Build-Your-Own Überpost!

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from reader GuardDuck, informing me that serial-commenter Markadelphia, who was politely voted off the island three years ago, still seems a little obsessed with me, calling me and by extension my readers out for our "support" for Donald Trump.

I was tempted.  Oh so tempted.

But no.  I will not respond with an überpost.  I've spent the last couple of weeks wrestling with the decision and collecting links, but I will resist.  Instead, I'm going to post some images and links, and let you build your very own überpost in your head!

Markadelphia asks:

Kevin has spent years writing on his blog about the education system and Yuri Bezmenov, an ex KGB guy, who has warned the US about a totalitarian takeover. Now he and others like him in the right wing blogsphere are ACTUALLY VOTING FOR THIS TO HAPPEN.

Kevin, I had planned on leaving you alone but this complete capitulation to Putin via Trump is such a monumental example of hypocrisy that it necessitate inquiry. You rail against Russia's influence in the US and now you are going to help make that happen by voting for Putin's puppet. I have to wonder...WTF, dude? All of the long posts about Bezmenov...the education system...communists plots...ALL now rendered worthless. Where is your integrity, man? I'll be looking for your response on your site.

Given the right wing bloggers' penchant for authoritarianism, illustrated quite well in any sort of engagement with them in comments sections, my only guess here is that they are for totalitarianism if the right people are in charge. If they have some naggy liberal trying to make the world a better place and making them do stuff that they don't wanna, well, fuck that!

But if they have a system where they can keep their guns to guard against government tyranny and still jail people for being against that government and not being patriotic enough then, by gum, the are ALL IN!!!

Knowing through about seven years of dealing with Markadelphia that nothing I say will reach him, I decided I'd try pictures. Here are a few I collected for this post:








Edited to add this very appropriate one via Joe Huffman:



And here are some pieces I really think you ought to read if you're interested in my position on this election. (That's directed at my readers, not Markadelphia. I know he cannot grasp the points of these pieces, so it's not worth wasting his time on them.)

• The Flight 93 Election

- Excerpt:

Which points to the fifth objection: in giving reasons for Trump, I oppose the Constitution and support “authoritarianism.” First of all, I don’t even know what the latter is—beyond the discredited Adorno study that the Left still uses to tar everyone to its right as Nazis. If we simply go by the Wiki definition—“authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms”—that sounds to me much more like the administrative state than anything Trump has proposed. Or do you mean “fascist”? Then say so. I have some idea of what that is. Or do you mean “tyrant”? I certainly know what that is. Are you saying Trump is one, or wants to be, or that I welcome either?

More risible—downright intelligence-insulting—is to read liberals accuse conservatives of wanting to trash the Constitution. Really. The Left has been insisting for more than a century that our Constitution is fatally flawed, written for another age, outmoded, hypocritical, hopelessly undermined by slavery and racism and sexism and property requirements, and so much else. Conservatives who argue for originalism and strict construction and federalism—sticking exactly to the letter of the Constitution—are called racists because everyone supposedly knows that the former are mere “code words.”

This is a very large topic, and for those interested, there is an equally large body of scholarship that explains it all in detail. For now, let’s just ask ourselves two questions. First, how do the mechanics of government, as written in the Constitution, differ from current practice? Second, how well are the rights Amendments observed? As to the first, we do still have those three branches of government mentioned. But we also have a fourth, hidden in plain sight within the executive, namely the bureaucracy or administrative state. It both usurps legislative power and uses executive power in an unaccountable way. Congress does not use its own powers but meekly defers to the executive and to the bureaucracy. The executive does whatever it wants. The judiciary also usurps legislative and, when it’s really feeling its oats, executive power through the use of consent decrees and the like. And that’s just the feds—before we even get to the relationship between the feds and the states. As to the second, can you think of a single amendment among the Bill of Rights that is not routinely violated—with the acquiescence and approval of the Left? I can’t.

All this happened because, for more than a century, the Left has been working at best to “change” and “update” the Constitution, and at worst to ignore it or get around it. This agenda is not hidden but announced and boasted of. Yet when someone on the Right points out that the Constitution—by design—no longer works as designed, that the U.S. government does not in practice function as a Constitutional republic, we are lambasted as “authoritarian.”

That’s a malicious lie. The truth is that the Left pushed and dragged us here. You wanted this. We didn’t. You didn’t like the original Constitution. We did and do. You didn’t want it to operate as designed because when it does it too often prevents you from doing what you want to do. So you actively worked to give the courts and the bureaucracy the last word, some of you for high-minded reasons of sincere conviction, but most of you simply because you know they’re on your side. You said it would be better this way. When we opposed you, you called us “racists.” Now that you’ve got what you wanted, and we acknowledge your success, you call us “authoritarian” and “anti-Constitutionalist.” This is gaslighting on the level of “If you like your health care, you can keep your health care.” Exasperating and infuriating, yet impressive in its shamelessness. But that’s the Left for you: l’audace, l’audace—toujours l’audace.

• Why I Switched My Endorsement from Clinton to Trump

- Excerpt:

So when Clinton supporters ask me how I could support a “fascist,” the answer is that he isn’t one. Clinton’s team, with the help of Godzilla, have effectively persuaded the public to see Trump as scary. The persuasion works because Trump’s “pacing” system is not obvious to the public. They see his “first offers” as evidence of evil. They are not. They are technique.

And being chummy with Putin is more likely to keep us safe, whether you find that distasteful or not. Clinton wants to insult Putin into doing what we want. That approach seems dangerous as hell to me.

Those two pieces pretty much encompass my response to the Putin/Tyranny question, but they do far more than just that, and I recommend you read them in their entirety.

With respect to Clinton and gun control, please look at these:

• Leaked Audio: Clinton Says Supreme Court Is ‘Wrong’ on Second Amendment
• Does Hillary Clinton Want Your Guns?

- Excerpt:

When it comes to gun control, Hillary Clinton said last Friday, "Australia is a good example" for the United States to follow. That comment suggested the leading Democratic presidential candidate's plans in this area are much more ambitious than she usually lets on—so ambitious that implementing them would require ignoring or repealing the Second Amendment. By Monday a spokeswoman for the former secretary of state was already backpedaling, saying Clinton did not mean to endorse mass gun confiscation, a central element of Australia's approach to firearms. But if that was not Clinton's intent, she has an alarmingly cavalier attitude toward laws that impinge on constitutional rights: The details don't matter as long as you mean well.

• AARP's Election 2016

- Excerpt:

What would you do to address terrorism?

Hillary Clinton: Well, these are legitimate fears. I believe that people are rightly concerned about violence. Terrorism is part of that violence, and we have to do the best job we can to keep America safe. So I’ve laid out a very comprehensive plan about taking on the terrorists, going after them where they operate, doing everything we can to take away their territories so they can’t mastermind attacks from afar. But we also have to go after them online because that is where they recruit, radicalize and direct attacks. And we need to do a better job of getting there early, rooting out people who are vulnerable and preventing that from happening. But I’m looking at violence broadly.… It’s also why I’ve advocated gun-safety reform, like comprehensive background checks, closing the gun-show loophole, closing the online loophole—because, you know, it’s not only terrorists we need to be worried about. Terrorism is part of it, but gun violence kills 33,000 Americans a year...We’ve got to get serious about stemming violence and terrorism in every way we can.

Even if it violates the Second Amendment, apparently. And remember, over half of those "gun violence" deaths are suicides, but the real numbers aren't scary enough for some reason.  Probably because of this:



And equally apparent, it would appear that Australia's much-vaunted gun control laws have helped as much in Melbourne as they have in Chicago: Young, Dumb and armed: How Melbourne became a gun city. Excerpt:

In June, word spread that an AK-47 was available for $20,000.

The Soviet-era assault rifle is the weapon of choice for Third World armies and terrorists, but this one was destined for the streets of Melbourne.

The notion that a military-grade weapon could be in the hands of local criminals is shocking, but police have already seized at least five machine guns and assault rifles in the past 18 months. The AK-47 was not among them.

Only a fortnight ago, law enforcement authorities announced they were hunting another seven assault rifles recently smuggled into the country. Weapons from the shipment have been used in armed robberies and drive-by shootings.

These are just a handful of the thousands of illicit guns fuelling a wave of violent crime in the world’s most liveable city.

Apparently Hillary missed the Econ 101 portion of Fr. Guido Sarducci's 5-Minute University:


Supply and Demand. That's it.

There's more, but as I said, I don't want to write another überpost. If you read the attached links, you can write your own in your head, but if that's not enough, you might want to peruse these too:

Restatement on Flight 93

The Ghost of Tina Kerbrat

Missouri:  The Shoot Me State - yes the NYT still waves the gun-control banner.  I fisked this piece already.

A couple of pieces on Hillary's health:

One from Instapundit with multiple links and one about her recent bout with "pneumonia."

And one more image I just had to share: