February 07, 2026
When the Ground is Turned Under
When the Ground is Turned Under
by Timothy Birdnow
2/7/2026
An empty bed, an empty chair
no sounds in the kitchen, no footsteps on the stair
silence in my head, so very much to bear
a part of me has disappeared but where?
I wake into the bright glaring light of nightmare
the candle blown out, that far away stare
of a tired old man, worn and withered by care
from the silence of Heaven no word on a prayer
Where does a man turn when he is torn all asunder
by cruel twisted fate as the ground is turned under
Does he stay up quite late and drink half his weight
does he dance with the fairies of bourbon and wonder?
What does a man do when he's run out of time and his life doesn't rhyme?
How does he climb such a high, steep incline
how does he navigate without a map or road sign
with his mind in a cage, with his spirit confined?
She was light as a feather, a calm on the seas
a fairie of stardust, a sprite on the breeze
alive like the forest, as green as the trees
The star of the morning the summer night's ease
But that was a long time ago now or so it appears
she's gone far away now as ashes and tears
an old man's great nightmare, the sum of all fears
the silence is mocking as the night draws ever near
Where can a man seek asylum from hell
Where can he quench his great thirst at the well
For we know whom that tolling was for by the bell
as the candle blows out and the darkness just fell
Night seems eternal and never to end
a cloak that is torn and never to mend
the holy place open, no garden to tend
I struggle with angels and the demons offend
They say that the darkness will eventually pass
that the cold frigid night will just shatter like glass
I'll eventually climb from this bottomless morass
that the dry arid land will be covered with grass
Maybe so but I wonder if it's not for the lucky,
for the young and the strong and the confidently plucky
for me luck is rare and a treasure to save
and one fears it may tarry to well past the grave
Where does a man turn when he is torn all asunder
by cruel twisted fate as the ground is turned under
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4th Circuit: Trump Can End DEI
Timothy Birdnow
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals says Trump can end DEI in government if he pleases.
While this does leave it open for future lawsuits over specific cases it says that nobody can broadly sue over a core policy.
Suck on THAT Wokeies!
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Big Court Win for Trump, ICE
Timothy Birdnow
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that the Administration does NOT have to offer illegal aliens who are inside the country a day in court before arresting and deporting them.
This is a huge win for America. Naturally the Left is crying into their Twisted Tea alcoholic beverage.
Of course the Left knows they have nary a leg to stand on in this; it's designed to gum up the works, a monkey wrench thrown into the machinery to slow Trump down. I'm sure they knew they were going to lose, but it kept Trump from deporting a bunch of illegals until the case was settled (and no doubt it will be appealed to SCOTUS).
This is what the 13th Amendment means with "subjuct to the jurisdiction thereof" - these people are NOT subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and so have no claim to amnesty.
In other news ICE is planning to build a giant detention facility in beautiful San Antonio, one of the most ICE-hating places in America.
I sure don't get tired of winning. Shadenfreud is a wonderful thing sometimes.
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Somalia Now Requires Voter I.D.
I guess that's why Omar left Somalia?
Timothy Birdnow
Even SOMALIA now has voter I.D. required.
Where is the GOP on the SAVE Act?
Christian Collins@CollinsforTXIlhan Omar claims voter ID laws are "voter suppression.”
Meanwhile, her home country of Somalia recently implemented a "one person, one vote” system.
That system requires a voter ID card.
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Minnebrainaless Morons Protest Tampon Timmy
Timothy Birdnow
Communists always eat their own.
It does my heart good.
Yes, they showed up at Walz flat, er, mansion to raise eh e double hockey sticks over his "colludig' with Trump.
FTA:
Specifically, the protesters expressed outrage over Walz’s "unprecedented cooperation” with President Donald Trump and Border Czar Tom Homan, which reportedly led to a partial drawdown of ICE agents in the area.
The protest, captured on video and shared on X, began around 8 p.m. local time.
See, this is the problem Walz had from the beginning; he got in bed with some very bad people and once in you can't get out.
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A Pause, not a Trend
Timothy Birdnow
How so? We've had 4.3% economic growth, yet they are telling us there aren't many jobs.
Naturally CNN uses 2020 - the pandemic - as the baseline. Americans were out of work then by the millions.
Of course, with government cutbacks and an ending of extended unemployment or welfare programs we were going to see the number of unfilled jobs fall.
We are in a period of realignment and this means employers are waiting to see how this shakes out. In uncertain times emplouers hold off on hiring because they don't know how to plan. Also, a lot of jobs are being automated. How many jobs has McDonalds created since the Democrats pushed the minimum wage through the roof? They've been "hiring" kiosks to take orders instead of people.
But the jobs will return as America reinvigorates her manufacturing sector.
In fact this low number is a sign of good health in the economy; it means people are back at work. So many took a nice long vacation.
The numbers that matter are the consumer index; it shows the public confidence in the economy. Last year consumer spending rose by a whopping 34%. That tells you people have money.
One more thing; the Biden economy had good employment numbers because jobs were being filled by people taking second jobs. At this stage there is no reason to think that isn't still the case, although it may be winding down. When it does, when real wages rise enough to allow people to quit their moonlight jobs, the number of jobs will rise.
This sluggish job growth is an operational pause, not a trend.
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And Yet it Moves; Atheist "Order from Chaos" Experiment Proves Nothing
Timothy Birdnow
The nails were designed ON PURPOSE to be uniform, and to have round tops with smaller bottoms that helped them align.
As the Not the Bee author points out the box and nails were designed by an intelligence, and it was an intelligence that shook the box that brought those nails into alignment.
In physics there is the Anthropic Principle. This is applicable here. The Anthropic Principle states that the universe is fine-tuned to our existence; change any one physical law, no matter how small, and life becomes impossible. We exist ONLY in this universe, which seems tailor made for us.
There are other variants on the Anthropic Principle. The "Weak" Anthropic Principle admits this is so but argues that we are just seeing what we want to see, or what is in front of us. We evolved into THIS reality so naturally we assume no life is possible in another.
But even if that is true it still doesn't change the facts; our existence here was a miracle, something that should not have happened.
In fact most atheist scientists subscribe to the Many Worlds Hypothesis, which says there are an INFINITE number of universes, each with slightly varying physical laws, and that random chance guaranteed that life would arise in at least one of them. It's the only way to get around the philosophical implications of the Anthroopic Principle. (Many worlds is not the Multiverse, btw; the Multiverse suggests there are different universes sitting next to each-other in a larger megaverse and not interacting because they are too distant from each other and have slightly different physical laws. Many Worlds is based on quantum physics and the Copenhagen Interpretation which says that a new universe is generated at every decision point since two or more contradictory events actually happen at once and thus create a new universe, like cutting slices of bread from the loaves Jesus multiplied at the Sermon on the Mount.)
At any rate the Anthropic Principle has long been the bane of atheists and for good reason.
Anyway, I would suggest this guy choose nails of different weights and sizes and see if that works. Or even better, put some different sized bolts and nuts together in there and see if he can shake them into attaching themselves, which is basically what the atheist crowd argues happened with abiogenesis in the first place.
This little nail-in-box experiment does not prove order comes from chaos but that something purposely designed to be orderly will return to a state of order if enough energy is applied in the proper way. But we've always known that; it's what happens when you design something to be so.
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How Science Will Die
Timothy Birdnow
Oh puh-leeze!
There are a number of options here. One, they may have reason to feel that way as they may indeed be affirmative action hires. Two, if they do worry about this who cares? 3. Pretty much everyone feels like a fraud at some point in their lives and when doing science, which is so often grueling labor with little reward, it is only natural to feel that way. No doubt men do to, but women are particularly prone to navel-gazing.
This research is just more proof that psychology is the dufus of the sciences (As Shedon pointed out on The Big Bang Theory).
The article states:
This experience is known as impostorism, a psychological pattern that is distinct from low self-esteem or depression. According to Binghamton University, State University of New York, psychology researcher Jiyun Elizabeth Shin, impostorism involves persistent self-doubt even in the presence of clear evidence of achievement. Shin is a lecturer who leads the Social Identity & Academic Engagement Laboratory and recently published research on the topic in the journal Social Psychology of Education titled "Impostorism: Prevalence and its relationships with mental health, burnout, dropout consideration, and achievement among graduate women in STEM.”
Her findings highlight just how common these feelings are. Shin’s research shows that 97.5% of women enrolled in STEM graduate programs report experiencing impostor feelings at least at a moderate level. The likelihood appears even higher for those with multiple marginalized identities, including women of color.
"Impostorism is a feeling like being an intellectual fraud even when there is strong evidence of success,” Shin explained. "You believe that other people are overestimating your abilities and intelligence, and you fear that one day you’ll be exposed as incompetent and undeserving of your success.”
Of course what the study's lead author suggests is that these women are indeed as capable as any male colleague. That may be true but it may not; it's what is wrong with affirmative action in the first place. If you get let into anything based not on the quality of your work but on secondary traits, like your sex or race, you are going to always wonder if you really belong. It is exactly what is wrong with the policies of Woke culture. THAT should be the takeaway here.
But of course it's not; the study is trying to suggest we need to do more to bolster women in the sciences.
The fact of the matter is STEM isn't most women's cup of tea, and that is driven by biology and God. Women are more communal and don't like to fight as much as men. STEM, unlike the soft sciences, is essentially a combat sport; there can only be one right answer. That answer is divined by a rigorous and sometimes vicious adversarial process.
Men evolved to hunt and fight wars; it's our primary purpose, along with siring children. Women evolved to gather and prepare food, and to raise children. As a result men are far more likely to eschew socializing and communal thinking while women are more likely. Women tend to be right brained; creative and interested in harmony and also tend to be more verbal. Men tend toward greater practicality and achievements.
That's not to say there aren't women who are good at it, there are many. And that isn't to say There aren't men who are terrible at STEM precisely because they refuse to color inside the lines. My point is women IN GENERAL have less interest in a profession that is about being right and rubbing the loser's nose in it.
Here's another quote from the article where we can gain insight.
Impostorism is rooted in how people interpret their abilities and past accomplishments. Those affected often struggle to accept success as something they earned. Instead, they credit outside factors such as luck or favorable circumstances. This leads to anxiety about future performance and a lingering fear that others will eventually realize they are not as capable or intelligent as they seem.
Isn't imposturism EXACTLY the mental illness stalking Western Civilization these days? People - especially women who are the most radical Leftists of all nowadays - think it was just luck or favorable circumstances that led to the dominance of Western culture and that we are essentially frauds, and the only way to show we aren't is by ridding ourselves of the very thing that gave us that dominance. Now the Left tells children that we have no right to exist at all, that our only salvation lies in self-flagellation and our willingness to commit cultural hari-kari. So many young people buy into this too.
The very fact we are discussing this about female scientists is proof that our Western world is overcome with a false sense of guilt. We advanced human civilization immensely and while we weren't perfect we were still generally better than the peoples we displaced, our competitors. We never ate other people, or shrunk their heads, or enslaved them for sexual purposes. We did not torture, by and large. Yes, we kept slaves (something almost every culture did before the Industrial Revolution and often in a far nastier way.) And in return we gave so much - food, medicine, clothing, art, science, etc. So why feel guilty? We didn't do anything worse than any other culture ever did.
But instead of rejoicing in our earned success we sit about worrying about the feelings of women scientists and tut-tut about how bad Western civilization is for anyone who is not a white male.
White males die younger than white females, and in fact white males are the only demographic going backward in terms of life expectancy. Even black males are living longer. But not white guys.
Part of it is this extreme emphasis on anyone considered a "minority" which even includes white women. (There are more white women then white men, btw.) If a psychologist wants to look for REAL traumatization there is fertile ground in the way wokeism is destroying the hopes and dreams and lives of white boys. But to get ahead in academia these days you have to blame the white man for everything and hate on him as best you can. That's what this study on imposturism is ultimately about; it's saying The Man is holding women down, another form of intellectual and sexual bondage.
Doubt me on this? Look at these paragraphs:
Shin’s study also found clear links between impostorism and well-being. "Findings from my research showed that impostorism predicted poorer overall mental health, greater burnout, and increased consideration of dropout among graduate women in STEM,” she said.
A fixed mindset – the belief that abilities are innate and cannot be improved – is also associated with impostorism. When people see intelligence as unchangeable, challenges can feel like confirmation that they never deserved success. As a result, approaches that encourage more flexible views of ability may help reduce impostor feelings.
Even though impostorism is common among high achievers, many people hesitate to talk about it. Keeping these concerns private can deepen feelings of isolation and stress. Open conversations may play an important role in coping with impostor feelings and protecting mental and emotional health.
"More research is needed to better identify strategies to reduce impostor experiences, but social support may be helpful in reducing impostor fears,” Shin said.
Again, I would suggest that women shouldn't be advanced over men if we do not want imposturism; it's a natural outcome of DEI.
(BTW intelligence largely IS fixed; it can drop but rarely increase once a child is sufficiently developed. That she would say this proves she's an idiot.)
And that happens all the time. My brother is an historian and he graduated with top honors for his Ph.D. and has multiple books and articles published as well as has taught for decades and been given outstanding performance reviews. While this isn't science it does illustrate how academia works. The university where he is working adjunct just hired a new professor - a woman. Brian knew her when she was working on her Ph.D. - she barely got it, being awarded "with reservations". Bran said she knew nothing about history too, except for a very limited field involving literature. But she had ovaries and estrogen and so she was spirited to the top of her field. The university he works at never once considered him, because he was a white male; this substandard woman got the tenured position.
That is sadly how academia works and if there is a crisis in imposturism it's because of THAT, not some "antiquated" sexist idea.
Oh, I notice the article makes no mention of how many male scientists - especially white males - feel this way too. But of course this research is merely a tool to advance more DEI, more women pushed into positions for which they are not fit or to which they really aren't that interested.
This is exactly how science will die.
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Like Sand Through the Hourglass These are the Senses;of Our Lives
more...
Timothy Birdnow
Another sense has been discovered in humans and it makes sense when you think about it (pun intended).
Many birds possess an unique ability to sense food that may be buried in the ground. Plovers and sandpipers and other birds that feed along seashores can find prey through what is called remote touch; they can sense worms or other delectables just by touching the ground. They do not need to actually physically touch the tasty critters upon which they feed; they can simply tell they are there based on minute displacement of sand.
Researchers wondered if humans had the same abilities. Turns out that while we are nowhere as good at it as birds (who have special organs that help them do this) we do possess this sense in a rudimentary fashion.
People who put their hands to sand with buried objects could find those objects oftentimes just by sensing they were there.
This really doesn't surprise me; blind people often have a limited form of "vision" through their skins, although this has long been hotly contested. Plants certainly have this ability, and some simpler animals. And of course we all feel heat and cold on our skin, which itself is a coefficient of how much energy is being pumped into a given system.
I offer an experiment for you to try; put your hand near your face and tell me what you feel. It should feel slightly warm even though you aren't touching the skin. That's because heat is moving between your hand and your face and your face senses that. It's a simple form of heat vision. Now, this is a long way from sensing objects or tasty worms in sand, but it seems to me logical that if you can sense your hand near your face you probably can sense things that are near you but not visible.
At any rate people blind from birth have been reported to be able to sense colors and other things that should be impossible to them. So what gives?
Humans likely have an atrophied version of this sense. We stopped needing it some time ago, as we became more hunters than grubbers in the soil.
There are many senses in the animal kingdom that do not work for us (such as sonar, or a shark's ability to "see" a seal's nervous system from great distances) but those senses are buried in the genome, unexpressed genes. (Remember, epigenetics says we have all the stuff in us that has been in any critter in our biological line but it merely is unexpressed, dormant.) We have only five dominant senses, but most likely have many others that work, or barely work. That is the basis, no doubt, for many alleged "psychic" phenomena; people using recessive senses to acquire knowledge they seem to be incapable of possessing.
I once read a website about mentalism. Mentalism is a type of legerdemain in which the magician deduced vast amounts of information from a mark, er, subject by seeming magic. The reality is he's just very observant and makes deductions based on how the person he's "reading" reacts. There are subtle clues that tip the mentalist off and allow him to make draw the right conclusions. Sherlock Holmes was essentially a mentalist if you want an example.
I rather suspect the better mentalists have fine-tuned their limited extra-sensory abilities and can see if someone is lying or telling the truth through it. Like this new sense discussed in the article, they may be able to feel subtle changes in body temperature and skin placement, much like a lie detector machine does. Yes, there are tells which most mentalists use, facial expressions and the like (most top gamblers are natural mentalists) but that wouldn't give you everything you need. I wonder if they haven't learned to use this sixth sense.
At any rate researchers found that the human brain would get overwhelmed if we had several more senses at work on a regular basis, so we are only really aware of five senses. Beyond that and we become confused. But that doesn't mean they aren't there, just that we can't really access them.
Or can we? There was a guy named Bottineau who lived on Mauritus in the latter part of the 18th century. There is little known about Bottineau but he was quite famous for a time for his discovery of something he called Nauscopie. See, Bottineau could predict the coming of ships, often days before they came, by studying the ocean. He argued there was a lot of dying and decaying life in the sea and it produced a vapor that would be disturbed by ships. By means as yet unknown Bottineau could somehow see this disturbance and thus make predictions based on it. He was said to have had a remarkable record of success making these predictions and was called the Wizard of Mauritus for his ability.
Sadly Bottineau was a horrible scientist and didn't keep records, or if he kept them they were destroyed or disappeared. He had been holding out on publishing the secret because he wanted to be paid for it - and the offers he was receiving were too low. The guy died before he could tell the world and so Nauscopie was never realized.
I wonder; was this ability a form of sixth sense? There are many people who can feel storms coming in. Heck; my back started to hurt every time a storm was coming for a long time after I slipped a disc. That was caused by changes in air pressure, no doubt. Why can't we "see" ships coming days before they arrived? Why can't we sense objects in sand with out touching them?
At any rate I suspect we DO have more than five sense, it's just that the five we are largely aware of domnate our thinking. But there are others that are well established; we can sense the position of our bodies, for instance. We feel hunger, which is a sense not involving the big five. There are others.
So why can't we see with our skins, or feel changes in positions of objects under sand?
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Another Hate Crime Hoax Exposed
Timothy Birdnow[
Yet another fake hate crime exposed.
[link=https://www.westernjournal.com/black-mom-attorney-ordered-pay-3-2-million-white-student-whose-life-tried-ruin-fake-hate-allegations/}Black Mom, Attorney Ordered to Pay $3.2 Million to White Student Whose Life They Tried to Ruin With Fake Hate Allegations[/link]
The boy was just a middle school kid at the time. Black Lives Matter sent storm troopers in to swarm outside his home and threaten him, and he received multiple death threats.
The black kid's mother blew the Go-Fund-Me money on liquor and dining and travel.
The incident stemmed from a week-long sleepover at the white kid's house over the winter (a terrible idea for kids that age) in which the black kid was one of the guests.
Among the accusations made by the black kid were that they shot him with a bb gun (they were all playing with paintball guns and everyone shot everyone else) and that they tried to force him to drink urine (it was a running joke at the sleepover where everyone was trying to slip a glass of urine to the others).
At any rate the jury was well-integrated and still gave this kid three million odd bucks. Sadly he will probably not see any of it as no doubt this woman will simply refuse to pay.
The article does not say if Smith, the mother of the black kid, filed a police report. It does say police say there was no hate crime (an odd way for racists to behave; inviting a black kid to a sleepover then abusing him, isn't it?) So one must assume she filed a bogus police report, which means she should be subject to prosecution. And her lawyer needs to be disbarred and prosecuted too.
Smith vows to appeal the decision. That'll be hard since her son has already pretty much admitted the whole thing was bogus.
This is the problem with hate crimes; they make some more equal than others and empower just this sort of thing. Jussie Smollett was not an outlier; he was quite in the mainstream of these hate crime claims.
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February 06, 2026
Thune to Invoke Standing Filibuster over SAVE
Timothy Birdnow
A standing filibuster? How old school...
A standing filibuster would require the Democrats to actually stand and debate until either they or the GOP surrenders. Now filibusters are procedureal maneuvers and settled based on the threat of them, not on the actual tying up of the Senate's time. The beauty of this is the act would then only have to pass by one vote, not requiring a supermajority as it would otherwise.Rep. Anna Paulina Luna
@RepLunaJust left the White House. POTUS wants the SAVE America Act passed! Voter ID is number one. Today, Schumer said he wants mass amnesty for all illegals and to immediately stop all ICE efforts.
After speaking with many senators, as well as directly with POTUS, the pathway forward is through the standing filibuster. This would effectively keep the government open while allowing Republican senators to break through the "zombie” filibuster and put the SAVE America Act up for a vote on the Senate floor.
The standing filibuster is not common parliamentary procedure, but it is one of the only mechanisms available to go around senators who want to block voter ID.
@LeaderJohnThunewe are very pleased that you are discussing the standing filibuster, and we believe you will go down in history if this is pulled off as one of the best leaders the Senate has ever had. Voter ID is a must, and the ball is now in your court.
The SAVE Act would require voter I.D. when going to the polls. Democrats oppose it desperately for obvious reasons.
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It's a Somali-world After All
Timothy Birdnow
Who has the time, what with all the daycares they are running?
The media will do anything to get out of reporting the real news.
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Bass Ackwards
Timothy Birdnow
She's covering her bass, but that's par for the course with Democrats:
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Trump's Big Schedule FU for Government Workers
Timothy Birdnow
I disagree with the author here; this will simply be another policy that will be overturned as soon as Trump is gone.
Schedule F is just a rule change and even if it survives the court challenges to come the next Democrat President will simply reverse it - or the next Democratic Congress. Until the law itself is changed this will be of limited use.
Scheule F would allow the President to reclassify bureaucrats who make policy (as opposed to career workers who simply do their jobs) as "at will" workers who can be terminated at any time. This is the way it used to be done before the reforms that made government employees unfireable. (The thinking behind that was to avoid the spoils system and keep continuity in the bureaucracies. It was actually an anti-corruption measure. Instead it lead to even more corruption.) Prior to 1881 the patronage system or spoils system was the established method; a new administration came in and new people came with them. But the expansion of the U.S. after the Civil War led to a lot of new government positions and then in 1881 Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker, shot and killed James Garfield. The response was the Pendleton Act, which ended the patronage system and imposed a permanent bureaucratic class on America. It's only gotten worse over time, especially with the unionization of bureaucrats and their having permanent lifetime tenure.
So now Trump wants to eliminate some of the dead weight with Schedule F. But when a Democrat gets in office he will simply rehire the fired people and fire the people hired under Trump. Without a legal mechanism that cannot be altered on a whim this will be far more limited in scope. I doubt it will make it through the court system before Trump leaves office.
Maybe my skepticism is misplaced. At least Trump is trying.
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February 05, 2026
Democrats Own the Country, Republicans Only Rent it
MICHAEL SMITH
Republicans have lost several special elections, further narrowing their House margins. The conventional wisdom is the Republican base just doesn’t get energized for mid-terms. I have another theory: Republicans are afraid to lead, so they don’t give voters a reason to keep rewarding them. People get tired of the "this is the most important election of our lives” BS, especially when the GOP turns back to its lovable loser persona.
For the first 35 years of my life, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. Those were the bad old days before Newt Gingrich executed the Contract With America and ended the Democrats’ 40 years of control after the 1994 midterm elections. Gingrich campaigned nationally on the Contract With America and flipped 54 seats, giving the GOP its first House majority since 1954.
Maybe that’s where Democrats learned something the GOP struggles with to this day: power is not merely held, it is performed.
This is one of the quieter truths of political life: authority emerges as much from posture as from position. Titles matter, votes matter, institutional control matters—but beneath all of it lies something older and more primitive. People follow those who behave like leaders. Presence precedes permission.
Psychologists have long observed that humans read confidence as competence. Research by Amy Cuddy, social psychologist and former Harvard Business School professor, showed how physical stance, vocal certainty, and self-confidence shape how others perceive authority. Sociologist Max Weber described charismatic authority as something granted by followers, not conferred by law. Gustave Le Bon explored similar dynamics in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. In all cases, the same pattern appears: leadership is partly a social agreement. Someone steps forward, projects certainty, and the group responds.
Democrats, almost without exception, behave as though they are in charge—even when they are not. Whether in the majority or minority, they speak with moral certainty. They frame narratives. They act as if institutional control is merely a temporary technicality. They legislate culturally even when they cannot legislate formally. Universities, corporations, media, and bureaucracies become extensions of this posture. Power is treated as an ambient condition rather than a contingent one.
Republicans, by contrast, often do the opposite.
Even when holding majorities, they tend to speak cautiously, govern defensively, and seem to apologize reflexively. They act as though authority is something they have borrowed and might soon be asked to return. They govern like tenants rather than owners. It is almost as if they are more comfortable out of power—as the "loyal” opposition, more at ease criticizing than commanding.
In my opinion, this is not primarily a strategic failure—it is philosophically driven.
The left operates from a worldview in which history has a direction and they are its agents. That produces confidence bordering on inevitability, even when their past policies indicate disasters they have wrought. The right, particularly its classical liberal strain, operates from a worldview that emphasizes restraint, process, and limits. That produces hesitation. One side believes it embodies progress. The other believes it merely administers a system.
The asymmetry persists. Democrats push harder because they believe they are moving toward something, even if they don’t really know what that something is. They act as though authority is theirs by moral right. Republicans behave as though authority must be constantly justified, minimized, or apologized for. One side treats power as expressive. The other treats it as provisional.
President Trump and his cabinet is one of the most muscular and aggressive of my lifetime. The contrast to the Biden administration, the absolute weakest of my lifetime, is stark—and yet, the GOP seems poised to waste an opportunity to make powerful and lasting change.
Trump’s confidence and drive scares some of the Republican caucus. You can almost see it on their faces: "This is not the way things are done around here! We must be more polite and less demanding!” They seem to prefer a more "modest” approach—but the problem is that power does not reward or respond to modesty.
Leadership requires more than policy positions. It requires presence, a cogent and powerful narrative, and ownership of it. You must sell your plans—and it requires the willingness to occupy territory unapologetically. When one side projects certainty and the other projects doubt, the outcome is preordained regardless of vote counts. This is why Republicans can win elections and still lose culture. It explains why they can control legislatures yet fail to set terms, and why they so often govern as caretakers while their opponents govern as architects. It explains why they lose House districts in Texas by 14 points that Trump won a year ago by 17.
Acting in charge is not arrogance—it is responsibility made visible. As an old mentor of mine taught me, if you don’t lead, someone else will step up to fill the vacuum. True leadership lives at the intersection of boldness and restraint—of confidence anchored in competence. Without the first, the second becomes irrelevant.
Power is never merely taken but is continuously asserted. The hard lesson learned is that those who hesitate to inhabit it will always be governed by those who do not.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
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Magnanimity - You First!
Timothy Birdnow
Here is an essay calling for more civility, more "magnanimity in public discourse.
I'm sorry but this essay is myopic and just plain wrong; it fails to understand the differences between Left and Right and paints us all with one broad brush, while ignoring basic human nature.
The author - Stephen M. Klugewicz - finds parity between both sides, arguing it is the internet which has given a voice to the public and it is that public driving the harsh political rhetoric. Horsefeathers! Apparently Mr. Klugewicz didn't live through the Reagan era where so many liberals called Reagan "Hitler" and a madman and said he wanted to blow up the world. He has apparently forgotten the viciousness with which the Left went after the Nixon Administration.
Actually politics has always been a blood sport. Thomas Jefferson was accused of taking liberties with slaves (a huge no-no back then) without any evidence at the time. Alexander Hamilton was so vicious in his criticisms of Aaron Burr, and would not let it go even when Burr turned the other cheek, that eventually Burr had little recourse but to challenge him to a duel. You had all manner of such things in bygone days; Licoln was a mulatto, some said. Chester Arthur was accused of being a child molester. I could go on and on.
But there has always been a rotten core to our political acrimony, and that poisonous core has revolved around Liberalism.
Liberalism in the modern sense was born out of the Enlightenment and their view that God is less important than human beings think. The rise of Humanism saw the deification of Man in the minds of the Liberals, and if Man is inherently good than anyone who resists that deification is therefore evil. It's been the driving force in Western Civilization for a coupe of centuries now.
We always saw this kind of acrimony in a number of places, notably Latin America. It did not touch the United States because of the strong Judeo-Christian ethos that was at the center of American life. The Left has been waging war on that cebter for decades, using such weapons as the Sexual Revolution, Feminism, LGBTQ, racial strife, and a host of other such things to divide us. It has worked and we've now fallen into two distinct camps (with the smaller third camp of Libertarians straddling the fence) but the warring sides are not equal in power or in aggressiveness.. The Left is still the engine - ever on the attack, always pushing, and with control of the media and education they have been wildly successful, marching through and despoiling all of our institutions.
It is axiomatic that in war the aggressor sets the rules of engagement. The Left has always been the aggressor and the right always failed to fight in kid because we did not want to sully ourselves, get our hads dirty. For decades people on our side said "we're better than that" as if that would somehow magically fix everything. It didn't; we kept losing and our society kept moving ever leftward, becoming crazier and breaking down. It has only been since Reagan that we have actually fought back in any but a feckless way; before Reagan the assumption was we shouldn't fight but rather steer into the skid as it were, ride the wave and hope to make it go a little more smoothly. That is the way to be annihilated.
So along comes new technology and suddenly our side can get our message out and what happens? The Left is outed. One of the keys to their power is the hidden nature of their beliefs; they know they are a minority and have to trick the bulk of the populace. But Conservatives were on talk radio, online, and on podcasts and cable t.v. spilling the beans. This enraged them because they had always had it their own way, controlling most television and other media, as well as the Universities and the schools. (BTW my brother has struggled all his career in academia because he has basically been blackballed by the Left and so never was able to get a tenure track position despite having several books published and getting rave reviews from students.) Liberalism cannot stand up in comparison to Conservatism, which is basically an acknowledgement of human nature. Liberalism is wholly unnatural and people know it when it's pointed out.
So it was the Left that started the war. What were we supposed to do about that? We tried turning the other cheek for a hundred years only to have the other side of our faces bitten off by the feral Liberals.
To argue that we need more "magnanimity" is a lovely sentiment worthy of a Miss America contestant, but about as deep. You cannot be magnanimous with a vicious dog; you have to restrain it or put it down.
We are where we are because, for the first time in their memory, the Left sees themselves losing ground as we go after the thigs they have imposed on us. This has always worked for them by their gaining ground one way or another; when they hold power they gain ground politically and when out of power they gain ground socially. But now WE are gaining ground and they are desperately trying to seduce us with just this sort of thinking, that we need to tone it down, we need more "comity", that we shouldn't fight back. They've used THAT trick many times before to shut us up; it's a way of playing on our own decencies.
Do people go overboard? Sure, and it is easier now with instant communications and unrestrained access to spout off in a stupid or mean-spirited way, and frankly with everyone engaged in the struggle we tend to get cranky and boorish, even with those on our own side. I've met with such abusive and critical language from our side too. But that's human nature. And no amount of lecturing about our need to be nicer will change that. Maners and civility are the first thing to go in a time of war, and we've been in a war for a long time now.
This article states:
"Yes, it’s we who can accomplish this, not 500 years of great religious texts authored by theologians of every stripe, not the work of eminent historians and political philosophers, not the accumulated research of renowned scientists. No, it is I, the equal of such men and women, who is fit to pronounce authoritatively on any and all topics… as long as I have a few minutes to do some Google research."
While I agree that many argue from a position of ignorance (A basic Google search will make you a complete ignoramous) but this is elitist in the extreme; only the celebrated may dare speak because they are wise and we are stupid. I would point to the words of Steve Jobs:
"Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. You can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use." This quote encapsulates Jobs' belief in the power of individual creativity and the potential to shape the world around us. It encourages us to embrace our potential and take action to create a better life and a better world."
If Jobs is correct in his populist sentiment - and it is in many ways quite similar to the Christian ethos of the power of the individual who is speaking through the Holy Spirit - then he is equally correct in the value of the individual to create and shape the world around us. Certainly most of what we are told are the thoughts of people no smarter than us who simply have a bigger megaphone, and the media is decidedly dimmer than are we. Why should we keep silent, or tiptoe around the enemies of Mankind and civilization?
On the contrary it is our duty to resist evil. This idea of restraining ourselves is as unchristian and anti-loving as it comes. We are trying to warn people there is immanent peril ahead. You don't simply let yourself be shouted down.
Which is what the Left always does, then when we shout back they cry about the loss of civility in the hopes we will shut up. It works too, which this essay seems to prove.
"And even if I am well-versed on a certain issue or subject or area of history, my interpretation, which differs from others similarly well-versed, may shed more light on my soul than it does on the heart of the matter in question. "
Perhaps, but this assumes that the people we are fighting are in fact honest and just differ in opinion. In most cases when dealing with the Left that is not true at all; they are purposefully twisting facts, distorting evidence, hiding the truth. We cannot sit idly by and let a lie stand.
As to the point about too much "he said, she said" news, that is the fault of the NEWS MEDIA and the 24 hour news cycle; too much time, too little to report. But the media also does not want to really discuss issues; they could find news if they wished. One of the ways the Left slants the news is by what they choose not to report. To not report stories like, say, the Chinese biolab in Las Vegas (which has not been mentioned by most media outlets as of this writing) they have to have something else, and that something else is usually a "gotcha!" story designed to embarrass Republicans and influence people based not on factual stories but on personalities. Everywhere it is about personalities. But what can we do nut respond in kind? THEY set the rules of engagement.
"We need to imitate Socrates, who knew that the beginning of wisdom was to acknowledge that he knew nothing."
I don't know about what Socrates knew or didn't know but I do know they KILLED him in the end. That should be our takea-away from this.
The author calls for magnanimity. Fine quality that, but one first must win the war to be gracious and magnanimous. Magnanimity in the heat of battle is retreat.
Another problem with this essay is it assumes all knowledge is learned and that others may know more than do we. That is not so. Plato certainly thought knowledge was remembered and not learned, and in fact the Founding Fathers believed in Natural Law, that some truths are self-evident. We can say "slaery is wrong" yet it is equally possible to make an argument from the premise slavery is a good thing. I mean, you can argue it benefits society, provides the needs for those who cannot provide them for themselves, restrains the more destructive appetites of the ignorant, provides dignity in work, etc. But it's all an exercise in dishonesty because we KNOW slavery is a bad institution because it dehumanizes the people who are enslaved. The same holds true for these opponents we face online; they can marshal arguments which may even seem to them logical but in the end we know socialism is a terrible idea; we don't need a Ph.D. in economics to tell. We can see it brings poverty. We can see it leads to sloth and ennui. It is a self-evident truth. The Declaration of Independence appealed to self-evident truths.
That said we don't need to be supercilious or mean spirited at all times, but we need to be firm and we need to be authoritative and we need to rage against the dying of the light. I fear the whole point of this essay is to let us go gently into that good night, even if the author isn't aware that is what he is advocating.
That would be fine. They can go first.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
02:35 PM
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