Category Archives: History

Economics, Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Trump’s Anti-Communist Manifesto

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It was nice to see a president finally stand up to them.

“…the record is pretty suggestive for Mamdani and Avila Chevalier. But it’s not that way for the other DSA candidates who won recently — Claire Valdez, Melat Kiros, Janeese Lewis-George, and others. On the other hand, all of them are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the word “socialist” has always been a key part of the vocabulary of communism, in the 20th century and today. So one could say that Trump’s accusation is reasonably true for some of the DSA comrades who have defeated Democratic candidates and at least adjacent to the beliefs of some others. In other words, it’s close enough for a political campaign.”

Most people forget, or never knew, what the second “S” in USSR stood for.

[Update a while later]

Yes. Socialists should be disqualified for public office for simply being socialists.

I noted on X right after Chevalier’s election that it was hard to see how she could honestly take the oath of office.

And as someone (von Mises? Hayek?) once noted, if socialists understood economics, they wouldn’t be socialists.

Education, History, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Happy Semiquincentennial

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First, a message from a Canadian:

I saw festivities in both Tokyo and Paris. For example, this from President Macron, featuring the French gift from the 19th century:

Given recent polling, it appears that the Japanese and French are more patriotic about America than the Democrats are.

And Commie Mamdani doesn’t understand what makes America exceptional:

In fact, what is exceptional is there are some things that are fixed in place, including the limits to government in the Constitution, a document that he has apparently never read, or perhaps has, and (like Obama and other Marxists) hates. Coolidge, who on the occasion, was fortunately not “silent,” said it best a century ago.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable [sic] rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

I think that last night’s speech by Trump on the danger of communism and collectivism was one of his best. I don’t know how he’ll top it today.

[Evening update]

More from Tokyo:

History, Law, Political Commentary

The Real Deep State

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I wonder if the recent SCOTUS ruling that says the president actually does run the executive branch could help with this?

Business, Economics, Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Democrat Civil War

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It’s between the Organized Crime Democrats and the Bolsheviks, and the Bolsheviks appear to be winning.

[Mid-morning update]

“My family fled socialism, and then I voted for Bernie Sanders.”

At NYU, we believed that unconstrained capitalism and “trickle-down economics” were causing the calamity of inequality in the U.S., and it was our moral duty to fight back by promoting social justice and progressive values. We learned about the Iraq war, the Abu Ghraib scandal, and why the U.S. was to blame for the recent right-wing dictatorships in Argentina and Chile.

But this narrative didn’t square with what I knew about Venezuela’s recent history. In 2002, the military had briefly removed Chávez from power; I was taught at NYU that the U.S. government had engineered the failed coup out of fear that Chávez would cut off access to our oil. But my mother had been in the room when members of the Venezuelan media were discussing the possibility of a Chávez overthrow. The U.S. ambassador emphatically told everyone present that the Americans wouldn’t support a coup. Perhaps Latin American history wasn’t as simplistic as I was being taught.

I became acutely aware of how many of my NYU classmates were obsessed with race and identity, and how they believed that silencing Republicans was more important than protecting free speech. It reminded me of how Chávez had shut down the free press (with support from the American and European left) on the grounds that they were a propaganda tool of the oligarchy.

My NYU classmates characterized those who disagreed with them as deserving total exclusion from polite society. They shouted down right-wing speakers. Anyone considered a Republican, or Republican-adjacent, was socially ostracized. I met rich kids who called themselves “antifa,” and heard protest chants like, “How do you spell racist? NYU!” As a Venezuelan in exile, I could see what they couldn’t: U.S. democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law had afforded us unimaginable wealth, freedom, and security.

Also: “You’ll never encounter a Venezuelan in the U.S. who supports Chávez—except in academia. The same is true of Cubans.”

This is an excellent example of the degree to which the Marxists have taken over education, and higher education in particular, and why this is probably the greatest threat to the Republic.