Thursday, September 10, 2026

Charlie Kirk and the Glorification of Terrorism: "broadcast outlets did their best to hide the obvious connection between the shooter and the left’s obsession that everyone on the right is 'fascist' "

 
One year after his brutal death, Fox News presents a handful of pieces on Charlie Kirk, including the 10 most powerful moments from college campuses to the Republican National Convention (Turning Point USA founder debated Hasan Piker, Bill Maher and Oxford students before his 2025 assassination) — well worth reading and watching — along with a personal testimony from , the executive producer of "The Charlie Kirk Show" and a spokesman for Turning Point USAI spent eight years beside Charlie Kirk. Here’s what the world never understood (What Charlie’s critics never understood about him was how hard he was willing to work to accomplish what many believed was an impossible goal). 

He was also very deliberate. You could tell that Charlie hated wasting time. Without being rude, he wanted to get right into the meat of the discussion, and as we talked, it was impossible not to notice his oversized suit, the dress shoes that seemed more appropriate for a 70-year-old man, or his overall Midwestern disdain for trends.

 … And, of course, there were the constant attacks. When I started working with Charlie, conservative media was awash in cheap hit pieces and op-eds attacking him and the organization. He was too abrasive, they said, too confrontational, too aggressive. They called him a charlatan, a grifter, and said TPUSA was all smoke and mirrors. 

 … What Charlie’s critics never understood about Charlie was how hard he was willing to work to accomplish what many believed was an impossible goal. They never saw the machine he was building brick by brick to turn back a generational tide that was decades in the making. Charlie knew the next crisis, the next challenge and the next hit piece was just around the corner. But he never gave in to despair or "black-pilled" thinking. He was a happy warrior until the end, always willing to work harder than everyone else, to do his part and to honor his word. He did it all with boundless energy, decency, unflinching faith and a belief in the greatness of America. 

Meanwhile,  focused on how, In the year since we lost Charlie Kirk, the media has done its best to act its worst:

It has already been a year since conservative icon Charlie Kirk was assassinated and the attack has brought out the worst in some of the worst people in our media and celebrity culture. False claims that the alleged assassin was conservative, false quotes and hateful comments have filled TV, radio and, of course, the internet.

 … The left and media moved on quickly from the assassination to the character assassination of the victim. Charlie Kirk was bashed as "hateful," "bigoted," a "hatemonger" and a "prominent Christian nationalist" who "has been known to make racist statements." Even major news outlets fired or suspended some of those who bashed Kirk. But broadcast outlets did their best to hide the obvious connection between the alleged shooter and the left’s obsession that everyone on the right is "fascist." 

 … Former "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah couldn’t get past how pro-Second Amendment Kirk "was shot while defending guns." He called it, "an incongruous funny thing that happens." "You are there. You're onstage, like, ‘Let me tell you why people should have guns.’ Wa-pow!" That’s the neutral individual who hosted the White House Correspondents' Dinner a couple years ago. 

As Philippe Karsenty pointed out within a week of of the assassination of Charlie Kirk regarding the Left's rants, "It has strictly nothing to do with free speech; it is the glorification of terrorism!"

Related: "My liberal friends are completely oblivious about how radicalizing the last week has been for tens of millions of normal Americans; Zero clue"

• RIP Charlie Kirk — This Is What Is Bound to Happen When You Constantly Refer to Your Adversaries as "Fascists" and as "Threats to Democracy"  

That attack on Charlie's personality that it is allegedly ironic (and therefore fitting) that he "was shot while defending guns" — which might seem offhand to present a modicum of validity — is something that this blog answered in depth last December.

Three irrefutable points were presented in the following post: "Reaping What You Sow"?! Did Charlie Kirk Really Deserve His Fate Due to His "Insensitive" Declarations in Favor of the "Repulsive" 2nd Amendment? (Includes the Full "Controversial" Text & Video). 

1) Two Basic Attitudes of Liberals That They Are Totally Oblivious About 
2) Mass Shootings That the MSM Never Covers 
3) Wouldn't Gun Control, European-Style, End Shootings in the First Place?

Do check all three points out.

As I wrote in the introduction to my in-depth (and dispassionate) study on the issue of gun control,

In the 18th century — the century at the end of which the Second Amendment was being passed in the newly-born United States — the biggest problem for the majority of the world's population was not the right to keep and bear arms.

It was the lack of the right to keep and bear arms.

In the 19th century, likewise, the greatest problem for most people on this planet was not the absence of gun control.

It was the presence of gun control.

In the 20th century, most people did not suffer from the right to keep and bear arms.

They suffered from the lack of the right to keep and bear arms.

As can be attested by the victims (assuming they could talk) of the likes of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Milosevic, along with the Hutus… As an aside, one of the first measures taken by each of the aforementioned (ahem) leaders after coming to power — for the good of the people, needless to say — was to impose or to tighten arms control.

And it is no different today.

Look at Saddam's Iraq, at Khadaffi's Libya, at the Assads' Syria…

(Would not the average Iraqi citizen, the average Libyan citizen, the average Syrian citizen over the past 30 to 40 years have been better off with the right to keep and bear arms?)

Sunday, September 06, 2026

“Do not mess with us” (with Israel), Warns Netanyahu; Israeli Elections on October 27: Is it "time to prepare for the post-Bibi era"?


On Sunday, Prime Minister Netanyahu threatened Iran with 'blow beyond anything it can imagine', vowing to 'complete' the mission. 

"We are determined to defend ourselves," Netanyahu continued [during a Rosh Hashanah toast in Jerusalem]. "We are determined to strike our enemies. They are not attacking us. Iran is refraining from doing so, and it knows why.

"Of course, it could make the mistake of attacking us. If it does, it will suffer a blow beyond anything it can even imagine."

Four days earlier, Philippe Karsenty told Jean-Patrick Grumberg on the Emet station that "it is time to prepare for the after-Bibi era." This came in turn three months after predicting that Benjamin Netanyahu will lose the Israeli elections this Fall — and especially that the Trump administration is counting on the fact that Netanyahu will soon be out of a job.

In any case, says the head of the Comité Trump France, Israel's new PM must come from the right, to resist against the pressure of countries such as France and Spain to commit suicide by giving in to Palestinian demands.

Friday, September 04, 2026

"An assault on traditional liberal values from the progressive left": Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt Are Mentioned in the New York Times

 
Of the half dozen readers in the domestic U.S. edition of the New York Times reacting to “Yes, Woke 1.0 Was Crazy. Now Where’s the Accountability?,” by Bret Stephens (column, Aug. 19), almost all defended woke progressives while trashing Stephens and going berserk over Donald Trump's MAGA movement. 

The lone exception — albeit the only letter that was printed in the international edition of the newspaper — was the one that mentioned the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Whoever edited the letters page online was kind enough to link both Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt's Atlantic pages, plus their 2015 article (unless they simply copied the html in the Canadian letter-writer's email).

To the Editor:

Whatever term we wish to apply to this decade of insanity, I share Bret Stephens’s shock and disappointment with the lack of accountability or self-reflection from those who participated in this broad cultural movement.

In their widely read article in The Atlantic in 2015, “The Coddling of the American Mind,Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt put a spotlight on a key turning point in higher education toward safetyism, which then spread much more widely in society and led to many of the abuses that Mr. Stephens pointed out in his column.

The period was marked by an assault on traditional liberal values from the progressive left. Merit was redefined as privilege. Dedication to universal values was patriarchal. Respect for the dignity of the individual was getting in the way of the revolution.

Traditional liberalism values self-reflection, and this has been largely absent when assessing what happened during this period and its costs.

Mark Wolfgram
Ottawa

 

Thursday, September 03, 2026

#metoo?! No Pity for a Man Flirting with Women; But for a Female Murderess, We Are Supposed to Show Sympathy?!


No man is supposed to be immune from the grave grave crime — the gravest of sins — of hitting on women (call it flirting or harassment, you takes your pick, although obviously some non-woke people can see a modicum of difference between the two), whether in the workplace or elsewhere. 

A woman murders three people — three children at that (her own) — and she is supposed to be excused?! We are supposed to show understanding?!

We're told that our ancestors (female and male alike) were such idiots (eye roll), such bigoted people (deep sigh, headshake) for not seeing that women were equal to men and not allowing women into certain places, not least sitting on a… jury (!) — where in the 2026 Lindsay Clancy trial all nine women, plus two men (two beta males?), wanted to find the confessed killer Not Guilty. And now happily we have made so much progress

Hasn't it occurred to anybody — get ready! get ready to call me a sexist! — that our ancestors (again, female as well as male) may have been right?  

How about other professions? How about women as lawyers? How about women as judges? How about women as lawmakers? How about a woman as the president of the United States? 

How about pilots? How about professors? How about teachers? 

How about the head of household (in an intact family)? How about a single mother? 

Instapundit has lots more; and thanks for the Instalink, Ed…

Behind The Scenes, Dolly Parton Quietly Gave Tens Of Millions Of Dollars To Charity


Dolly Parton Was America’s Most Recognizable Country Star by Ella SpitzBehind The Scenes, She Quietly Gave Tens Of Millions Of Dollars To Charity  

Related: • 44 Glamorous Photos Of Dolly Parton; outside Buckingham Palace, King's Guard plays moving tribute; The day Country Music’s Greatest Diva met the Muppet Show's stars 

Dolly and Her Sisters: the Sextet Siblings Sing in Sync (video of the singin' sistren) 

Sunday, August 30, 2026

Dolly and Her Sisters: the Sextet Siblings Sing in Sync


Until her death, I had no idea that Dolly Parton had that many siblings (6 boys, 6 girls with her, 12 in all). So I wanted to see if the girls were as cute as she is/was, and googled "Dolly Parton sisters". I came up with a bunch of photos — and yes, all of 'em are truly lookers — plus  and 's Country Living article. And this Christmas song sung by her and her (Hairspray-Heavy) sisters (is there an equivalent of "brethren" for sisters? Update: thanks to LivingFossil in the comments section, the word is Sistren).


See also the hommage from RTBF (in French) : Dolly Parton, l’Amérique réconciliée

Saturday, August 29, 2026

European-Style Gun Control: In Brussels, "just about anybody can get hit by a bullet"


Next time you hear somebody (American or foreign) deploring America's "love affair" with guns in spite of the scandalous number of killings in the United States, remind them that the situation in Europe is hardly as pristine as the Europeans like to claim. 

In the Belgian capital, nobody less than the King's Prosecutor for Brussels (one of the most important attorneys general in the country) was upfront Friday regarding the reality. "I am a prosecutor concerned for the citizens," Julien Moinil said, immediately setting the tone for his press conference. "Since February 8th, there have been more than 150 shootings. We cannot therefore say that this phenomenon is abating. It occurs in waves, but with such extreme danger. And today, what I previously stated [in January 2025], namely that 'anyone can get hit by a bullet,' has proven true."

"Brussels is once again the target of gunfire," reports RTBF. "In five days, seven shootings have broken out in Anderlecht and Saint-Gilles, the majority of which are linked to the drug trade." Indeed, ballistic experts complain that they are not numerous enough to respond to every demand by a judge.

As I have pointed out in the past, regarding Belgium's neighbor, which makes the same (alleged) contrasts between Europe's wise men and America's neanderthals, you can hardly open Le Monde during a single week without seeing shootings (usually with… Kalashnikovs — which fires a type of bullet far more lethal than America's AR-15) in Marseilles, Corsica, or elsewhere. To the point that ten years ago saw the publication of a book called Génération Kalachnikov (Les nouveaux gangsters):

Frédéric Ploquin, the author of a new book about the evolution of organized crime in France, said that the robberies reflected a new wave of gangsters who have emerged since 2005 — a “Kalashnikov generation” with a zest for weapons, no fear of death, and a taste for quick and easy profits, usually through drug trafficking.

The European reply is that in Brussels and elsewhere, the murders are linked to drug trafficking, i.e., the European defense/excuse is that in the Old Continent, the culprits are part of the gangster underworld. 

Well, hey! Hello! Wake up! Who — who on Earth — do you think is involved in shootings in America?! Indeed, if you remove the four top cities with murders — all run by Democrats — the death toll by guns falls to the level of Europe.

As I wrote in 2015,

In the land that is always giving clueless Yanks lessons on gun control and on remaining civilized and in a Zen state of conscience, Le Monde features on its front page the photo of… a 17-year-old gunned down by a Kalashnikov burst.

Indeed, while Frenchmen remain blinded (or because they remain blinded) to all types of crimes — as noted in Pamela Gellar's Atlas Shrugs story on the Serial Rapist in France [Who] Asks Victims Their Nationality and Religion Before Raping Them (hmm — what religion might he be part of?!) — we learn that homicides and attempted homicides are rising amidst bursts of Kalashnikov fire and spectacular murders.
Moreover, it is easy for leftists, American or foreign to tout the success of the gun control laws in the rest of the Western world when you (or they) ignore the 1996 massacre of 16 children at a Scottish primary school; the 2000 killing of eight kids in Japan; the 2002 deaths of eight people in Nanterre, France; the 2002 killing of 16 kids in Erfurt, Germany; the 2007 shootings to death of eight people in Tuusula, Finland; the killing of 10 people at a Finnish university less than a year later; the 2009 killing of 15 people in Winnenden, Germany; and, needless to say, Anders Breivik's 2011 mass murder of 77 Norwegians, most of them teenagers.

Related
T'is easy to tout the success of gun control laws in the rest of the Western world when you ignore certain pertinent facts from Europe

For a Nation Used to Giving Americans Lessons on Firearms and Police Trust, France Has Been Amassing Quite a Collection of Bullet-Ridden Bodies

For a Country Always Giving Yanks Lessons on Civility and Gun Control, There Has Been an Amazing Amount of Kalashnikov-Related Killings

"Unlike the U.S., guns are tightly regulated in Europe, but the French gangs have armed themselves with weapons obtained on the black market"

In a Country with Gun Controls Like France, the Kalashnikov Has Become the Thug's Rolex of Choice

PLUS: this lengthy, dispassionate, in-depth discussion on the issue of gun control:
What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere?

Wednesday, August 26, 2026

44 Glamorous Photos Of Dolly Parton; outside Buckingham Palace, King's Guard plays moving tribute; The day Country Music’s Greatest Diva met the Muppet Show's stars


The website All That's Interesting presents 44 Glamorous Photos of Dolly Parton while outside Buckingham Palace, the King's Guard plays a moving tribute. Related: Meeting the stars of the Muppet Show, Country Music's Greatest Diva sings with Kermit and meets Miss Piggy after she "has gone country" ("My plan is to eat, sleep, and breathe Country, and someday I shall be queen of country music just like you").

Sunday, August 23, 2026

The Democrats' Rage: These People Are Drama Queens Who Hate Your Guts and Mock Your Dead

Far-left streamer Hasan Piker was seen and heard singing the meme song "We Are Charlie Kirk" at a stop of his "Fear& LIVE" tour over the weekend 
writes David Rutz on Fox News as he reports on what Jonathan Turley calls the mocking Piker's Assassination Sing-a-Long with a cheering crowd.
Leading a cheering crowd, Piker sang, "We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame. We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name," while his co-hosts could be seen laughing on stage. … The song, thought to be AI-generated … is frequently used online in memes to mock Kirk and conservatives.
Fairness dictates that we post Piker's self-defense:
Piker also reposted an account going after his critics, which read, "The same conservatives crying over Hasan singing a meme song were openly celebrating the murder of American citizens. These people don’t care about anything."
This from a Muslim who celebrates 9-11 (3,000 dead) by prominently framing a front page of the following day's New York Times on a wall in his home. 
Although there has been a strong reaction online — "Piker making fun of Charlie Kirk on stage… absolutely disgusting" — I say we should be grateful to Hasan Piker and the likes of the vulgar dog exterminator (dog… genocidist?!) Abdul el-Sayed — for telling it like it is. For showing us who they are. Exactly who they are.
 
Regarding Hasan's attempt at a defense: which "murders" of Americans have conservatives "celebrated"? Shootings — rare shootings — that we have tried to put into context, certainly, and… deplored — never celebrated — but nothing more…
 
Compare that with the rage in a quote by a Mao-admirer (40 million dead) from half a dozen years ago, when Hasan shouted "Kill them! Kill those motherfuckers and murder those motherfuckers in the streets! Let the streets — Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood, dude!" 
 
(An aside — since I do not wish to focus here on all leftists, not just those of the Muslim faith: Although Hasan Piker was presenting this in typical class struggle terms, I have decided to take the "capitalist" blood in the streets as a way of hiding from his fellow leftists a(n ardent) desire for any Westerner not willing to convert to the Muslim faith. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali puts it, "Islamophobia is a made-up word. [It's been created] by a political movement that wants to exploit and capitalize on [Western] guilt to achieve its end goal: which is the revival of the caliphate. And [the ultimate goal of that movement] is to convert all of us to Islam whether we like it or not. Those of us who refuse to do that, we will surely be beheaded.")

With all the talk about haters and hate speech, the only conclusion is this: If anybody is the epitome of hatred, it is the Democrats — as it has always been. (1860s: rather than submit to four — short — years of Republican government, the Democrats would rather tear the country apart, killing hundreds of thousands in the process.) 

These drama queens hate you, they hate America, and they mock any suffering you suffer — while going ballistic over any individual in a minority group they have decided to anoint as a member of the oppressed. (Shookhran to Sarah for the Instalink.)

And it is not just The Socialist Democrats or the Democrat Socialists or any fringe group or whatever.
 
This post is called "The Democrats … Are Drama Queens Who Hate Your Guts and Mock Your Dead." Indeed, your death is something that they devoutly wish for. 

Last November, I wrote the following post about the "moderate" Democrats' victory in Virginia:

How Can a Democrat Work for "All the People" If He or She Wants Half of Them Shot in the Head?!


I remember voting day in 1992 (just one single solitary day?!), when Democrat and Republican expats in Paris (six hours ahead of the East Coast), along with a plethora of Frenchmen and foreigners, gathered in a big hall replete with food and drinks and flags and music to see the results coming in late at night. 

And at the end of the night, when Bill Clinton was declared the victor, the head of Republicans Abroad France and Democrats Abroad France joined together to say something I found very touching: "Today, we are all Democrats, today, we are all Republicans."

It has always been an American tradition that the winner of an election, both national and regional, would hold a speech in which he said, basically, that he now intends to work for, and serve, all Americans/all Virginians/all New Yorkers, etc…

The question these past months raises is: 

How long have the Democrats actually ever believed that?

Or does it turn out to be just one huge load of BS?

In Virginia, it transpires that one Jay Jones running for the office of attorney general fantasized not only about putting two bullets in the head of a Republican opponent but watching his children get gunned down as well.

How — how on earth — can an Attorney general defend the rights of "all" Virginians when he wishes to have an opponent, not to mention said opponent's small children (for the love of God), die in a hail of bullets?! What would the state's top law enforcement officer be wishing (openly or in secret) about the latter's supporters? How on Earth does a Democrat like Jay Jones expect to serve if he (or she) hopes (as logic would dictate) that half his (or her) constituents get shot in the head and that their young children — JJ calls 'em "little fascists" — get murdered along with them?!

This comes after the attempt on Donald Trump's life and the glorification of the heroic Luigi Mangione, as well as leftists of all ages and all backgrounds openly celebrating Charlie Kirk's murder while students at his TPUSA booths are routinely being told to "Kill yourselves." How about Charlie and Erika's son and daughter? Are those tiny tots also "little fascists" who should be gunned down like their dad?!

Indeed, writes Luke Rosiak, the "idea that Democrats were functioning with a Mafia-like code of omertà would also implicate Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger."

How do voters expect to have a fair head of government if the governor has nothing but (the utmost) scorn for half the population? (Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah…)

Over in Montana, likewise, a Democrat candidate for Helena city commissioner

made headlines for lobbing threats and wishing a painful cancer death on Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., in an expletive-filled voicemail … before warning the senator not to "meet me on the streets."

 … "Hi, this is Haley McKnight … I hope that one day you get pancreatic cancer, and it spreads throughout your body so fast that they can't even treat you for it."

 … "I hope you die in the street like a dog," McKnight continued. "One day, you're going to live to regret this. I hope that your children never forgive you. I hope that you are infertile. I hope that you manage to never get a boner ever again."

(Whichever subject comes up, in all cases Leftists really cannot stop thinking about sex…)

In The liberals’ license: How the left finds release in an age of rage, written three months before Charlie Kirk's murder (via Ed Driscoll), JONATHAN TURLEY reported that

some on the left are turning to political violence and criminal acts. It is part of the “righteous rage” that many of them see as absolving them from the basic demands not only of civility but of legality.

They are part of a rising class of American Jacobins — bourgeois revolutionaries increasingly prepared to trash everything, from cars to the Constitution.


 … Of course, it is not revolution on the minds of most of these individuals. It is rage.

Rage is the ultimate drug. It offers a release from longstanding social norms — a license to do those things long repressed by individuals who viewed themselves as decent, law-abiding citizens.

 … As intellectuals knock down our laws and Constitution, radicals are pouring into the breach. Political violence and rage rhetoric are becoming more common. Some liberals embraced groups like Antifa, while others shrugged off property damage and violent threats against political opponents. It is the very type of incitement or rage rhetoric that Democrats once accused Trump of fostering in groups like the Proud Boys.

 … The one thing the American Jacobins will not admit is that they like the rage and the release that it brings them. From shoplifting to arson to attempted assassination, the rejection of our legal system brings them freedom to act outside of morality and to take whatever they want.

In Life Behind Communist Lines, Kurt Schlichter explained — in spite of his piece being written a year and a half ago, he got all last week's electoral regions right in his first sentence — that

When you live in a place like California or Northern Virginia or New York or some other blue hellhole, and you are in favor of things like America and freedom, you really are living in enemy territory.

 … Leftists are immune to reason. They are insusceptible to argument. They are in the grips of a ridiculous pagan religion and all its tenets – like that climate change is a thing and that structural racism is a thing and that Trump being a tool of Putin is a thing – are received wisdom. These people embrace it all not because they have been convinced of it but because they want to be part of the Bolshevik Borg. What greater show of solidarity could there be than to publicly announce that you accept something totally ridiculous, like that men can get pregnant? If you will show that you will eagerly sacrifice your self-respect and dignity for the cause, you prove yourself worthy of acceptance.

Back to Matt Margolis

In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Democrats are scrambling to rewrite the narrative on political violence. For years, they’ve hammered Republicans over so-called “dangerous rhetoric,” accusing the right of fueling division and threatening democracy itself. But when faced with a Democrat candidate who openly texted about shooting a Republican and harming his children, they turned a blind eye. 
 … Jones’ apparent victory proves (yet again) that Democratic moral posturing on violence evaporates the moment it becomes inconvenient to their electoral interests. 

In The Party of Intolerance on Full Display of LateTom Knighton asks, 

How can you find a middle ground with people who only have their middle fingers?

The party of tolerance is tolerant of anything and everything they agree with and are ready to burn people at the stake for refusing to toe the line. Nothing has changed in years upon years.  

… t's not even a case of civil disagreement; it's purging everyone out of your life for refusing to spout utter nonsense masquerading as a political ideology.

So: it turns out that if any people are (akin to) Nazis, it's the Leftists.

If anybody is using hate speech, it is the Left.

Who can believe anybody in their right mind on the Left would not want to cheat during elections and lie whenthese drama queens believe, and describe, their opponents to be/as being the scum of the earth? As Dennis Prager famously said, If your opponent is Hitler, why would you not want to cheat if that's what is necessary to defeat a monster like him?! 

Over at Behind the Black (thanks to Instapundit),  wants "to highlight one fundamental and truly ugly aspect of [the Antifa and leftist protests] that I think we no longer see because it has become so common."

While it is clear these leftist protesters have nothing positive to propose, it is their hate and anger that stands out above all. All they can do is vent hate, pure and simple. … What is different now is the level of emotional hate exuded by these protesters. They are literally so filled with this venom that they now almost routinely lose control of themselves, resulting in violence and vandalism … that even a decade ago was rare. … All I see is hate. Hate for the right. Hate for debate. Hate pure and simple.

This brings us to the issue of Talking Points.  In the Leftist's mind, the term is used as a sort of false shorthand, simple-minded repetition, a sort of fakery used by dishonest tricksters — to be debunked by the Left. However, when you think about it, what exactly is wrong with talking points? Talking points, for a conservative, are fewer taxes, strong defense, love of country, etc…. Why should that change? Isn't using the same "points" being, ahem, consistent? 

However, there are talking points that nobody ever seems to mention: what are the talking points of the Left? Aren't they truly the ones that that sound, if anything, fake? The talking points of the left is that (wait for it…) people on the right are… (melodramatic pause…) racists. Isn't that the main one? Also, that they are hypocritical, hate speech spewers, and, yes, tricksters. Tricksters who use… dishonest talking points (!). And let's not forget Nazis and (little) fascists. The Left's talking points are nothing but ad homonyms and insults. (Is it any wonder that I assert that The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell can be summarized as A World of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables?)

Related: •  The Smug Liars' "Screw-You" Party

Examining the Left's Concept of "Talking Points"

In What Caused Secession and Ergo the Civil War? Was It Slavery and/or States' Rights? Or Wasn't It Rather Something Else — the Election of a Ghastly Republican to the White House?, I quote said Republican's speech from February 1860, before he was nominated to be the newly-found party's standard-bearer. Here is Abraham Lincoln imagining what he would say to a group of Democrats (if only they would listen to him):

when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers [or… illegal aliens —ed], but nothing like it to [Republicans]. In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of [Republicanism] as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all.

Is it any wonder that Ron Hart points out that Democrats Get Their Political Playbook From Lenin, Communism's First Dictator and Mass Murderer?

In The Real Reason for Secularism (For the Left, the Golden Rule and the 10 Commandments turn out to be a major problem), I end the post with these words:

Mark Levin's latest book is called The Democrat Party Hates America.  The truth, as we have seen with the Woke movement, is that leftist scholars and activists hate American institutions, the Left hates American values, leftists hate American history, leftists hate American liberty, leftists abhor the Judeo-Christian religion (because of its Golden Rule and its Ten Commandments), and Democrats have hated Republicans since the movement was born in 1854.

Here, according to Instapundit, is the bottom line:

A Mafia-like code of Omerta.
In the grips of a pagan religion.
Their political playbook from a dictator and a mass murderer.

Know the truth: it will set you free.

Vote — and act — accordingly.

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Tocqueville was certain that it was impossible to have liberty without democracy, but he worried that it was possible to have democracy without liberty

 

Better than any other liberal, Tocqueville understood the importance of ensuring that the collective business of society is done as much as possible by the people themselves, through voluntary effort, rather than by the government.

In line with its name, The Economist has been presenting six primers on the foundations and evolution of liberal thought, from John Stuart Mill to John Rawls, the latest an essay on De Tocqueville and the French exception. (Merci à Sarah pour l'Instalien.)

The great question at the heart of Tocqueville’s thought is the relationship between liberty and democracy. Tocqueville was certain that it was impossible to have liberty without democracy, but he worried that it was possible to have democracy without liberty. For example, democracy might transfer power from the old aristocracy to an all-powerful central state, thereby reducing individuals to helpless, isolated atoms. Or it might make a mockery of free discussion by manipulating everybody into bowing down before conventional wisdom.

 … he was the first serious thinker to warn that liberalism could destroy itself. Tocqueville worried that states might use the principle of equality to accumulate power and ride roughshod over local traditions and local communities. Such centralisation might have all sorts of malign consequences. It might reduce the variety of institutions by obliging them to follow a central script. It might reduce individuals to a position of defencelessness before the mighty state, either by forcing them to obey the state’s edicts or making them dependent on the state’s largesse. And it might kill off traditions of self-government.

 … Tocqueville feared his own country might fall into the grip of just such an illiberal democracy, as it had in the Terror, under Maximilien Robespierre in 1793. The French revolutionaries had been so blinded by their commitment to liberty, equality and fraternity that they crushed dissenters and slaughtered aristocrats, including many members of Tocqueville’s family. His parents were spared, but his father’s hair turned white at 24 and his mother was reduced to a nervous wreck.

He was worried about more than just the bloodshed, which proved to be a passing frenzy. The power of the state also posed a more subtle threat. The monarchy had nurtured an over-mighty state, as French kings sucked power from aristocrats towards the central government.

 … By contrast, the United States represented democracy at its finest. Tocqueville’s ostensible reason for crossing the Atlantic, in 1831, was to study the American penal system, then seen as one of the most enlightened in the world. His real wish was to understand how America had combined democracy with liberty so successfully. He was impressed by the New England townships, with their robust local governments, but he was equally taken by the raw egalitarianism of the frontier.
Why did the children of the American revolution achieve what the children of the French revolution could not? The most obvious factor was the dispersal of power. The government in Washington was disciplined by checks and balances. Power was exercised at the lowest possible level—not just the states but also cities, townships and voluntary organisations that flourished in America even as they declined in France. The second factor was what he called “manners”. …

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Of liberty and religion

America also had the invaluable advantage of freedom of religion. Tocqueville believed that a liberal society depended ultimately on Christian morality. Alone among the world’s religions, Christianity preached the equality of man and the infinite worth of the individual. But the ancien régime had robbed Christianity of its true spirit by turning it into an adjunct of the state. America’s decision to make religion a matter of free conscience created a vital alliance between the “spirit of religion” and the “spirit of liberty”. America was a society that “goes along by itself”, as Tocqueville put it, not just because it dispersed power but because it produced self-confident, energetic citizens, capable of organising themselves rather than looking to the government to solve their problems.

Sleeping on a volcano

He was not blind to the faults of American democracy. He puzzled over the fact that the world’s most liberal society practised slavery, though, like most liberals, he comforted himself with the thought that it was sure to wither. He worried about the cult of the common man. Americans were so appalled by the idea that one person’s opinion might be better than another’s that they embraced dolts and persecuted gifted heretics. He worried that individualism might shade into egotism.

 … Increasingly, China embodies everything that Tocqueville warned against: power centralised in the hands of the state; citizens reduced to atoms; a collective willingness to sacrifice liberty for a comfortable life.

The full collection

primers
Liberalism
In six primers, we explain the foundations and evolution of liberal thought, from John Stuart Mill to John Rawls.