Senator King Warns of Unrest if Election Results are Delayed

Senator Angus King of Maine is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats.  I am not a fan because he seems to me to be more Democrat than independent.  With that said, he is on target with a warning that we are at risk for unrest after the November elections, particularly if the results are delayed:

Sen. Angus King, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is warning of protest “violence” and “conspiracy theories” running “rampant” if the November election results are delayed.

"I hate to say it but it invites violence," King said on Monday. "It invites people going into the streets who feel their votes weren't counted or something crooked happened." 

I think four factors put us at increased risk of post-election violence:

1. Increased use of mail-in ballots which not only enables election fraud, but increases the number of ballots that are counted late, often days after Election Day.  

2. Democrats have not as a whole respected the result of a presidential election that went against them since 1988.  They especially and openly disrespected the 2016 election of Donald Trump.  Now Biden is already making incoherent noises about Trump trying to steal the election.

By this point, Republicans would surely feel less obligated to respect the 2020 election if it is close and goes against them, particularly in light of the Democrat’s long history of election fraud.  If Democrats steal elections then do not respect them when they do not succeed, why should Republican respect an election that goes against them?

Of course, they should respect elections if the results are clean enough. But there is not a tremendous amount of incentive for that after the Democrats’ act since 2016.  Sadly, the 2020 election would have to be close to a landslide for both sides to respect it, and there is no guarantee of bipartisan respect for the results even then.

3.  Yes, as mentioned, the Democrats’ long history of election fraud.  And they are trying to double down on that with increased mail-in ballots among other ploys. J. Christian Adams has written an article on this that should alarm all reasonable people.  It’s gotten to the point that just about any close victory of significance by Democrats is suspect unless proven otherwise.  Yes, I’ve said it.

4.  This country is divided and practically at each others’ throats already.  Imagine how a disputed election might make matters even worse.  Well, maybe don’t imagine that too much right now if you have too much to handle at the moment as so many do.

So, yes, Angus King, who is about as middle of the road as a Senator gets anymore, is right – we are indeed at risk of significant unrest after the November elections.

Post-Orlando: A House Divided

A depressing measure of how divided this country has become is our collective response to the Orlando Islamic anti-gay terrorist attack.

After 9-11, we became remarkably united as a country.  Yes, there were those who said we did something wrong to provoke 9-11.  But they were a small minority, despised when not ignored.  The unity we experienced in the weeks after 9-11 was perhaps the most we’ve had in this country since the 1950’s.  People put flags on their cars.  Texans were in solidarity with New Yorkers.  Non-church goers even suddenly went to church!  I could go on, but words would fail.  You had to be there to know and to grasp the heady atmosphere of unity and patriotism of the time.

But now?  We have roughly 40% of the country and the party now in control of the White House saying the problem is guns and the solution more gun control.  Some were also so eager to blame Christians and Republicans that when the shooter turned out to be Muslim and Democrat, they blamed Christians and Republicans anyway! At the same time, their leaders can barely bring themselves to say “radical Islam” or “Islamic Terrorism.” 

And we have roughly a very much other 40-50% of the country saying the problem is Jihadist Islam, and the political correctness, associated timidity, gun-free zones and too loose immigration enabling attackers.  And they see politicians of the first group importing and releasing Islamists and other criminals while trying to take away the right of Americans to defend themselves against the Islamists and criminals they are importing. 

And the two groups are at each other’s virtual (and increasingly actual) throats.

You can guess what group I’m in, but that is beside the point.  We have become a profoundly divided country often angry more at each other, at enemies domestic, than at enemies foreign.  And the contrast between 9-12 and today illustrate that all too well.  I’ve had acquaintances remark that once they got their necessary online business done, they were getting off the internet, the conflict is so toxic.

I think defending ourselves against Jihadism will prove easier than functioning as one country with our divisions.

I hope I am wrong.  This honest post from a gay man is a ray of hope.  It begins:

This is the saddest day of my life. I can't even wrap my mind around the horror of what happened last night in Orlando, where 50 joyful dancing queers were murdered by a religious extremist. I'm sad -- devastated, in my soul -- about that; but I'm also sad that the events of Orlando have shattered my political beliefs, as I can no longer swear allegiance to a peace-love-and-unicorns progressive philosophy that only helps to get my fellow queers killed.

Do read the rest.  And do pray for the United States.  We need it.

Time For a National Divorce?

This is another one of those posts I’ve been reluctant to do.  It is such a difficult subject with so much baggage.  And this venturous post at least will be rambling and thinking out loud.  But, prompted by Ace’s courage, I think it is time to discuss whether the United States, so-called, should remain together.

We are a profoundly divided country.  Yes, we have had our divisions before.  But I do not think they have ever been as irreconcilable as now.  And I do include the Civil War in that. 

In the past, we have been divided mostly over how government should implement shared American values.  Now we share American values less and less.  And now there is more willingness of those in control of government not only to impose the values of one side of the country, Blue State liberals and leftists, on the rest of the country, but also to punish individuals for seeking to live out their more traditional values.  That some states are forcing business participation in gay weddings and that some polls have a plurality of “Americans” as o. k. with that is one distressing instance.  We are becoming more and more totalitarian, and about 35-45% of “Americans” are apparently fine with that.

Whatever happened to “Mind your own business”?

With the support of such, the Federal Government, in league with most Blue State governments, has become a tool to impose Leftist Blue values on the rest of us.  The Federal Government has become a tool of Blue States to put Red States under their thumb.

If we had the robust federalism of the Constitution, we perhaps could continue divided.  If California, New York, etc. wants to go to hell, who am I to stop them?  But using Washington D. C. to drag me there is another matter.  The Blues have such a totalitarian streak and such a resentment of us free Texans that they want to control us, too.  To that end, the Blue States and their D. C. Fed tools have so eviscerated the Constitution that hardly any federalism and states’ rights remain. Constitutional rights protecting individuals are endangered and under attack as well.

In short, most Americans want the Blue states and the Feds to leave them alone to lead free and peaceable lives.  But even that modest (and Constitutional) space is being taken from us.

What makes matters worse is there is no party really defending us at the Federal level.  The national Republican Party has been taken over by those who enable big quasi-totalitarian Federal government.  Oh, they talk about taking up for us at election time, but capitulate afterwards.  See Boehner, McConnell and their ilk.  Really, they secretly like big government and want to be in charge of it.

The electorate still revolts against Federal tyranny on occasion.  See the 2010 and 2014 elections.  But both major parties have thwarted the message of those elections at the federal level.  And both parties are all for importing millions of those who share bankrupt big patron statist values to further dilute the votes of real Americans.  We are in effect going back to taxation without representation.  Us rube Red flyover states are becoming the new colonies.

To which I say, “No, thanks.”

Yes, I support efforts to revive federalism and states rights, such as Mark Levin’s Liberty Amendments.  Yes, I think individuals and the states should defy Fed tyranny, with nullification if necessary.  Yes, I think it is possible that 2016 will be such a revolt against Fed tyranny that it might be put somewhat in its place for a decade or two.  I have not yet lost all hope for the United States.

And, yes, I know that what I am saying here will seem extreme to some (most?) readers.  But step back and consider how far the Federal Government has departed from the Constitution and its values.  That departure is what has become extreme.

However, I will be only too happy to be wrong.  Rest assured I would greatly prefer our country returning to its senses and defeating Fed tyranny, or at least rolling it back enough that I can live the rest of my life as a free Texan in peace.  Moreover, I am not yet confident national divorce is the way to go.  Further, I acknowledge it is may be so unlikely, I may be tilting at windmills.

But again, we are so profoundly divided with one side not wanting to allow the other side to be free Americans, and both sides pretty much detesting each other, that I agree it is time seriously to discuss how to proceed from here.  And it is significant that people like Ace are doing us a service by trying to begin such a discussion.

But even discussion has become problematic. As the Cruz-Reisner episode illustrates, we are hardly even allowed to talk to each other any more.