The life and pending death of San Francisco

We here at TPOL were able to generate some discussion a few weeks ago about the current state and decline of San Francisco. Including a discussion on whose and what data do we believe when it comes to understanding conditions in a place like the Jewel of the Pacific Coast. The saga continues, but San Francisco is not alone by any means.

It appears that same discussion is taking place in many venues. Here are a few examples.

Zero Hedge recently republished an article stating that all Americans should be concerned about the trauma, the fight for survival, and impending demise of San Francisco.

In June, Newsweek bemoaned the homelessness, drug calamity, exploding crime, and business closures that are dragging San Francisco down. The leftist mag proclaimed that the city’s decline is not just a matter of concern but a warning to other American cities. The business collapse and exodus has just continued more in the past two months.

Even The Atlantic tells us how San Francisco became a “failed city” because of the pandemic. The Washington Examiner tells us that downtown San Francisco’s collapse reflects the city’s decay, although the WaPo claims that the city “isn’t destined to be the next Detroit.” But back in April even the SF Chronicle itself stated that the city could be on the verge of collapse. (But they wanted to know what California should do about it, and noted that the city’s population loss was slowing!)

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How many battalions does the Supreme Court have?

Once again we are reading stories that Uncle Joe’s regime is being urged to (and plans to) defy the US Supreme Court, refusing to obey their decisions. Which means that the FedGov bureaucrats will continue to do things the Nine Nazgul have determined to be unconstitutional. And in some cases, refuse to do things which are the obligation of the Executive Branch to do according to the Constitution.

At the same time, the usual demands to “reform” the Supremes seem to be increasing in number and loudness. Not even looking at general attacks on the US Constitution, we see cries for packing the Court (as attempted by FDR), for “codes of conduct” and term limits, and other tampering with SCOTUS. The intent seems to be pushing multiple objectives. First, they want to take away more of the little independence that the courts – particularly SCOTUS – has from the other two official branches of government. First at the Fedgov and no doubt then in the States. Second, they want to ensure that the court will be permanently slanted to a “liberal” (Woke, regressive) majority. So that these people would still win even if they cannot reduce (or eliminate) the courts’ independence (ala most European “democracies”). Third, they want to discredit the courts to win popular support for the current (and future) regimes ignoring the courts. And finally, it is clear that these people – the Woke and regressivists and totalitarians – want to intimidate the courts: if not the justices and judges themselves, then their supporting staff.

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The South African dilemma

Recently MSM reported (and oddly enough, seemed to condemn) black South African politicians and government leaders urging that white South African children be preyed upon. Including just plain killing the white women and children.

(While this is apparently condemned even by MSM, we find that in the States, most MSM applaud and encourage government agencies and various groups to prey on American children, regardless of color or race. But that is a subject for a different commentary.) (And we won’t even talk (now) about how many American children are still being killed before they can actually draw a breath.)

It is not just women and children in South Africa who are threatened by black South Africans, of course. It is all minorities: white, Asian, mixed race, and the odd “other” – as well as anyone who is politically opposed to the madmen (and madwomen) in control. Which of course does include some black South Africans, especially those of (or whose ancestors were) of various tribes not currently in power. And we should point out there are actually at least three distinct groups of whites in South Africa: descendants of the original Dutch settlers (called Boer, or “farmer” in Dutch), the English who conquered and colonized the Dutch colonies, and then the usual mish-mash of European and European-descent whites. Just as we should point out that the Dutch settlers came to the Cape originally when there were few black Africans in the country: the Zulu and other dominant black tribes actually invaded the Cape region after the Dutch and British had established a society there.

Apartheid South Africa was an evil place, and its policies against its own people worse than average for mandatory human government. The Dutch and English and Brits made some serious mistakes: greater perhaps than the average 19th and 20th Century European and British systems.

But a tyranny by a majority is just as evil as a tyranny by a minority. Tyranny is tyranny regardless of the color of the skin of rulers and ruled. Regardless of their ancestry.

As in the Fifty States today, there is a growing movement for reparations. But this is Africa, and the ever-smaller Dutch, English, and mixed European-descent population is a convenient target. Although apartheid was not slavery, perhaps we can compare it to slavery in some ways. Or at least the racial-based slavery which most modern Westerners (as in “Western Civilization” and not Western States) believe to be the standard. To a large degree, since the end of apartheid, this population has been paying reparations – those who have not fled the country to seek prosperity (or even just survival) elsewhere. That is clearly not enough: more and more black South Africans (particularly those in power) have made it clear that the reparations to be paid to them are measured in blood.

Multi-cultural political entities have existed in human history: even multi-racial ones. It seems as though the only ones that have succeeded for any length of time (measured in generations, not years) are empires, in which all groups are in servitude, or religiously-based societies in which shared beliefs and practices overcome these other differences. South Africa in 2023 is neither.

The South African dilemma in 2023 is not too much different, if already far more bloody and subject to violent flare-up, than what we see in the Fifty States, Western and even Northern Europe: can a free and peaceful society be established in which people are recognized as individuals and not lumped together in groups – without first tearing society and economy apart in a massive bloodbath? And for lovers of liberty who do not want to flee their homeland, can they get their liberty, peace, and prosperity without first totally destroying the tyrants who prevent all of that?

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Peace and Liberty – guest commentary by Jerry Pournelle

Jerry Pournelle, the late Science Fiction writer and editor, wrote this in one of his series of “There Will be War” collections of short stories.

“One must wish for peace; it is a religious duty to pray for peace; but if that is all one does, one is not likely to get it. A very long time ago the human race learned a bitter truth: if you would have peace, you must be prepared for war. The late Herman Kahn in his classic Thinking About the Unthinkable” modified that ancient Roman dictum to “if you would have peace, understand war”; which is what we are trying to do in this series of stories and essays about the future of war. If these books need justification, that will serve well enough.

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Water lost! We is all gonna die!

Or so we seem to be told. CNN recently reported that the mighty Colorado River has lost TEN TRILLION gallons of water!

Shocking! Lost! Where did all that water go? The headline tells us it is enough to completely fill up Lake Mead, the poster child for “global warming” or manmade “climate change” (or to use the new in term, “climate collapse”). Incredible? Did someone steal it? Is that a result of government corruption? Perhaps the FedGov’s Bureau of Reclamation or its US Army Corps of Engineers “accidentally” gave all that water to China or even Ukraine?

No! We are told by CNN that it was lost “due to warming temperatures.”

Aha! Is the mystery solved? Did all that water just evaporate into the air because it is too hot? Is that bad? Unnatural? Due to poor government (or even private) management? Did the water not only evaporate (that is, become a gas rather than a liquid) but actually disassociate: become separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules? Did the hydrogen actually then drift out into space?

If fact, government and MSM and others blame it all on manmade global warming (MMGW).

The article does admit that poster child Lake Mead actually rose more than 40 feet in level due to the 2022-2023 winter precipatation. Since the lake is roughly about 150,000 acres, that was about 40 million acre-feet (the normal unit of measure for large quantities of water). Since an acre-foot is 43,560 cubic feet, and there are 7.48 gallons of water in a cubic foot, that is 13 trillion gallons! (Apologies to the math-challenged, if any, reading this. 13 trillion is a lot more than 10 trillion. Really.)

And it turns out that 10 trillion gallons claimed is over ten years. This is a very long-term scam or theft, it seems. But we also point out that the headline is also wrong: 10T is almost certainly NOT enough to totally fill Lake Mead. Since its current level is still dozens of feet below “full.” And the more a reservoir fills, the larger the surface area.

We also point out that the average American family uses 300 gallons a day; 110,000 gallons per year. A city of 100,000

The truth is:

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Ramping up the military worship

The Association of the US Army (AUSA) featured this tidbit recently:

Congress is considering legislation that would get the Defense Department and service recruiting commands involved in public expressions of gratitude to high school graduates who volunteer to enter the military. What to Watch: A formal ceremony is envisioned, involving the recruits, senior military officers and a military band. Lawmakers want the services to make a presentation on the idea by late March.

Today Congress of course pretends to be worried about the All-Volunteer Army and recruiting which has crashed in the last few years. (Reportedly, the Army is short 15,000 enlistments in the current fiscal year (starting October 2022).

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Government continues to grow more powerful

Despite greater and greater fractures and failures on the part of federal, state, and local governments. and ever-increasing awareness of the threat the powers-that-be and their agencies and minions present, the powers of these enemies of liberty still are not waning. Indeed, they are increasing. The threat to our liberty, our peace, and our prosperity varies from State to State, but is real and growing.

Just a few days ago, fortuitously, the issue of a recent Gatestone Institute article (24 July 2023) came up in a emergency planning meeting in Rapid City, South Dakota. Three of us from TPOL were present: we are active in emergency planning and response, training private business in five states. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) opened the day-long meeting. The CISA presentation amounted to an infomercial touting how wonderful the agency is. This is the FedGov entity that Gatestone calls the FedGov’s new “Ministry of Truth” CISA is there, we are told, for business and local governments. It will help to protect against the evil forces of Russia, China, and other (generally unnamed) threats to our data and freedom. So we are told.

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Our personal security – some further thoughts

In recent weeks, we’ve discussed the Fourth Article of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution.

It is pretty simple: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

We generally view this as a “negative” – prohibiting the FedGov from doing something that governments have done for millennia. We even can refer back to God’s warning through the prophet Samuel about what Kings Saul, David, and Solomon would do. And they were far from the first.

But we suggested – an idea triggered by Rob Morse and one of his commenters – that we turn this sideways and look at it again.

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A humorous glance into the future? Maybe…

Assuming there is still an advertising industry, fedgov or State governments, and radio/TV/internet in a decade or so, a nameless friend suggests you might hear or see this advertising:

Radio/television ad script, dated 30 July 2033:

Did you or a loved one take the COVID-19 Vaccine back in 2021 or 2022?

You may be entitled to financial compensation from the manufacturers and the United States Government and its successors. According to the New International Court of Justice and Reparations, you may seek justice for illnesses caused by the deadly effects of the so-called COVID-19 vaccines. Regardless of your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or Veterans Affairs disability and death benefits, approved or denied, you may be eligible for compensation if you suffered from from any of the following illnesses: (listing redacted, refer to latest news threads for a current updated listing.)

Pause to think and grin, eh?

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Responsibilities and rights: living free and the 4th Amendment

In response to Rob Morse’s commentary recently on how to defeat evil (see here), there was one comment that struck a chord:

Douglas Edward Evans: “I took a solemn oath to defend the constitution of the United States… and the 4th Amendment clearly states ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.’

“Does that include breaking into my home and threatening me, my family, or my material possessions? Since no one has relieved me of my sworn oath, I highly suggest that you do not break into my house to see first hand if I still consider the US Constitution and my solemn oath to defend it permission to stop you mercilessly. Unlike many cops and most politicians, I take my oath seriously.”

We need to ask ourselves if this makes sense. Not just those of us who have made a promise to “defend the Constitution” but all of us who believe in liberty and believe that we are to love others.

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