As an American, why should I be involved in a war between Israelis and Arabs in a distant part of the world? Especially since the Arabs in this case have done us little harm. Those who did us the most harm were from our “ally” Saudi Arabia.
As an American, why should I be involved in a border war between Russia and Ukraine?
As an American, why should I be involved in subverting the legitimate government of Syria? Allegedly for “democracy” but actually to suppress Christians and bring into power the Islamic jihadists who damaged us severely not long ago.
As an American, why should my representatives be trying to force a sodomite agenda in countries around the world?
Congresspersons waving Ukrainian flags on the House floor as they voted is stupid and treasonable. What would Washington or any American before recent times think of this?
It has recently been revealed that two generals were ready to ignore President Trump’s orders on the morning of January 6. One of them said it made him sick to think of Trump being President again. This official’s personal feelings allow him to disregard legal orders, a court-martial offense. There are now no soldiers at the top of the armed forces, only childish bureaucrats.
He was able to do this because everybody he knows in his power position feels the same way. They think they belong to a wise and righteous elite that is entitled to disregard law when their petty emotions are invoked. Especially since they all share six-figure salaries which they mistakenly believe they deserve.
That is the way we are governed now, by emotions. Illegal aliens are allowed in by the millions because liberals don’t like not being nice to people. We can’t hurt their feelings by telling them they can’t vote. (And because Republicans have always favoured cheap labour, one of their few consistent policies.) It is OK to steal elections because it rewards minorities against past discrimination. The poor suffering murderer who does not want to be executed excites sympathy from such people. The victim deprived of life is gone and no longer in their attention.
Emotional responses to public questions always involve short-sighted and self-referential perspectives. Republicans rail against Palestinian immigrants while voting for mass immigration for the last 50 years.
Bush, our first Trotskyite President, blabs meaningless emotional blather like “new world Order” while conniving to bring about illegal, falsely justified, and failed wars.
They are now pumping up hostility to China. It is true that China is expansive and has acquired some leverage over us. However, every advantage they enjoy results from what our government and Big Business gave them at the expense of Americans.
But the "hate Russia" posture of our Establishment is, alas, emotional only in its popular propaganda. It is deeply cynical and exploitive.
Why should we be taught to hate Russia? Such hatred has no relationship to any genuine American interest.
The fall of the Soviet Union was one of the most glorious events in history. It promised a future of peaceful association, a lessening of conflict all over the world, and a tremendous downsizing of dangerous and expensive military. It was even thought that American taxpayers would get a wonderful “peace dividend.” (I am still waiting.)
How did U.S. leaders greet this opportunity for peace? Neoliberals and neoconservatives sent supposed experts to handle transition from the Communist economy. The result was the creation of crooked oligarchs who looted Russia’s resources on a gigantic scale, creating massive public discontent with the Western-engineered new regime.
We are now told to hate Russia. Why? Because corrupt capitalists have been curtailed? Because the country is enjoying a revival of real Russian nationalism and Christianity? Because many Americans are unable to recover from the enmity of the Cold War? Because some influential Americans have a visceral hate of Russia that has nothing to do with American or world interest? Because the military/industrial complex is far too profitable and powerful to suffer any reduction?
The U.S. is now more heavily armed and involved around the world (often clandestinely) than it was in the Cold War, and is becoming an unpopular imperial regime. Who is responsible for this, and why are they doing it?
Whatever happened to the idea that the federal government was “to provide for the common defense”?

Can Donald Trump be inaugurated as President next January? It appears that he has a majority of the voters in a majority of States. However, the Dark State is determined he will not return to the White House, and they already have perfected the art of stealing elections. Preventing election fraud will have to overcome the courts, the media, and the Republican “mainstream” leadership. It is a big job that nobody may be ready for. These are not normal times.

The Republican elite cares nothing for the grassroots and never have. They destroyed Goldwater’s chances even before he was nominated. They successfully controlled Reagan. They wrecked Trump’s administration and re-election and there is no evidence that they will not do so again.

In an interview, Tuck Carlson hinted to Trump about the possibility of assassination. Trump properly dodged the hint but such a thing cannot be ruled out because the Democratic party and its street thugs are now in full Leninist mode. Thus he must be very careful about the Vice-Presidential choice. It must be somebody new, really able, and dedicated to his goals. Appointing a usual empty-suit respectable Republican hack will be fatal, but there will be tremendous party pressure to do so.

Being inaugurated will be just the beginning of the crisis. It appears that Trump has learned something about personnel since his first failure. He will have to find very good, dedicated, smart people if any reform is to succeed. It will require massive knowledge and effort in all parts of the federal machine to make any headway at all. Such good people are available—but they will need to be identified and placed. It will require massive defiance of the bureaucrats, including ruthless reduction of their power by executive orders and reinterpretation of laws. It may require defiance of corrupt judges.

We can hope that it will give us a downsizing of military commitments. With two phone calls a President Trump can broker an end to the Ukraine war. It will take a little longer to rollback all our worldwide interference in other countries. We cannot expect much improvement in the Middle East. Trump is the most Zionist President we have ever had, although it got him no support.

Wherever possible there will be a need to appoint good prosecuting attorneys. They will also have to be dedicated people. There are countless illegal acts by officials and activist groups in the last 20 years that should be prosecuted. Here again the good people are out there, but they will have to be identified and appointed. All the Soros district attorney criminals below the federal level is another question.

Will a Republican Congress go along with any of this? Or the Supreme Court? Certainly the media, the bureaucrats including the paper generals, and the Democrats, already in full destructive mode, will not. Our prospects of serious reform of the Dark State are small.

​I predict those “interesting times” that sensible people hope to avoid.

Libertarians rightly understand that economic freedom goes along with individual liberty and prosperity. But American libertarians have become, it seems, advocates of a solipsistic individual will and license. The sovereign individual is an imaginary beast that does not exist. Paleolibertarians like Ilana Mercer understand that man lives in a community, the virtues of which are necessary for capitalism and which is his best protection from intrusive government. And such virtues do not fit any and every society.

In this incisive chapter-and-verse exposé of the current American regime, she argues that the state, which now represents a merger of government and large corporations, is presiding over the destruction of American civil society. That is the nature of the touted global economy and global politics.

Mercer’s description of the American economic and social condition will not find disagreement from any Reckonin' reader. “The business of life,” she writes, “ one’s livelihood, and the locality in which one lives and loves - these are the property repositories for conservative loyalties.”

Living standards of the middle and working classes are falling. You would think this would bring the attention of public leaders. Instead they are busy promoting ethnic chaos, genocide, and sodomy here and abroad. The Covid lockdown killed 3.3 million small businesses; the homeless now include more and more families; Deep Tech claims to need to import foreign talent (Republican boilerplate) while firing Americans. Differences in wealth distribution are higher than ever seen in history.

Our leaders don’t seem to see any problem with their ways. They don’t notice catastrophic debt and overextended, wasteful, and incompetent military as problems, despite their contribution to the “aberrant” economy.

Mercer’s treatment of health tyranny, immigration, and outsourcing is informative and hard-hitting. “The free flow of goods across borders is not to be confused with the free flow of people across borders.. . . The very stuff of life has been contracted out. Not mere jobs, but careers; not just some products, but entire production lines; not one or two manufacturing plants, but the means of production.”

The author advocates and illustrates a preference for good old common sense. Common sense was long the undergirding of our Anglo-American law and way of life. Why have so many abandoned it, as in the Covid fraud, for the authority of phony “expertise”?
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Mercer is always a fun read because of her creative labelling: castrati Republicans, Washington wokerati, FixNews, ConOink, Learjet liberals, bafflegat for bureaucratic and progressive discourse, “Walmart with Missiles” for the present U.S. regime.

Reckonin readers seemed to like my list of things familiar in my youngeryears. Here a some more, for better or worse.

Working men in bib overalls.

Pocket watches and watch chains.

Persimmons

Some people still lived in actual log cabins and log barns were common.

Lots of people in town with chicken coops in their back yards. Some even with goat pens.

Cigarettes (unfiltered) 20 cents a pack. Good cigars 5 cents.

Sweet singing from country Southern Methodist churches.

Sunday family dinners after church, required. That is dinner, not supper.

You had to clean your plate. No food was wasted.

Boys with BB guns.

Well-known and trustworthy neighourhood sheriff’s deputies.

Any man who cared and many who didn’t knew where to get moonshine.

There were actually no fast-food restaurants. Every thing was local. McDonald’s was a sensation that came later.

Cussing was a creative manly art. Now we have only ugly references to bodily functions repeated endlessly and on every occasion by all sexes and ages.

Woods nearby for boys to explore.

Going barefoot in summer.

One new pair of shoes per year.

Girls with skirts.

Local newspapers had locally generated news and editorials and writers with ideas of their own, not canned syndicated “thoughts” and themes.

Playing football in the street. Without any protective equipment.