going on. Just go there and email us a link, or any other kind of after action so we can watch how you're doing. We may even send some our old scat-patrols over. Expect some failures and some slip-ups. Be able to handle rejection. You may or may not want to let us know about your failures, but we do hope to do a statistical work-up in  a year or so.
     With that,
     Good Hunting

Bernard Chumm


   

   Two words. Global warning.
   If you made a list of all the reasons marine biologists suggest as being the reason for the increase in shark attacks against humans, and resulting death...FoxNews just ran a full episode Dec 29...climate change will come in around fourth. But global warming makes those deaths front page concerns.
   Not so the many deaths occurring in the US and Europe, from that other Great White, the avalanche.
   Just in the week leading up to Christmas two have died in out West, due to what? Early snowfalls. Eaarrrrlllyyyy snowfall.
   Early winter does not fall within the global warming template, so those deaths get pushed back to page 10.
   Get it?
Blakeley

       I've already published a piece about how to probe for, find and expose the weak spots of the typical internet left-wing blogger; you know, the Bush-Lied-People-Died crowd. Find a subject near and dear to you, The War, Global Warming, God, Honesty, Ethics, you name it they're out there railing and lying about it.
       Want to know why? Because they were sicc'ed on the issue by that damned Invisible Hand we don't seem to have on our side anymore. They know very little about anything, allowing Wikipedia and speedy Google searches to make up for what they don't have in any substantive facts or knowledge. They also know, from experience, that they can seize the internet highway with little more than rat-a-tat-tat small arms fire, for their opposites don't seem to be inclined to want to meet them in open battle. There are many reasons for this phenomenon; laziness, cowardice and squeamishness just to list a few. It is conservatives that have turned this rabble into an army.
        But my little group has had enormous success fighting them, for we know that we hold better cards than they do...a better grasp of facts, a better grounding in philosophical truths (Evil always bows to Good when confronted thus) and a superior ability to analyze and think on our feet. They cannot think, they can only regurgitate, reciting what some other idiot wrote in another blog they just Googled.
        All we've been waiting for is for more soldiers to step forward so we can take on this mob in a more organized fashion......snore....snore....snore...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

        Meanwhile, Vassar Bushmills and I have been working for some weeks trying to find strategies and tactics that will allow still others to probe the public weaknesses of the Left, especially its political spokesmen. (Going after academic dilettantes is another matter, but even there, we've found some weak links, some doublespeak, if you will, that makes them vulnerable to certain thrusts and parries.)
       Because we have no public dais of our own, nor can afford to allow that to happen, we have to risk placing this analysis out in the public domain, on the theory it really doesn't matter what the Left knows we know about them, for there is nothing they can do to beat us in an open fight, since, again, we have all the high cards. Their only chance is that no one will venture forth to fight them, which, for the most part has been the case.
      You already know the natural disadvantages both national talk radio and conservative elected politicians have. The talk radio format generally is not conducive to anything much longer than a thirty-second to one minute exchange. Why join an argument that can only go until the next hard break? Besides, none of the major talk show hosts (Limbaugh is the worst by far) seem never to have read Socrates getting poor Thrasymachus to hang himself with his own arguments. 1) That takes awhile. 2) Thrasymachus does more talking than Socrates. Not much vanity in that.
      Right-minded politicians face a similar dilemma in that if they do say something clever, it's like a tree falling in the forest. No one is there to report it. We disgaree with this "policy" (I would stick my head in the oven tomorrow if I thought this sort of timidity actually reflected the true nature of most Republican elected officials) of ignoring the name they had just been called by the Democrat sitting right next to them in the NBC studio, "corrupt, crooked, evil", you name it, but without so much as a "so's yer ol' lady", instead moving onto the number-crunching merits of the issue.
     If that is a GOP policy, it needs to be looked at more closely, for apparently this sort of junk-yard scrapping works with the voters, causing some to vote for the scrappers, while causing many more, I think, to stay home out of embarrassment that their guard dogs can be whipped by yappy Pomeranians. If anything in the world should unnerve those of us professing to be true conservatives, the inheritors of the pioneer spirit that felled forests, crossed a continent and tamed it, built cities and the greatest system of freedom the earth has ever seen...is that some microbe from Nevada can out-duke us in the back alley.
     I'm not sure why Senate and House rules will allow a member to call the opposite party crooks, thieves, even fascists, but not allow the other side to call them liars for saying it. But that seems to be the way it is.
     Republicans always complain that they can never get any attention. The media will only cover a charge or accusation by a Republican if it carries the hint of name-calling in which the Democrat will always get in the last word. Vassar Bushmills reported to me once that Moses Sands had that problem fixed a long time ago, only no one will use it. His Rule: Let your first salvo also be the best. When Reid tells a tale out of school...can any member of Congress recall a day, even one single day, that a public lie hasn't issued forth from some member of the Democrat Party?...all any Republican has to say is "What Senator Reid said was factually untrue. When a person says something like that it is because he is 1) misinformed, 2) lying or 3) incompetent. Now, I'm just a poor old county judge from Kentucky, so I can't know Sen Reid's mind, heart or access to facts, so I will have to leave it up to you (the press) to figure out which one of those things apply."
     Senate rules violated? I don't think so. Press coverage? You bet. Effective retort by Reid? Impossible...for remember, most Congressmen will move mountains to prevent being portrayed as stupid. The lying charge will stick as the better alternative. All Reid can do is bale water. Moreover, once stung, he is less apt to be caught out in the boat with a paddle. Even senators hate having their mouths washed out with soap.

     We think there are all sorts of strategies that can be adopted once politicians understand the Game.
     No matter what the issue, or venue, Leftist politicians, instinctively understanding the weakness of their positions (i.e, they know they are lying and are therefore rarely misinformed or stupid) immediately move out to seize the high ground (the highway) of the argument, then hold it by the filibuster. No one seems to know how to break that filibuster, and in truth, it is difficult at the national level, for one, national television can be very bad for a politician who gets smeared (caught in a lie or "stupidity"), for on television, the whole body language of defeat is easy for all to see. They are always playing to the crowd, their constituencies...the voters back home, their contributors, their political allies. Their station depends on how well they yammer in public. So on Fox News they play the game very hard....and so far, better than the GOP.
     We have to pick out fights where we can, and I think the weakest link and place best available for counter-punching dishonest politicians is local talk radio. Here, it seems congressmen and senators are more willing to go into hostile radio environments (most talk shows are conservative with biased audiences), usually outside their states or districts, and from a phone, so there is no negative visual feedback is they misspeak. It's a win-win, or so they think.
     What we have learned is that the filibuster-style of argument/debate is what identifies a Democrat politician as an up-and-comer. (Clearly, this is not the case with the GOP.) But while employing a rat-a-tat filibuster in front of Chris Wallace, or even an O'Reilly or Hannity, on local talk radio, knowing the local guy will try to match them, rat-for-tat, they can still filibuster while still remaining calm and composed, and relatively quiet. Let the local host raise the decibel level. This, by the way, is one of their fastest routes to senior leadership in the Democrat Party, both state and local...the ability to quickly seize then hold the high ground, all the while sounding like an Episcopalian parson reprimanding a twelve-year old. Saying lines well is far more valuable to the Democrat Party that any abilities in things such as governing.
     In that vein, Mr Bushmills sent me a cassette of a "debate" of sorts he took from the radio, between a local radio talk show host and a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus over the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout. I have a library of other tapes, but usually only 30 seconds or less, sound bytes, mostly from television interviews, going back years. This is the longest debate I've been able to retrieve so have put it to good use.
        (I've omitted the names of both the host and Congressman, for this will sound like a criticism of the host, but it is intended to be a guide.) The host confronted the congressmen with facts (he had done his homework) and the congressman deflected with pat, well-rehearsed answers having had, in all likelihood, these same questions put before him several times. (In fact, they practice this I've found out.) The more he deflected in a calm easy voice, the more the host's voice rose. The congressman knew what was coming and the host didn't disappoint.
         In a venue where style matters more than facts, especially in front of an audience that is already on the side of the host, and in a venue where not one voter lives, the dishonest congressman mopped up the floor with his honest inquisitor....in my opinion.
         So, how to turn all this around?

         The whole purpose is stop the liar in his tracks. Take him off script. More than anything else, make him think on his feet. Make him think about things he hadn't prepped himself for. Remember the rule stated above, if you are a conservative, you have the facts, philosophy, and skills of analysis generally in you favor. Move him off-script and over to issues of honesty, or stupidity, or competence, or the premises underlying his statist positions. For instance, the CBC was probably involved criminally in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and that's what they prep themselves to prevent being exposed. But the statism and paternalism underlying the legislation involved, that provide the basis for criminal conspiracy, is generally not a territory they expect to be examined. Remember: white liberals believe black-Americans cannot make it without a helping hand. But the CBC believes black Americans must not make it without a middle man. Their constituents don't get jack unless they get their cut. See how easy it is to turn that on a black congressman? In those waters he starts to flounder.
         I really like the Moses Sands 3-point example (above) for it immediately makes the congressman self-conscious, of being naked, so to speak. This creates a hesitancy that even shows up on radio...pauses, stammers, little quivers in the voice. We've even "seen" this on-line after we'd nailed one of the dailyCuss bloggers. It doesn't require more than five-ten seconds to stop a lying congressman in his tracks, take him off the highway, then follow up with other questions that lead him back onto the highway under conditions more suitable to the host. Take away his initiative and his confidence.
        Granted, I have the benefit of hindsight in this debate with the congressman from CBC, but I believe there is less "art" in defeating these rubes than simple logic and a little insight and confidence in a game plan that tells you where you want to go that is someplace other than where they think you want to go. To coin a phrase, move outside the box.
        In the end, politicians will avoid this talk show host's show like the flu, but as with gunslingers, there will be plenty of dead bodies in the street before the exodus begins. There will a lot of fast-talking politician wanting to get a reputation, before they realize the risks far outweigh the benefits. And, since most politicians will only engage in these debates out-of-district, it is important to our cause, if not your own, to share recordings of a politician's failings withe local media in his home district. That's the prize for us, letting him go home to hear the debate on local radio over and over again.
        What fun...while the Congress allows the fun to last.
  
        To talk show hosts and conservatives generally, you can never beat these guys single-handed. But you can set a trend. Some of you will be better than others of you. But you have be in the Game for the right reasons. We've seen way too many "conservative" talk show hosts who enjoy putting little guys down, which, we believe is the central ailment of conservatism today. Sure career matters, but these are tactics and skills that need to be shared. Let the cream rise to the top as the group rises, not as it falls into oblivion. This could become a movement that can undermine much of what the Left hopes to do, especially in local and regional venues...where the counter-revolution has to begin, and there the next generation of leadership has to come from.
         Bernard Chumm
       
        

        

     In an earlier essay I described ways to do battle with the foul mouthed trash who now infest the internet. They have had much success in pushing the leftist agenda forward and into the streets, resulting in part with the taking of the socialist agenda to a whole new level of political power in America...in which ironically, they may not be allowed to participate for very long.
     For indeed there are many parallels between this lot and the idle and disenchanted youth Ernst Roehm recruited and trained in the late 1920s and early 30s, forging them into gangs of roaming thugs who by 1933 controlled most of the streets of Germany. By 1934 they had served their purpose, Roehm and other founders executed, the committed remains of that militia being melded into something darker and even more sinister. But for those who decided they liked the little turf territories they had commandeered for themselves, and wanted to stay on their street corners, like Roehm, they were taken out and summarily shot.

     Wenn is wie eine stormtruppen gebt
     Wenn is wie eine stormtruppen gesprache
     Es ist eine stormtruppen
    (If it walks like a...and talks like a...it is a....)

     Today those streets are the internet highway, and today those little soldiers have done what needed to be done. Today the American citizen, and the American conservative face the same dilemma the German people did in 1932. Do we leave our barricaded house and confront this menace on the streets, or do we hunker down and wait for someone to come along and do it for us?
     I can only speculate at this early stage, but in Germany the same man who put those thugs out on the street was the one who came and removed them a few years later, thus earning the eternal gratitude...and quiet, trembling, unquestioning obedience...of the people.

     We can only speculate at this early stage, but Vassar Bushmills and I (and others) have been quizzing each other as to what clues we can look for in 2009 as to what might transpire to give us a clue.
     We all agree, watch the stormtroopers. Moreover, watch what will replace them, as the need for order replaces the need for chaos.

     I think Obama's comment
        "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set.
       We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded"
 may provide a clue.
        This comment, if as well thought out as it was delivered, suggest his national security interests will shift inward, domestically. Read Vassar Bushmill's piece on the increase of domestic spying, posted a few days ago.

    The idea of a national police force is a scary thing for a free country, in fact, it is antithetical. But a frightened nation, hiding behind barricaded doors, may not see things this way.
    Assuming it would take 2-3 years to be up and running, such a force would have no impact until a second Obama term. If there is to be civil disturbances beforehand, the Administration will have to either ignore posse comitatus or Congress will have to suspend or override it. We think the latter, as many (most) military commanders will not cross that the line of illegality for a C-in-C who already doesn't like them very much.
    There are already small private militias in America, and not just the conspiracy nuts out in the Idahos. Farrakhan has one, much like al Sadr's in Sadr City, and we've all heard (if you've been listening, find it on Google) to the little cant-Pledge-of-Allegiance some of them gave to Obama before the election. Kinda spooky, huh? But still, no clear signal or sign of things to come.
    Recruiting such an army also will not be a problem. We can all guess where the best pastures for finding these new officers of the law will come from....especially if we already have thousands of them up to work in our new "infrastructure camps". CCC, anyone? Training will be begin soon.

    True, it is easy to put two and two together and come up with five. It could all be very benign, which is why I suggest you only watch. But there is one major problem with this benign outlook: A president does not create such a monster, train it, and inspire it, especially if it is to be beholding to him, then expect to pass it off to the next president in eight years. Presidents don't do that. Only Caesars do.
    To my mind, that's the clue. Look for it. Look for murmurings and whispers in about 2011 about changing the 22nd Amendment.

    Bernard Chumm
   
    
  

    We are unrepentant supporters of the US Constitution here at The Sands Institute. On that basis alone we have entered into all sorts of analyses (and started fights) over what we consider to be threats not only to the Constitution, but to the culture engendered by it.
     But this is one of the few subjects we can be totally and completely objective about, for understanding spying requires absolutely no partisan political position whatsoever. In fact, it does not even require a political viewpoint.
     For you see, spying operates entirely against the backdrop of an immutable, I repeat, IMMUTABLE law:
     "An organization, or government, will spy on anything that can do it harm."
     
      In this I did not mention whether the organization or government is purported to be good, for it always is in its own eyes. That is a given, no matter what later history may say. I also did not say "they will want to" spy. I said they WILL spy.
      Because this law is so concrete I can then direct my analysis to three (3) different factions, or voices, that have risen in the past eight years over the issue of domestic spying.
      First, there are those of you who have cried bloody murder about domestic spying since Bush took office, about it's purported illegality or unconstitutionality, but really because you feared it might (once again) be directed at you, and not because you have any special dislike for the general practice of a government spying on its citizens. All you care about is "which citizens". Those of us who know you are neither offended or dismayed. We don't get mad at dogs for being dogs.
      Far more numerous are you over-fed, under-worked little naifs who have m-f'd this, and g-dm'd that all over the internet from Portland to Portland the past 8 years because you have the genuine belief that this practice is 1) illegal, 2) unconstitutional, and 3) morally reprehensible. You have been screwed.
      Since, as a rule, none of you can define any of those terms with any clarity, you were largely ignored on the substance of this issue from the very beginning. It was the ruckus you raised that brought you to the table. Your style and tone-setting, shall we say, could not be ignored and was instrumental in forging one leg of the stool we call here the Bush Lied-Bush Spied-Bush Tortured nexus of impeachable offenses, which several city governments and state democrat parties voted to suggest. In this regard you were very "inspirational" to the cause of socialism...up to Nov 4th, at least. But just remember Lenin's Law on the Usefuls. What happens to you next remains to be revealed...for if you hold onto this silly notion of a genuine right from being spied upon by government any further...and I'm speaking as a Category One socialist here...you will find yourselves in the cross hairs of this very same sort of spying. READ THE LAW! IT'S IMMUTABLE! (Look that word up, too.) Jerk'em off and they will be looking in on you. The guys you helped elect are far more fearful of you than the guy you hated. Kinda sucks, doesn't it?
     Third, and more numerous than the first two combined (So tell me, how do you manage to lose elections, again and again? Is is a gift?) are those Americans who believe that the practices announced by the Bush Administration as to what it may lawfully do, and could do technically, does not amount to spying on citizens if it is deemed lawful by competent courts (so far that has been the case) and is limited to phone calls from outside the country from people known or suspected to be related to terrorists in some way.
     (My purpose is not to analyze the Bush Spied accusation here, since so far, it has withstood legal scrutiny, despite all the caterwauling. We do that analysis it at GreatAmericanZeroes.com where St George Frederick is in the process of "hanging" every liar involved in perpetrating this fraud, which means a lot of law school faculties, in toto, alongside the sonnenkinder.)
    For ordinary citizens, even more than those youthful scat armies of the Left, domestic spying will be turned on you in a big way, and in ways you hadn't imagined; cell phones, internet, key holes and transoms, school snitches. What the FBI did to anti-war radicals in the 60s will pale by comparison. Remember we told you we're keeping out land lines? Call the phone company. It's coming.
    For you see, there is a corollary to the Law of Spying (above): "Spying increases by a multiple of 10 when the people who can do a government harm are domestic rather than foreign."
    When governments see their greatest prospective enemies as their own people, they create internal measures to not only monitor, but guard, and eventually interdict "fearful" activity that might upset their applecart.
    With socialism (and here I will get partisan), from its very beginning, except for maybe 20 months between the forming of Soviet Union and the death of Lenin, there is a built-in paranoia, of constantly looking over one's shoulder. Republican democracy, on the other hand, usually gets it in the end because it doesn't look near enough, but that's another matter.
     The irony, of course, is who gets all the blame for excessive, illegal spying most foul? You guessed it. George W Bush.

    With that understood, a little history lesson in circumstantial evidence, the sort, that while you may or may not be able to win in a court of law, you can certainly win arguments, win bets, and generally ascertain who's more practiced at spying. OK, who spies in America? And who spies illegally in America? And who gets away with it in America? Why Democrats of course. Why Leftists, of course.
    Take us back to Woodrow Wilson's era, an icon of liberalism (and fascism it seems), he spied on citizens and threatened to jail them if they disagreed publicly...DISAGREED, not assembled, not wrote, not throw rocks, DISAGREED, with his policies.  Wilson was a Democrat.
    He was followed by Republicans who made no serious mark of the domestic spying fronts as there was no federal criminal laws that enabled them to do so...not until the Lindbergh baby. Speaking of babies, Baby-faced Nelson, Capone, Dillinger, The Barrow Gang also brought about a host of new laws...with the FBI under J Edgar Hoover....that allowed the federal government to begin checking up on citizens.
    They spied after a fashion, I suppose, and history will no doubt be rewritten to prove it.
    Then came FDR, with Hoover at his side, and by 1935, intense spying on what were called "Fifth Columnists" both Communist and the Nazi bunds. By the time Pearl Harbor came around internal spying had become such a chore FDR decided to put some of his headaches in gated communities called "camps" out west. Fifty years later the American people picked up a hefty tab for that little bit of racist oops. Oh, FDR was also a Democrat. And a socialist, sort of.
    In 1945 Roosevelt died, but Hoover stayed on, under Truman, who was also a Democrat, turning the "spying vigor" of government against the Red Scare. To read about it, it must have been a horror. A holocaust, even. So many people smeared in America, while in the USSR and Germany they only died. IT must have been gruesome. Trying to find an objective history of that era is like trying to find a book on Arab-Israeli relations written by a guy named Smith instead of Abd-al-Rahmann or Fishbein. From the executions of the Rosenbergs forward, it has been impossible, sadly even among scholars, to tell the differences between the law "as it is/was" and law "as it should be".
    With the arrival of Eisenhower, the Red Scare abated, some say because of Ike, who had Joe McCarthy fired and who pulled many of the teeth of the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Look for a rise of that group too, only under a different name, and indeed, an opposite mission. My dying wish is to be called before it. Maybe Henry Waxman will still be there, too. One can only hope.) But Hoover was still on the job. Even as the Cold War settled in, this was an era of pulling back in domestic spying. Oh, Eisenhower was a Republican..."and did what was pleasing to God, and ruled eight years. The rest of the acts of Eisenhower, are they not written in the chronicles of the Presidents, and after eight more years did he not rest with Jehovah?"
     Next came JFK, the lamented and soon-to-be-forgotten JFK. (Moses Sands once told me that JFK will be forgotten completely the day after the last person who can remember where they were on Nov 22, 1963 is moved into a nursing home.) Hoover was still there, and possibly because he was getting a little long in the tooth, but also at the insistence of RFK, he began spying on black leaders of the civil rights movement. No public charges, just a collection of raw facts, whispers and innuendo, the sort that also showed up in the White House under the Clintons. Just remember, in those days there actually were charges (crimes on the book) that could be brought for conspiring with organizations dedicated to the overthrow of the government. (There will be again, by the way, only aimed at constitutionalists, not socialists). So while modern Americans might find this sort of spying morally wrong, or even illegal in a cosmic sense, it wasn't against the law as it was known at the time. Oh, the Kennedys were both Democrats.
    Then came LBJ and the war in Vietnam. More important for some, there was the anti-War. I have no doubt that Hoover hated those anti-war hippies with every fiber of his being. For one, they didn't know how to dress well, and that was almost a fetish with the Director.
Perhaps on his own, but at least with the condonance of the Johnson Administration and Congress, Hoover turned his spying efforts toward  the Communist connections with the anti-War movement. This overwhelmed the FBI, and led to his undoing, for virtually all of them were Communist-formed, Communist-led, Communist-inspired, or Communist-infiltrated. Not a Baptist in the bunch. The task was so daunting that Congress did what Congress can always be expected to do during a war with Communism. It declared Communism no longer to be bad, a threat, unnatural, or in any way un-American, and ordered law enforcement to stop looking into it. In the middle of a war against Communism Congress surrendered, just to shut up that damned squeaky wheel, in the hopes those English professors would get back to teaching English and leave foreign affairs to the experts.
    But with the active participation of those English teachers, and the prayerful indifference by Congress, over one million Cambodians were murdered, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese murdered or set adrift in leaky boats, and one lonely aviator got his arms broke in a prison in Hanoi. Did I mention LBJ and the Congress were Democrats?
    But enough of the little insignificant stuff. In 1968 a genuine paranoid criminal ascended the throne in Washington, and real dangerous and criminal spying occurred, since, you see, Richard M Nixon had enemies. I don't recall that he ever shot one of them, or even arrested one. But he did make a list. And he talked about them...on a phone that was being taped. He said words that made American blanch at just the thought of a President saying them. Vile words like "damn" and "H-e-double toothpicks". Finally, and worst of all, he lied (I think) (but not under oath, I'm sure) in order to protect some of his staff who had been involved in a warrant-less break-in of an apartment of one of those enemies, to gather evidence. He was drummed out of office in disgrace in 1974. This was the crime of the century and it was over domestic spying.
    Now I'm not excusing Nixon here. I'm fairly certain he did commit a crime, and like most of you, I'm also willing to cut a deal with a bank robber in order to catch and convict the getaway driver.
    Did I mentioned Nixon was a Republican? Didn't have to, did I? Half the rain forests in Brazil had been sacrificed reminding us of that fact...and in a subtle sort of a way, keeping those two million dead eyes in southeast Asia from ever entering into our dreams. Maybe Richard Nixon did die for our sins. Democrats should certainly look at it that way.
    Next was Gerald Ford, who backed into his job, and Jimmie Carter, who, it's a shame didn't spy, because at least there would have been something to say about those years other than double-digit inflation, a major recession and pictures of Iranians spitting on Americans in blindfolds. Domestic spying wouldn't have changed any of those things, but would certainly have enhanced his image as having a pair. What did change in those years, only nobody noticed, was all those young English professors the FBI was told not to watch anymore were getting tenure at America's colleges and universities.
    I'll finish here by doing Reagan-Bush I-Clinton-Bush II as a group, covering 1981-2008 (28 years). During twenty of those twenty eight years, there was no, I repeat, NO reports or records of domestic spying. There were accusations aplenty, especially in the last eight, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
    Did I mention that those 20 years were all Republican years?
    It's true. Reagan did so much to annoy the Left it staggers the mind. Placing missiles in Europe. Spitting in the Soviets eyes, and even making jokes about it. Good God, he couldn't go to the bathroom without someone standing outside the door shouting "Stop the Nukes".
     But Lefties knew they were out-matched, for there is nothing that a screaming Leftist hates more than to be ignored. Reagan had a way of conveying to the American people (something Bush II couldn't pull off), simply by his manner and quiet confidence, that these were noisy, cretinous children and nothing more. If you can convey to a microbe that he/she is even more insignificant than a bug, not even worth squishing, you've won. Reagan did that with a smile, not a John Kerry down-the-nose look of disdain. Commies hate that.
     Yes, Ronald Reagan was a Republican, and he was also a conservative, "...and did what was pleasing to God, and ruled eight years. The rest of the acts of Reagan, are they not written in the chronicles of the Presidents, and after sixteen more years did he not rest with Jehovah?"
     But I'll bet Reagan spied. He was aware of the real threat. We just don't know about it. That's what you call "teating your cards." He did that very well.
     Clinton also spied. Big Time. His party spied big Time. But for money and profit. For political gain. Not for national security. Remember that old couple, the Wilson's, snooping on Speaker Gingrich's cell phone calls? Then onto to Jim McDermott? Was he run from Congress in disgrace? Sanctioned? Jail time? None of those things ever happened, and yes, there is a pattern here that extends to Charley Wrangel, only last month.
     Clinton had (has) an enemies list that made Nixon's look like a postage stamp. In many ways his use of the FBI files were far more heinous than breaking into the Watergate, for it was for the purpose of extortion. Nixon at least could argue (and maybe some historian will listen some day) that Daniel Ellsberg was a national security risk. And surely history has proven that the Democrat Party of the United States is as close to a communist organization as you can get, and once we've had about thirty years of their legal inspiration, maybe history will go back and revisit that whole Watergate thing...if given the chance. But in 1972 they were both legal, and that's a lamentable fact. We tend to want to spy on those who will do us harm, and Nixon was just paranoid enough to confuse his personal security with the nation's.
      But all Bill Clinton wanted was a leg up. An edge. He wanted to be able to call in so-and-so and show him some 8 x 10 glossies of him and a donkey, or a little boy, or maybe just a cookie jar with his fist lodged in it, who knows? But with that he would secure his obedience, silence, or maybe even raise a few bucks for a new set of sheets in the van. All we know is that spying had been very good for the Clintons.
     You can also see why no one at Berkeley or Harvard would be unduly worried about that kind of domestic spying.
     Oh, did I mention Bill Clinton is a Democrat?
     It was also during Clinton's term that there occurred all those electronic marvels and technologies of electronic eavesdropping that dominates the hate-Bush speech today. That was ten years ago, and it is easy to get the administrations and their political parties confused, but in a day when over 50% of high school students believe that Richard Nixon and those wascally Republicans started the Vietnam War, you can see why it's important to keep the facts assembled as straight as possible. (By the way, I'm doing all this from memory, so feel free to correct any misstatement of fact I've made here, especially as it may effect the analysis. I wasn't alive then but am pretty certain FDR was a Democrat.)
    I recall two box office hits, one with Mel Gibson and whatsername, and one with Will Smith and Gene Hackman, both about Big Government spying at will (not Smith) on its citizens. These were made during the Clinton years not the Bush years, and God knows, we'd already had all sorts of stories about domestic spying rumors in those days. Black helicopter conspiracies arose form the Clinton years. The Y2K hysteria was also his baby. Did Clinton use those technologies domestically? Are you kidding? If Clinton had been Superman he'd have spent the entire day looking at womens' underwear. Of course he used them. Only who knows what he would have used domestic spying for. He has teated his cards well, just like RR. But knowing the type, and his other idiocyncrasies, he certainly would have spied against anyone who could do him harm...which in those days, did not include "big bucks" Chinese Communists or "little fish" Al-Qaida, but it certainly did include Republicans. Your guess is as good as mine. But show me a watchtower guard with his binoculars turned to the bedroom windows of citizens and I'll show you a castle with a lot of break-ins. There is much about those eight years that have yet to be revealed.
    So, Bush II inherited those electronic marvels, and after 9/11 set out to use them. He could have used them against his enemies, or at least those who perceived him as an enemy. (Sadly I don't think GW ever looked at the Left as an enemy...of himself, the State, or even the Constitution. Alas and Alack!) Being a straight shooter, he used them only in accordance with rules established by Congress but like a good horse trader, continued to dicker and bargain for better listening privileges, all in the name of national security, which we will find out shortly, is still  a very real issue. I am quite sure he pushed the envelope. He just wasn't interested in which Democrats in Congress were running up 1-900 tabs.
    The Left of course railed, but raged at what Bush might do or could do, not what he actually did do. They lied. Remember, the Left always accuses the other side of their own conspiracy, and had they that same power (as they will come January 21) they would use it just as they imagined Bush could use it against them. (Is any of this getting through to any of you little naive cussing crumb-crunchers who believe the socialists are going to return this country back to civil liberties? You just helped throw those liberties away.)
    There is not one scintilla of fact that supports the notion that Bush or anyone in his administration spied illegally. Or even wanted to.

    So, our law is intact and valid: Government will spy on those it feels can do it harm, and after January 21st, 2009, the greatest threat to the new administration, the Democrat Party and the government will be the People of the United States.
Vassar Bushmills
   
  
   

   It's interesting, but not only true, but logical. Privilege will rise. The sense of privilege will rise.
   We'll say this more than once on this site, but everything has a logic. Just don't confuse this notion of logic with Logic, as suggested by Aristotle, or common sense, or Reason. Psychopaths have a logic, a very unique one, to be sure, but once you can understand their way of sorting out facts and turning them into responses, you have a good idea what they will do next. This is what profilers do. We do the same thing with bureaucracies all over the world. Kenyan bureaucracy in Mombasa is different than Romanian  bureaucracy in Timisoara, but they both do things in predictable fashion.
   It is from this sort of logic that privilege will rise, not fall, as socialism gets its grip over the next decade.
   But as terminology,  "privilege" itself is a moving target. The Leftists have railed against privilege for fifty years in this country, yet crave it more than any other possession. They hate the idea of some bigwig in some small town getting away with drunk driving, or his kid getting away with it, simply because he owns the local mill. Yet, in a way not at all dissimilar from how Muslim fascists want to force men to bow before Allah, with a sword at their necks, they want ordinary people to have to bow to their superior intellect, world view, whatever, but with the coercive power of the state rather than the persuasive power of their personalities, charm, or intellectual skill.
   This is part of the "logic" that drives the vast armies of the Left, and the State is more than willing to oblige, for in exchange for their services, almost freely given, in the end, they get a kind of life-time sinecure as card carrying party members, a title, a 5 x 5 box (we're thinking of adding Pete Seeger's classic song, "Little Boxes" to our website just so you can go and listen to what I mean. He was referring to corporate rats rather then commie rats, but it all comes out the same in the end.), a rubber stamp and a place to be every day from 9 to 5, a sense of being in charge of something although they never know just quite what, and a pay commensurate with what ordinary clerks earned in 1938...in Bulgaria.
   This of course, is privilege on the cheap, but, like fishes and loaves on the Mount, it can feed millions.
   As for real privilege, there are two views; one European, the other purely American. The European view of privilege for centuries was borne on the backs of the idea of nobility, which is predominantly French, so you can only imagine how deep the manure can get on this subject.
   Almost all left-wing politics in America is based on European notions and world views, most of which are completely unfounded since American political institutions are uniquely American for some very special and cogent reason. (Yes, this means left wing politics in America are built on factual, not just philosophical lies, but more on that later. Chumm has a piece in the works on that theme.) In short, left wing politics from Europe were anti-royalist and anti-imperialist (just as right wing politics are in America), even before Karl Marx. And they were aimed at the notion that certain classes were above the law. This didn't mean that aristocrats and royals just got away with it, or the police just looked the other way. They were legally recognized to be above or beyond the law in all but the most serious cases, and even in say murder, civil courts were not necessarily empowered to handle the case.
   As Europe spiraled toward the 20th Century, with the excesses of the French Revolution still only three generations old, Marx organizing the working classes and European capitalism (not to be confused with its American counterpart...and why we use "free market economy" here to define capitalism in America) moving toward industrialization under a full head of steam, the continent was still ruled by a few monarchies whose families or successors had ruled since the Dark Ages. There was extreme pressure on this system.  Bad things always die hard. The history of Europe from the Renaissance forward was of the struggle, and piece-by-piece relinquishment of royal power to the people.
   Privilege and their physical land holdings, on which their wealth, even today, is built were the last hold outs. After World War I a kind of deal was struck in which democracy, as they call it, was handed down...but not so much to the people as to a buffer establishment of bureaucracies in between aristocracy and the masses, called the state class. The royals retained their holdings and wealth, and most of their privileges, while nominally bowing to the overlordship of the newly-named democratic state (something the English had already been doing for 200 years), headed up by educated professional managers, the civil servant class. These managers protected the royals but also kept the people at bay by building roads, toilets (which they still haven't gotten round to finishing), schools, and stuff like that. The people elected officials to go to their legislatures, debate larger issues, then enact whatever this buffer zone of professionals said needed to be done. They did the all the heavy lifting, worked the long hours, wore the green eye shades...and got none of the perquisites.
   After a brief hiatus when the Euros, as they are wont to do every generation or so, rose up and tried to kill each other off, usually at the behest of the French and Germans, the Europeans learned, more from the fascist experiments in Italy and Germany than the Bolshevik goings-on in Russia, that government management can be quite lucrative and elegant...if you just put your whole mind to it.
   They've been slowly plucking that goose ever since. It's nearly ready for the oven.
   As the royals are dying out as a class now, the privileges they had owned have been slowing sliding over into the management class instead of just disappearing. This makes sense when you stop to think about it, but young socialists in America might find this troubling, if they only believed it to be true (and secretly didn't yearn for the same thing, as many truly do. But while it is true that socialism rarely creates much of anything of value, or enduring beauty, it sure can inherit a lot of it. The Nazis converted billions in confiscated art and jewels to their own personal collections....unlike the first generation of Bolsheviks, who merely stuck them away in The People's museums, which the people got to visit every once in a blue moon. The Hermitage was Stalin's own personal parlor, just as the Bolshoi was his personal studio. It would be the next generation of Communists who would start building dachas far, far way from prying eyes so they could begin to enjoy the better things in life. But in town, on the job, up til the very end, the communist nomenklatura lived just as simply as steel workers. I've been in their homes. Some American socialists would appreciate this price that bourgeois vice had paid to Marxist virtue, but the style and class-mad Euros would have none of it. They wanted it all, and they wanted it now. They have become pigs, feeding on the accumulations of others.

    America was born under an entirely different moon, so it is hard to say whether the new leaders of socialism here will adopt the austerity of a Lenin or the extravagance of a Mitterand.
    Privilege in American was born on the backs of wealth, the vast majority of it earned, and as Moses Sands reminds us, most of it frittered away within three generations. We clean our ponds of scum regularly. At the time of Constitution, America had little in the way of wealth such as was found in Europe. Had they not represented the colonies in an official capacity in France, neither Ben Franklin nor Thomas Jefferson could have gotten much further socially than a middle class coffee house in Paris.
    We had no born nobility, though our tireless efforts to create one, from early industrial barons to cinema stars in the 30s, speaks to a culture's need to have something like that around. It doesn't matter whether privilege is officially looked down upon or not, it will always inure to power. Trust me, Al Gore expects there to be privilege. In fact, privilege with him is a birthright. So does John Kerry. They wouldn't have signed up for the team if there wasn't privilege...with more to come. And certainly the brazillians of foul-mouthed members of the dailyCuss out there think there will be privilege, albeit little more than state-sanctioned superiority over their neighbors.
     It may not work out that way for them, we will see, but there will arise a new class of  "the privileged" that this society has never ever seen.
     Indeed, Ameican privilege has always been a local phenomenon. In Hollywood, a celeb might get busted, and his/her studio would rush in with lawyers, phone calls to friendly judges, and even with the paparazzi an inch away, pull a sleight of hand, get the story off page one and out of memory in short order. The same with athletes in their home venue.
     But in Omaha? Lafayette? Not so easy. Most cases with legs, since the rise of celebrity in America (we have a pending article on how this will change as well) have come from places the modern media call "fly over country".
     But even in fly-over-country, there are people of privilege. Only they can exert it in a very limited way. Although Tennessee Williams and Faulkner among others in the South, and arms-full of western novelists popularized the idea of the above-the-law town big shot who ran things through his gang (100's of B westerns were built on this theme), his ownership of the local factory, his land holdings (Big Daddy) or his connections to city government and banks...the fact is that very few characters ever existed who actually committed  real felonies and got away with them because of their social standing or power. And books have been written about most of those.
     Privilege, for the most part, was fixing traffic fines, or that phone call to the county sheriff when Junior got picked up with a six-pack, followed by a donation to the Policeman's Benevolent Fund. But this pales with the sort of privilege exercised in Georgetown or just off Central Park for much worse acts. But both pale with say, the Belgian cover-up of pedophiles in their own government in the 1990s.
     Even corporate privilege, which has helped justify, thus bring about, the current government takeover of much of the American private sector, is one more of style and class (or should I say, a crass lack of class) than real privilege. Corporate jets, when one congress lady from Texas takes a limo to work every day, exactly one-half a block? Sky boxes at LP Field in Nashville, when compared to a congressman who could allow the running of a (profitable) male brothel out of his home...sanction free?
     There is no question about where real privilege lies in America today, especially the beyond-the-reach-of-the-law variety. Just when will Charlie Wrangell be indicted?
     As we wrote some days back, there will be a contest in Washington between the hot-tub Socialist Lites and the socialists with a more austere, harder edge. The Ambers (No pun intended, since we don't know which way Obama will go yet.). How long that will last we can't say. Who will win, we can't say, but we are laying bets on the Ambers.
     The hot-tub socialists, like most of the old guard Left in Congress, plus Al Gore, see America much like Goering saw Germany, as just one big goose to be plucked. This is why we named Gore as the chief bandito of the American Left, (after Calvera from "The Magnifcient Seven."),  "If God had not intended them to be sheared, he would not have made them sheep." They all see that shining city on the hill gated with guards, "For Members Only". Sorry, President Reagan, wherever you are, that is how it is to be for awhile.
     But don't worry, a more austere socialism will only prolong this inevitable swing toward materialistic privilege by a generation or so. But above-the-law-privilege is already a done deal.
Vassar Bushmills
  

      From now til Inauguration Day we are providing free downloads of two photos which we own, and which you can have, simply by visiting our site at The Sands Institute.
      We have "Merry Christmas Amerika" and "Happy Days are Here Again", both WITHOUT text, so you can photoshop and add whatever text you want. The latter is designed to be given by conservatives to RINO's and moderates, as the new reality begins to sink in.
      Just check it out, go to the CONTACT page, and send us you email address and we'll send a postcard sized jpeg image forward.
      Also check our growing gallery. We plan to have several hundred more.
      Thanks for looking.
St George Frederick.

      From now til Inauguration Day we are providing free downloads of two photos which we own, and which you can have, simply by visiting our site at The Sands Institute.
      We have "Merry Christmas Amerika" and "Happy Days are Here Again", both WITHOUT text, so you can photoshop and add whatever text you want. The latter is designed to be given by conservatives to RINO's and moderates, as the new reality begins to sink in.
      Just check it out, go to the CONTACT page, and send us you email address and we'll send a postcard sized jpeg image forward.
      Also check our growing gallery. We plan to have several hundred more.
      Thanks for looking.
St George Frederick.

   It will be awhile before the true reasons are revealed, and even then, as it was with Travelgate (where the White House also fiddled and the media danced) they will remained locked in historical speculation for years to come. But a speedy and irreversible conclusion to this Senate-Seat-for-Sale fiasco must be reached right away.
   True, under Reid, Dodd & Co, the whole Senate's been for sale for years, but rarely has a single chair drawn so much attention. For once, Joe Biden seems to have been the least ham fisted of that notable bloc of retiring senators. (I only mention Joe's name here nostalgically, for it's the last time we'll hear his name until the 2012 convention...unless of course, he heads a commercial delegation to the Balkans.)
   Make no mistake about it, this is political, although in Illinois Barack Obama is not the only, indeed, not even the most major player to be considered. There is a network of relationships, perhaps even alliances, there, that feel some compelling need to get rid of Blagojevich right away.
    And it's not just to prevent Blago from making a precipitous appointment while awaiting trial. That's a canard. In ten minutes and a couple of phone calls he could easily pass the whole appointment process over to a transparent Senate Search Committee, his signature the only required involvement of his office.
   The fact is, a criminal trial will take months, and a conviction iffy at best. After all, there is and always has been "consideration" involved in filling the chairs of retiring congress man and women. Didn't anyone see "Mr Smith Goes to Washington"? The practice is older than Pitt the Elder.
   The same goes for giving some little sinecure to the wife. Even Obama's wife was the benficiary of such a perquisite.
   The problem with a criminal conviction is that Blago's only crime to date was to conspire, from the evidence of tapes we already have, to sell the senate seat. He has taken no bribe, er, consideration. He's only talked about it, and if he talked about it to just one other, it's an indictable conspiracy. But that is not to say it is a convictable conspiracy. As they say in Texas, that remains to be saw. Much of what is going on today is to taint what evidence might be placed in Blago's defense when that day comes. If he's as loonie as so many who've known him for years are suddenly stepping forward to say he is, then isn't it a greater indictment on the Illinois political system that he was able to escape the seine net for so long? (Sadly we said the same thing about Bill Clinton, which only goes to prove the corruptibility of human institutions.)
    It's clear that Blagojevich has lost all his corrupt support, and suddenly find himself on his own, utterly alone. Baptists call that "getting saved", by the way.
  
    Our guess is that Blago tried to shake Obama down and Obama said no. This is laudable, but only if for the right reasons. We can't know his heart, but one theory on Obama's character, is, like Jonathan Winters, he's started believing his own stuff, in which case, he would think his word, his countenance, his mere asking er, polite asking, was credit card enough. No cash advances required. Blago should have not only acceded but come away feeling as if he'd just been blessed at Lourdes. But Blago doesn't strike us as the type (he is Serbian after all, and they fought the Turks and Dracula right up to the bitter end) as one who kneels at the altar of majesterium.
    That's just a theory of course. Blago could just as easily have done nothing more than p*** off Emanaul, which, if you're a movie buff, you know you should never do to psychopaths. Or John McCain.
    We just know it was entirely proper for Obama to meet with Blago directly, or through agents, at the earliest date possible, to discuss the President-elect's wishes concerning a replacement. That they lied, lied, lied, and were so quick about it, says much about what is still yet to be said and discovered.
    We also smell the sweet Damascene aroma of Tony Rezko in this affair, whose upcoming allocutions in exchange for other judicial considerations may largely depend on corroboration by Blago, with whom he was also intimate (yet distant). Or it could be the other way around. Instead of silencing Tony, maybe his case will find some exoneration in Blago's dismemberment. Either way, we believe Blago will change Tony's fortunes in some way.
     We rarely muse, but there you have it.
VB

    This letter is somewhat administrative in nature, as it gives us a time-saving link so none of us will have to keep saying the same things over and over again, as we start collecting feedback on one of our "get into the Fight" campaigns with so-called conservative bloggers.
    It started a year ago when Bernie Chumm published an article here, "Beating Back the Blog Armies of the Left". I just reread it and it is as fresh today as it was prophetic then. After writing that piece, he and his coterie of friends (the Scat Army) began emailing conservative blogs asking them to join them in being a bit more aggressive with their internet counterparts on the Left (we call trem the dailyCuss). Most (over 80%) never bothered to reply, which records a level of bad manners. A couple replied disagreeing with our thesis. Since it has since been proved right, we'll try those again. But at least they were brought up well. And one replied that he found that sort of debate unseemly. Again, polite, but definitely a member-in-waiting for the Casper Milquetoast wing of the Republican Party. Fortunately, they saved the emails and have forwarded them to St George Frederick, who will put them to use.
    Round two began last week when St George, our full time director at GreatAmericanzeroes.com began emailing conservative bloggers, first from a list compiled by UrbanConservative, called "The Best Conservative Blogs on the Internet", which as best I can tell, is a fairly slick scheme of self-promotion (Remember those vanity books you could get yourself listed in back in the "80s, "America's 1000 Best Engineers, Businessmen, etc"?)...but virtually empty of any true grass roots conservatives. (More on that as it develops, we still have about 200 mailings to go.)
    StG's email was a request to conservative bloggers to look in at GreatAmericanzeroes.com as a way to become more actively engaged, as we plan to build a web platform with local interest published nationally, by "hanging" local and state officials for the crime of lying. Our thinking was that with a player at the local end who can contact local media, and proliferate the story throughout their own network of friends, a national exposure can give these stories legs, and begin to cause local politicians and bureaucrats some concern. Unlike national politicians, who could care less about being exposed as liars, locals are still a bit skittish about seeing their names thrust up in lights that way.
    StG's email also provided links to articles on this site about the failure of the many conservatives in meeting the challenge posed by what clearly has proved to be a much more active, and dedicated Left. I wrote one and Bernie Chumm, who's been much closer to this issue-within-an-issue, wrote a scathing attack on the general passivity (to put it kindly) of conservative bloggers as witnessed by the election victory for the other side. StG even received an idiotic response from one blogger who clearly had not read his letter, thinking it was a request for money.
    At this writing Bernie is of the opinion  that we should just chuck the whole idea of reaching out to conseravtive bloggers..."their heads are so far up their..." and go out and build a new network. I am of the opinion that we should let StG complete phase one, at least, of the plan, but with a proviso. I have authorized him to open a new galley at GreatAmericanZeroes.com, called the Eddie Slovik Gallery, for those who desert under fire. Unlike other galleries, this one is like Purgatory, for you can bail yourself out.
    So brace yourselves. If we send an email and you send it to File 13, you'll find yourself unceremoniously hung in the Slovik Gallery. To be sure, right now that may not sound like much. But in a year from now, or in the lead up to the 2010 midterms, trust me, you'll wish you were not on a "real" conservative website's crap list.
   
    That said, my open letter to you is this:
    We don't know who you are, what your educational level is, whether you work, go to school, live in Mom's basement or a deluxe apartment in the sky. We don't even know your sex (being old scholl, we consider "gender" to be something that has to do with language).
I know you may post many of these things in the About Me section of your site, but hey, this is the internet. Nothing can be verified to be real, anymore than our real names here at the Sands Institute.
    More than not knowing these things, we also don't know how politically active you are in reality. You may have worked tirelessly for a host of local, state and congressional candidates...and by tirelessly I mean ringing doorbells and licking envelopes and taking shut-ins to the polls.
    But we assume, in fact, are fairly sure, you're not. At least the vast majority of you. Other than exchanging notes with your mates and pards and friends, over beer, coffee or butter beans, the extent of your political involvement is probably limited to the 3-4 hours a week you spend reading other blogs, then citing them, and adding a few lines of your own. Mark Twain would have called you "professional conservatives".
    More than anything else, and Bernie has stressed this, I don't even know if you are true conservatives (pay attention to our comments about how the New Left of the 1960s defined themselves by who they were not), or even know what conservativism really is.
    If you are not a part of this stereotype please set us straight. But what you can't have any longer is a positive stereotype just based on your self-naming nomenclature.

    Oh, and none of these things do you have to prove to us. That face in the mirror will do...and we all know the myriad of pathologies that visage can provide.
    You do have to prove these things to yourselves, for henceforward, ye shall be known only by your deeds. Words no longer matter. That is the new reality caused in part by the elevation of an army of spoiled, foul-mouthed narcissistic storm troppers into a genuine political force. They now have the force of the State behind them. You don't.
    We know that the greatest disadvantages conservistism, and by that I mean Constitutional republican (little "r") democracy, has are 1) the absence of full time, 24/7 warriors able to organize, scheme, plan, conspire, lead, and are willing to fight back, and 2) an army of like-minded enthusiasts from our Good side of the coin willing to meet these goose-stepping stormtruppen head on. The big money conservatives need to take care of Disadvantage #1. You can't do that. We only have one full-time employee, since like you, we have bills to pay and clients to keep all warm and cuddly.
    But Disadvantage #2 is something you can do something about...and is a fight that has to be fought, for quite simply, it is generated by a fire few of you probably know or understand (a hole in the soul, if you will) and it is the one thing Congress fears above all other things.
    We only have a few suggestions as how to best fight this army. Brighter minds could come up with many more, I'm sure...but that will require those "other heads" to put their whole minds to it in the first place. Some of you don't like the tone, still others the heat, still others think this phase too will pass. Others of you quite honestly, are just otherwise engaged.
     It's not my job to sort that out. It's my job to try to raise an army.
     When we write, if uninterested, say so.
     
   
   

With apologies to Dick Gregory who wrote these lines in another context,  a very funny man and civil rights activist,
    To Liberals, from True Conservatives who never cared how close you got so long as you didn't get too big;
    and from Pseudo-Conservatives, who never cared how big you got, sigh, just so long as you didn't get too close.
    The Pseudo's won, you see..
Bernard Chumm