Government stupidity on display in near-earth orbit

Posted on 2024-07-08 by TPOL Nathan

It’s been up there for 24 years now. Hanging over our heads. We present the International Space Station.

It looks huge, right? As manmade things in space, maybe it is.

But it is actually tiny: about the size of a football field (300 feet by 120 or so feet, counting sidelines). And it weighs all of 450 tons (that is the capacity of 4-5 railcars hauling gravel or coal). Woopie!

What is big about it is the government boondoggle it represents and continues to do.

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Fiction or fact: the world of the 21st century

Posted on 2024-07-06 by TPOL Nathan

For many years, the Darien Gap, a dense jungle in the eastern end of the Republic of Panama, has featured, often prominently, in novels and movies. It was an impenetrable barrier to movement from Panama to the rest of South America. (Yes, traditionally, academically, geographically, and politically, Panama is not a Central but rather a South American nation. As American military personnel stationed there for a century were told.) Fiction about the place actually was well-supported by facts regarding the deadly region.

(For those interested, you can read about the Darien in several science fiction stories in John Ringo’s Aldenata (Posleen) cycle and Tom Krautman’s Carrera series.)

In fact, the Pan American Highway, a significant trade route and symbol of New World peace (or at least live-and-let-live, mostly), does not go through the Darien jungle. (It is a 66-mile gap.) It is a place of triple-canopy forests, incredible swamps and waterways of all sorts, an extreme climate, and filled with dangerous predators, both human and animal. As bad as any place in equatorial Africa or South Asia. Or worse.

Attempts to “bridge” the gap were defeated by a combination of terrain, weather, and environist pressure. Today there are not even plans to construct a road or railroad. Despite the high demand for travel through the place.

There are no highways or roads through its deadly mountains: only trails, if that. For years the Gap served to keep some pretty nasty illnesses out of the rest of South America, and out of Central and North America. Even military 4×4 and 6×6 vehicles found it impassable. Tanks? Ha! A few roads going out from Colon (named in Spanish for Christopher Columbus) and Ciudad Panama and Balboa (named for Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to cross the Isthmus of Panama), turning to trails and vanishing into the green terror.

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Greetings on traditional Independence Day

Posted on 2024-07-04 by TPOL Nathan

Between hot dogs and beach time and fireworks, remember that freedom and liberty are dear and a gift from God that can be accepted or rejected; ignored or bartered away.

Posted on TPOL in 2012 and reposted this Anno Libertatus 248.

And truer than ever.

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Revolutionary strategy and tactics – then and now

Posted on 2024-07-03 by TPOL Nathan

The term revolution and all its sister words and phrases are very often misunderstood. We get confused. The same word, revolution, is used to describe or name totally different events. Events, people and ideas are “revolutionary” – but in what way?

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Celebrate freedom?

Posted on 2024-07-02 by TPOL Nathan

A Rapid City Journal headline today told us to “celebrate freedom: fireworks, festivities abound for July 4” and as usual, we here at TPOL recognize that the actual day that the Continental Congress voted to secede from the United Kingdom and the British Empire was on 2 July 1776. That is, 248 years ago today.

Yes, we know (from bitter experience) that the work isn’t done until the paperwork is completed. Hence, the 4th of July.

But even then, it was still a hard seven-year-long slog of blood, deprivation, and sacrifice of treasure – and liberty – before the Thirteen States truly were free. And in the eyes of many (such as our friend and comrade Boston T Party), just four more years before much of that freedom (and even more liberty) was bartered away for the sake of security. The US Constitution was drafted and ultimately ratified to replace the significantly greater liberty, freedom, and risks, of the Confederation.

But today, should we celebrate liberty, enjoy and rejoice in freedom?

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Nazgul rule on The Donald and immunity

Posted on 2024-07-01 by TPOL Nathan

And everyone is confused and even angry.

As announced today (Monday, 1 JUL 2024), the SCOTUS ruled 6-3 today on the Jack Smith prosecution against The Donald for his instigation of events on 6 JAN 2021. “The nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the court rules.

Gee! Situation normal, all fouled up! (SNAFU!) Were the actions Smith is trying to convict Trump on “official acts” by a sitting president as granted by the US Constitution? It goes back to the lower court to decide.

But Trumpistas, and Biden-fearers, herald this as a major victory for Trump as it delays most further court action on the case until after the election in November. (Just four months away.) This idea of unqualified immunity for all actions with Constitutional authority might excite many people. But lovers of liberty see it as yet another reason to take away power – as much as possible! – from government in general, DC in particular, and especially the chief executive officer of that mess.

Meanwhile, we have the NY conviction on 34 or 35 charges of committing heinous criminal business record actions. Which so far does not seem to have put off many people willing to vote for him in November.

In context, Uncle Joe’s behavior during the debate (first? last? only?) last week has a lot of people worried: did they forget to give him whatever drug cocktail he needs to function? Did they want him to blow it? What else?

But meanwhile, the entire buzz today is about what will happen as a result of this decision. Several of us think that the Nine Nazgul have demonstrated extreme caution – even cowardice. Others say that all they have done is state what is readily obvious to the most causal reader of the Constitution. Whatever their motive, whatever their analysis and horse-trading, they have almost certainly elevated the potential for a constitutional crisis. Even a true civil war for control of DC and the Fifty States – and indeed, even the world and much of our solar system.

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“Uniform educational standards” government-controlled homeschooling

Posted on 2024-06-30 by TPOL Nathan

Have you heard about a recent article over at Scientific American? Children Deserve Uniform Standards in Homeschooling is the title. The push in the article is a list of claims about how bad homeschooling is. We are told (with little more than anecdotal evidence, if that) of the many dangers of homeschooling. Of course, the writer doesn’t actually compare those so-called perils to the known perils of government-run, taxpayer-funded schools. That is, what most of us call “public schools.” (And what we prefer to call, with full transparency, “government-ruined and theft-funded” schools: including charter schools.)

Scientific American is a horrible example of “political science.” Not the science of understanding and teaching about politics and government. Rather, so-called “science” replaces real science with politically-correct teachings and “finding” and “conclusions.” (We associate that with the Soviets and Lysenko, but it has existed for millennia. Consider the Papacy’s trial of Galileo.)

It is not really a surprise to find SA pushing this. Especially since COVID, millions of American parents are finding alternatives to GRTF schools: more each quarter. The educational establishment is beleaguered and fears loss of power and money.

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Screaming their heads off?

Posted on 2024-06-29 by TPOL Nathan

The recent Supreme Court decision taking away the power of administrative law judges seems to have everyone on both sides of the traditional political aisle screaming.

Are they really that upset and fearful or is it an act?

This term, the SCOTUS took up two cases brought by the fishing industry: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. And as a result reopened Chevron v. NRDC. And thereby seem to have opened a huge can of worms.

As lovers of liberty, we think our response to a blow like this to the administrative state would be simple: “Rejoice and be glad!”

Government – being ruled by elected rulers who lord it over us – is bad enough. But when most of those who lord it over us are unelected bureaucrats who have no real understanding of reality? It is far, far worse.

But it seems our viewpoint is not shared!

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Really? The Constitution?

Posted on 2024-06-27 by TPOL Nathan

A while back, I got a missive from Hillsdale College. It triggers some thoughts about the US Constitution, about liberty and human government, and about what we need to defend liberty and our rights.

Read it for yourself:

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In his Farewell Address, George Washington argued that “virtue or morality is the necessary spring of popular government,” and for this reason, “it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” Washington knew the preservation of liberty depended upon Americans knowledgeable about their history, rights, and form of government and courageous enough to defend them.

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Do we need an American President?

Posted on 2024-06-26 by TPOL Nathan

What does an addict need more than anything else?

“The biggest and most important job in America” is how a talk show host recently described the position of POTUS. While wondering how someone who is too mentally incompetent to be charged with violating federal law regarding classified documents can be allowed to hold that office.

He makes a valid point. But he also should trigger a whole lot of thoughts – worries and valid challenges to a system that 99% of Americans take for granted?

How did we get into this mess?

What mess? What does an addict need more than anything (at least in their own eyes)?

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