"Endless Summer Nights" (opens in separate window)
america is fragile
friday, july 8th, 2022
The Left has been tempting fate since January 2021—applying its nihilist medicine to America on the premise that such a rich patient can ride out any toxic shock.
Our elites assume that all our nation’s past violent protests, all its would-be revolutions, all its cultural upheavals, all its institutionalized lawlessness were predicated on one central truth—America’s central core is so strong, so rich, and so resilient that it can withstand almost any assault.
[FULL TITLE: "America Is More Fragile Than the Left Understands."]
So, we can afford 120 days in 2020 of mass rioting, $2 billion in damage, some 35 killed, and 1,500 police injured.
We can easily survive an Afghanistan, and our utter and complete military humiliation. There was no problem in abandoning some $70-80 billion in military loot to terrorists. Who cares that we tossed off a billion-dollar new embassy, and jettisoned a $300-million refitted air base, as long as our pride flags were waving in Kabul?
Certainly, we can afford to restructure all our universities, eliminate free expression and speech, and institute Maoist cultural revolutionary fervor in our revered institutions of higher learning—once the world’s greatest levers of scientific advancement and technological progress.
We can jettison merit in every endeavor, from banning the world’s great books to grading math tests to running chemistry experiments. And still, a resilient America won’t notice.
We assumed that our foundational documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—our natural bounty in North America, our cherished rule of law, our legal immigration traditions that drew in the most audacious and hardworking on the planet, and our guarantees of personal freedom and liberty led to such staggering wealth and affluence that nothing much that this mediocre generation could do would ever endanger our resilience.
But such inheritances are not written in stone. America, as the world’s only successful multiracial democratic republic, was always fragile. It was and is always one generation away from disappearing —- should any cohort become so foolish as to mock its past, dismantle its institutions, revert to tribalism, redistribute rather than create wealth, and consume rather than invest.
We are that generation. And we have an accounting with nature’s limitations, given there is always a corrective, not a nice one, but remediation nonetheless for every excess.
Our major cities are no longer safe. Somehow, the Left has nearly wrecked San Francisco in less than a decade. A once beautiful and vibrant city is lawless, dirty, toxic, often boarded up, and losing population. It has turned into a medieval keep of well-protected knights in secure fiefs while everyone else is engaged in a bellum omnium contra omnes.
We know it is so because California public officials talk of anything and everything -- Roe v. Wade -- transitions to electric cars, hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief for illegal aliens—to mask their utter impotence to address feces in the street, the random assaults on the vulnerable, and the inability to park a car and return to it intact.
Ditto the Dodge City downtowns of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Baltimore, Washington, and a host of others. In just four or five years, they have given up on fully funding the police, aggressive prosecutors indicting the violent, and ubiquitous civil servants ensuring the streets are free of trash, vermin, flotsam, jetsam, and human excrement.
There are natural reactions to such excess. The most terrifying is that our once-great cities, especially their downtowns, will simply shrink into something like ghost towns—our versions of an out-West Bodie, or an abandoned Roman city in the sand like Leptis Magna, or a Chernobyl.
But the culprit will not be a played-out mine, or encroaching desert, or a nuclear meltdown, but the progressive leadership of a worn-out, bankrupt people who no longer possess the confidence to keep their urban civilization safe and viable. And so, they either fled, or joined the mob, or locked themselves up in fortified citadels, both in fear to go out and terrified of losing what they owned.
We are seeing that deterioration already in our major cities. Stores are boarded up. Women cease to walk alone after sunset. Police officers walking the beat are now rare. Hate crimes, smash-and-grab robberies, and carjackings go unpunished. Streets are filthy and littered. Commerce and human interaction cease at dusk, as if in expectation that zombies will emerge to control the streets. Criminals when arrested are not always identified—the media censoring names and descriptions on their own selective theories of social justice.
But again, the culprit is not the COVID plague or want of money. It is us, we who turned over our cities to the incompetent, the selfish, the timid, and the violent.
There is again an antidote. But doubling the police force, bringing back broken-windows policing, electing tough prosecutors, moving the homeless from the downtown into hospitals and supervised shelters beyond the suburbs, arresting, convicting, and incarcerating the guilty -— all that seems well beyond this generation’s capacity.
Would not such efforts be unfair to the mere rock-thrower? Who says the fentanyl user has no right to defecate on the street? Would not our jails become overcrowded? Would the incarcerated be unduly overrepresented by this or that group?
Joe Biden took a strong economy -— albeit one that after three serial spendthrift presidencies faced huge national debt and a rendezvous with fiscal sobriety -- and has utterly ruined it.
He discouraged labor participation with federal checks. He ensured that his minions on the politicized Federal Reserve Board would keep interest rates artificially low. Biden inflated the money supply while debasing the value of the currency. He brought back mindless regulation and put ideological commissars in place to ensure the corporations, banks, and Wall Street would be woke, allowing ideology to warp ancient economic laws that kept prices stable, supply and demand in balance, and incentives to work and profit.
Many thought Biden would have needed at least four or five years to wreck such a strong economy with such nihilism rather than a mere 16 months.
Yet nature is about to step in with a recession and perhaps even a depression to correct the Biden madness. If interest rates rise, capital dries up, businesses close, employers cut back, consumers no longer have access to easy money, and the nation becomes inert, then the country will be worse off, spend less -— and that too will be a brutal solution of sorts to Biden’s hyperinflation and stagflation.
Still, it is hard to see how anyone in the government might prefer the proper and necessary medicine at this late hour. An updated Simpson-Bowles plan still could address long-term insolvency. Meaningless regulations could be pruned back. The tax code could be radically altered and simplified to encourage investment rather than consumption. Entitlements could be calibrated by incentives to become productive rather than to remain inert. All of that might return us to a sound currency, a strong GDP, long-term financial solvency, and general prosperity for all. But are not such medicines perceived as worse than the disease?
There is an answer to the open border, when upwards of 4 million illegal aliens will flow into the United States in a mere two years, for the most part without audits, English, capital, income, and vaccinations—and with no idea how to house, feed, or provide health care for millions without background checks.
At this late date, the corrections of stopping catch and release, ending amnesties, hiring more border patrol officers and immigration judges, or building more detention centers are too little too late.
Eventually, Americans will become acculturated to large enclaves of endemic poverty, as millions with no familiarity with the United States are neither assimilated nor integrated.
The border will then disappear, and northern Mexico and the southern United States will become indistinguishable, as millions simply drift back and forth in the manner of an ancient Gaul or Germania. Large areas of Texas, Arizona, and California are already returning to such pre-state status.
Or the alternate corrective will be the completion of a massive wall from the Pacific to the Gulf, with strict audits of all would-be immigrants, immediate deportations for lawbreakers, and legal only immigration that is measured, diverse, and meritocratic.
We are reaching the inflection point quickly and will either experience the absolute destruction of the border or a radical backlash, given that the current mess is unsustainable. Either a nation with borders survives or a tribal and nomadic region supplants it.
If America chooses to shut down refineries, put our rich oil and natural gas fields off-limits, cancel pipelines, and demonize the fossil fuel industry, then, of course, prices for carbon fuels will explode.
The Biden Administration talks nonsensically about Teslas, batteries, and electric replacements. But it is not greenlighting mining for the critical minerals needed for batteries. It is not encouraging nuclear power plants to provide enough power for a clean fleet of 200 million electric cars. There is no Marshall Plan to wean America off mostly non-polluting natural gas and gasoline onto electricity-hungry engines.
Instead, Biden begs the Saudis, the Russians, the Venezuelans, and even the Iranians to pump the fuel he will not. He seeks to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that can supply only a fraction of the oil America gulps daily. He defines his own pre-midterm, self-created mess as a national emergency to tap a reserve he could never fill or refill.
So, what is the natural corrective to unaffordable fuel?
A likely Biden recession or depression, in which the middle classes simply do not enjoy jobs that pay enough to afford $6-$9/ gallon gas. And so, they will not drive. Vacations, optional shopping trips, and visits to friends -— all that and more will taper off. Gas will stabilize at near-European levels, and the people, as planned, will be rerouted into dirty and unsafe subways and mass transit.
Biden will be happy. But America won’t be the same mobile country.
America’s bounty was predicated on each generation following the prompt of the prior, modulating when change was necessary, but not daring to tamper with the foundational principles and values that explained our singular wealth, power, and leisure.
This generation in its arrogance tested fate. It felt itself smarter and morally superior to its betters of the past. It lost that wager and now we the public are paying for its foolishness. To destroy America as we have always known it, there was far less necessary to ruin than our elite believed.
Like a stunned adolescent whose reckless incompetence totaled the family car, the Left seems shocked that America proved so fragile after all.
© June 26th by Victor Davis Hanson, "American Greatness".
A Day In The Life.
Up at 8a on Friday, I went thru my finger stick routine to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee and held-off on breakfast, had a couple smokes in the warm garage, checked the weather and news on my desktop computer, and scanned the leftover errands list. It was already 77°, humid and heading for the mid-90s. Even after breakfast, I was still groggy and tired, but slowly starting to awaken. I listened to my morning show, "The Chris Plante Show" until 12, and got a couple quick errands done before meeting Sherry at the nearby York Galleria Mall, at 1p.
I just got a call about my 2nd Cousin's death (32), and I'll leave it at that; suffice it to say I'm a little bummed-out. RIP, Cuz.
I did a couple quick errands, to get it all over with and out of the heat and humidity, already 90° and climbing. After a banana for lunch, I left for the mall, to meet Sherry. We walked for over an hour, and came back to my place, when I noticed this:
***Severe Thunderstorm Warning***
From
02:57pm EDT, Jul 01 2022
until
03:45pm EDT, Jul 01 2022
• Severe Thunderstorm Warning for... Southeastern Lancaster County in south central Pennsylvania... Southeastern York County in South Central Pennsylvania.
• Until 345 PM EDT.
• At 2:57 PM EDT, a severe thunderstorm was located over Stewartstown, moving east at 35 mph.
HAZARD: 60 mph wind gusts and quarter size hail.
SOURCE: Radar indicated.
IMPACT: Hail damage to vehicles is expected. Expect wind damage to roofs, siding, and trees.
• This severe thunderstorm will be near... Stewartstown and Cross Roads around 3:00 PM EDT. Delta, Sunnyburn and Holtwood around 3:20 PM EDT. Wakefield and Quarryville around 3:40 PM EDT.
Other locations impacted by this severe thunderstorm include Fawn Grove, Buck, Peach Bottom, Little Britain and Airville.
This includes Interstate 83 from mile markers 0 to 4.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS:
For your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building.
• HAIL THREAT, RADAR INDICATED; MAX HAIL SIZE 1.00"; WIND THREAT, RADAR INDICATED; MAX WIND GUST TO 60 MPH.
We caught a little rain on the way home, but 95% of it passed to our south, thankfully. It looked really nasty from our northern distance, as it blew thru Southern York County/ Northern Maryland. As usual, we had a great time, but we had to cut it short, so that she could get some errands done on the way home. I had a light dinner, watched Discovery's "Gold Rush", for the balance of the evening. Fox' "Gutfeld! closed-out the night.
Up at 8:30a on Saturday, it was a cloudy, rainy, 71° morning, but that changed within an hour of getting up. The rain cells passed thru and temps and humidity rose quickly. By 12noon, it was 88° and climbing. I made Kona Coffee, had a Croissant & Orange Marmalade for breakfast, and scanned the news and weather, on my desktop computer. Over 4,500 airline flights had been canceled/ delayed for the day, backing-up people at airports all over the US. Why anyone would try to fly on a chaos-laden weekend this July 4th, is beyond me.
The rain started around 2:30p, and came down hard, giving the flora the much-needed moisture lacking over the past 5-6 days. I wasn't feeling well, so I skipped dinner, and went to sleep around 8:30p.
Sleeping-in until 11a Sunday, I missed half of the F-1 Grand Prix of Silverstone England, had a quick breakfast during a yellow flag (accident) break in the action, grabbed a shave and shower, as usual, and watched the Indy Car Race at Mid-Ohio, then the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car GP at a Canadian Track, in Ontario. Good F1 Race, good IndyCar Race, good IMSA Race. 3-Fer!
I slept on the LR couch for 3hrs, between lunch and a light dinner, watched Motor Trend's "Iron Resurrection" and FNC's "Life, Liberty & Levin" until 9p, and called it a day.
I had a bad fall down 13 stairs last night, which required 5 police cars and an EMS unit to get me to the York Hospital ER. No broken bones, but lots of muscle bruises, scrapes, small cuts, carpet burns etc. They had to break open the front door, and destroyed the frame, and possibly the $550 Lawson storm/screen door. I'll have to begin calling door companies tomorrow to get some help.
I slept-in until 1p, and spent most of the day on the couch, restring and recuperating. No appetite at all, except for a banana. I'm definitely hurting and will be very limited in my movements for a few days; luckily I have a clear week. I ad neighbors stopping-by and calling much of the day, to see how I was doing. I stayed inside all mostly sleeping on the LR couch. Fireworks started around 8;30p, and went until 10p or so.
Time to go back to sleep, at 10p, after applying CBD Ointment to the numerous muscle bruised areas, taking a 10mg valium, a 12.5mg Ambien CR, and using my heating pad.
Waking-up at 7a on Tuesday, I rolled over and went back to sleep until 9:30a, and had trouble getting out of bed, since everything was hurting so much. I finally got out of bed, made coffee, did th finger stick, made a large batch of scrambled eggs for some protein, rye toast, tuned into the remainder of the "Chris Plante Show" from 9-12, Had lots of coffee and some smokes in the garage. I'm still hurting badly, but managing to get around, with a cane, slowly.
Sherry came over t 1p, and we spent time catching-up, just as the rain started for 1-2hrs. We needed the moisture, but the humidity just 20-30ots, while temps dropped from the 80s to the low-70s. At Sherry's suggestion, I called the Springettsbury Two Police about my missing Kimber 1911 .45cal ACP, and they told me they'd put it on top of the ''fridge, and there it was. No need to go to the station. She left at 3:45p, to get home, during a break in the rain, to tend to Corey's dog, and get some other projects done. I had some contractors to call about getting the front door jamb replaced -- too damaged to repair -- so I started with our Condo Ass,'s handyman, to discuss it him. He'll be by on Thursday.
I skipped dinner, had a small protein snack, and watch History's "The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch", one of the best-produced series on TV, right now. I was too tired to stay up for "Gutfeld!", so I unplugged at 10p. I have a boatload of errands for tomorrow, put-off since Sunday, after my fall.
I slept-in until 10:30a on Wednesday, still hurting badly, made it out of bed and downstairs, to get the usual routines done. I turned-on the "CP Show", had coffee and just didn't have any appetite for breakfast. To many point of pain on me, so I took a couple of Tramadol. I had some Cap'n Crunch, Life and Blueberries, wqith coffee, but that'd be all I could keep down. I had 4 errands to do, but put them off until Friday, when I hopefully felt better. I just can't drive safely right now, as I'm just hurting from all the bruises, scrapes and cuts, too much.
I slept on the LR couch for 3-4hrs, just to rest and recuperate. Bill stopped by to see about fixing the front door, and went to Home Depot and Lowe's for a door jam, while I checked online for a striker plate for the locks. I'll have to try tomorrow, as everything's closed. Tired and hurting, I bagged it for the night, at 8:30p.
The alarm went off T 6a, since JoAnne, my cleaning lady would be here at 8:30, and I was hurting a little more each day. 67°, cloudy and raining. I took 5 50mg Tramadol and a 10mg Valium, skipped breakfast for a few hours to let the drugs work in my system, scanned the weather and news on the computer. I was hurting pretty bad, with nothing broken, but massive bruises, scrapes and some cuts. Everything but my hair, hurt. Joanne arrived at 8:30a, and we talked a while about what happened; she was amazed at the outer door damage, as was I. After laying down on the couch to nap while she did he usual thorough cleaning work and great job. The drugs worked well, and my pain disappeared for 5-6 hours.
I'm not going out today; I'll try to get to the cleaners and pharmacy tomorrow. If not, perhaps Saturday or Monday. Healing comes first, and complete control of that 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee HEMI V8 Beast, at all times, is paramount. I had 3 contractors/sub-contractors show-up to have a look at the damage and needed replacements, had some Potato Bread Toast w/ Red Raspberry Preserves for lunch, and a banana. Again, just not much of an appetite. I had a 2hr nap on the LR couch, and got back up mid-afternoon, for a smoke. My BSL has been greatly elevated since my fall of Monday night, and I've eaten very little. I'm going to call my Endocrinology and report it to him, and try to figure out what's going on. I did and left a message for him.
I listenbed to the morning's "CP Show Podcasts", since I loathe "Dan The Dummy Bonehead", while I was napping in the afternoon, and doing some light condo chores. Still, I had not much of an appetite, but will try to eat "something" fror dinner. By 7:30p, it was still 82° (Thermometer) and 70% humidity (Hygrometer) outside, and felt like a sauna bath. I closed-down the back patio, and front door -- damaged as it was -- and used the very warm, breezeless garage, for some smokes.
I skipped dinner, watched a few Fox sgows, host by others than Crap-for-brains-Hannity and Laura-what's-her-name, and called it a day at around 10:30p. I need some skeep, and get get caught-up on 5 days worth of neglected errands, as best I can. Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and I have a partly-clear week, to get caught-up on some of the many errands.
SPJNK.
The "Noahide Laws are seven ancient laws that many people view as the basis of civilized society. They govern morality and represent the “bare minimum” of what God expects of humanity. They are called the “Noahide” laws because they are thought to have been given in their fullness to Noah after the flood. They are also called the Noachian laws, the Seven Laws of Noah, or the Seven Commands for Noah’s Sons (in Hebrew, Sheva Mitzvot B'nei Noach).
The idea of a formal set of laws given to all humanity (all the sons of Noah) comes from the Talmud and is therefore extra-biblical. Some scholars believe the Book of Jubilees contains a possible mention of the Noahide Laws. But, again, the Book of Jubilees is not inspired Scripture. However, the basic seven Noahide Laws are based in biblical principles.
Here are the Noahide Laws:
1. Do not deny God (no idolatry).
2. Do not murder.
3. Do not steal.
4. Do not engage in sexual immorality.
5. Do not blaspheme.
6. Do not eat of a live animal (no eating flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive).
7. Establish courts and legal systems to ensure obedience of these laws.
According to Jewish tradition, the first six of these seven laws were given to Adam in the Garden of Eden (the sixth law, to not eat live animals, was extraneous, since Adam did not eat any animals).
When God established His covenant with Noah, He added the seventh (and the sixth became applicable). Each of the seven Noahide Laws is seen as a summary of more detailed laws, about 211 total.
According to Judaism, a Gentile does not have to follow the Mosaic Law; however, all Gentiles are obliged to follow the Noahide Laws. The laws given to Noah’s children are universally binding. A non-Jew who abides by the Noahide Laws is considered a “righteous Gentile,” according to Judaism, and will earn a reward in the afterlife, if his obedience is coupled with a knowledge that the laws come from God.
A “righteous Gentile” might also be called a “Hasidic Gentile” or simply a “Noahide.”
Nowhere does the Bible record what laws God may have given Adam, other than the command to fill and subdue the earth and the prohibition against eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 1:28; 2:17). After Noah and his family exited the ark, God gave the following three commands to him: “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1); “You must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it” (verse 4); and “Whoever sheds human blood, / by humans shall their blood be shed; / for in the image of God / has God made mankind” (verse 6). After that, God repeats His command to “be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it” (verse 7). Other than Noah being told not to eat raw meat, there is no hint of the traditional Noahide Laws in these passages.
The only other place in Scripture where a Noahide law might be mentioned is Acts 15:29. The context of this passage is the Jerusalem Council, which met to address the issue of the Gentiles’ place in the early church. Specifically, the question before the council was, “Must Gentiles be circumcised according to Mosaic Law in order to be saved?” (see Acts 15:1). The apostles in Jerusalem answered with a resounding “no.” We are not saved by keeping the Law (see Galatians 2:16). However, to promote peace within the early church, the council advised Gentile believers to avoid four things, including the eating of “blood” and sexual immorality (Acts 15:29). Neither of the other two instructions correspond to any of the Noahide Laws.
As an ancient moral code, the Noahide Laws have been a major influence in many cultures. In fact, in 1991, both houses of Congress passed a bill, signed into law by President George H. W. Bush, that declared the Noahide Laws to be “the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization” and the “ethical values and principles . . . upon which our great Nation was founded” (H.J.RES.104.ENR).
Are the Noahide Laws found in the Bible? No, not as a definitive list, and they are certainly not associated with either Noah or Adam. Are the Noahide Laws congruent with biblical teaching? The basic seven laws are congruent with Old Testament revelation. The Talmud calls for capital punishment for Gentiles who violate the Noahide Laws, and this has led to some debate as to whether or not Christians (who worship Jesus Christ) are guilty of violating the first Noahide law and therefore deserving of the death penalty. The modern consensus is that Trinitarianism is acceptable among Gentiles. In any case, it is important to note that we are not saved by rule-keeping; God requires faith in His Son (John 3:18).
Biden Comes To The Rescue.
President Biden visits a remote Native American reservation. With news crews following him around as they tour the place, the President asks the chief if there was anything they needed. Here's the transcript:
"Well," says the chief, "We have three very important needs. First, we have a medical clinic, but no doctor to man it.” Biden whips out his cellphone, dials a number, talks to somebody for two minutes, and then hangs up. "I've pulled some strings. Your doctor will arrive in a few days."
"Now what was the second problem?"
"We have no way to get clean water. The local mining operation has poisoned the water our people have been drinking. We've been transporting bottled water in, and it's terribly expensive."
Once again, Biden dials a number, yells into the phone for a few minutes, and then hangs up. "The mine has been shut down, and the owner is being billed for setting up a water purification plant for your people."
"Now what was that third problem?"
The chief looks at him and says, "We have no cellphone reception up here!"