July 07, 2026
What is and isn't Mine
Timothy Birdnow
I remember when I first saw the ending of the television show Yellowstone. (Spoiler alert!) In that show the Dutton family had been fighting - often quite literally - to save their huge Montana ranch from developers and speculators, to keep it wild as it had been. The Indians who had lived there and still did wanted that land "back" as if they ever held any real claim to it. (Interestingly in the show Chief Rainwater was a very cosmopolitan guy who had been raised by white parents and thought he was Mexican by birth until he learned he was an Indian then threw himself into the tribal cause - they didn't care about the Dutton ranch but HE did.)
After the assassination of John Dutton (who had become Governor of Montana solely to stop the development) his family found themselves facing the loss of everything - including any hope of selling the property for what it was worth. Development was going to raise taxes and ruin them. So they sold it "back" to the Indians for a dollar and change an acre, or some equally ridiculous price.
The assumption was that it belonged to the Indians. But did it? They hadn't built anything on it, made any sort of improvements to lay claim to it. John Locke, the great English philosopher, set that as the standard for property ownership; you have to use a property and do SOMETHING to prove it is yours. That can be as simple as building a small cabin or even just a monument of some kind. But the Indians did nothing of the sort, just left the land fallow and as nature had made it. Often Indians did not even visit a place for years, maybe decades, yet still claimed it as theirs.
English law provides for what is known as Adverse Possession, colloquially known as"squatter's rights". While that sounds, even to modern ears, a bit unsavory, it was actually a very useful tool in advancing civilization. If a settler found land that was unused and could use it "openly and notoriously" as the law says, meaning everyone knew about it and the absentee owner had ample time to assert his claim to the property, then the property ownership transrfered to the squatter.
This meant that, unlike under Spanish law, say, a rich guy couldn't build a massive empire of land without risking losing it. As a result small farmholdings were common under English law - especially in America, where land was plentiful and cheap. This encouraged building things up, cultivating the land, etc. The Dutton ranch claimed that land by building a ranch, even though most of it was rural. (They had "east camp" - a cabin on wild land - to lay claim to a part of the ranch they seldom used. That part was retained by Jamie and his wife and kid after the sale.) The Indians had never made that claim on the land, had built nothing to justify their claim to ownership.
How do you own land you rarely set foot on and have done nothing with? What makes your claim stronger than someone else's?
At any rate here is an article in American Thinker asking why, if liberals believe all our land is stolen from natives, they don't just give it back. As the author points out, if you find out you possess stolen property you have a moral obligation to give it back. So if part of Harvard was owned by Indians (or all of it - it was "their country" before any white dudes showed up) why don't they turn it over to them?
As Brian Joondeph points out, partly because there is no way to determine who the rightful owner is; the Indians who had been there had undoubtedly displaced other Indians and so forth and so on.
The dirty little secret is that the Native Americans had been in a constant state of war with one another and so it had been for all of history and prehistory - until the white men came along and settled that once and for all. And none of them had any sort of valid claim to most of "their" property. Hunting on forest land does not necessarily give you deed to it. Plenty of people hunt on property that is not theirs - both national forest land and private. My own Ozark Hilton sees it's share of poaching hunters in deer season. I don't care; I don't deer hunt and while I like to see the deer when I go down there they aren't exactly my property but move from place to place. They can just as easily be killed right off my land as on. As long as the hunters are courteous and respectful of my property they are welcome. But that hunting in no way gives them any legal rights to ownership or even an easement.
We need a long national conversation on property rights and need to establish what they mean once and for all. Actually we've had it for a long time, that definition, but the media and the Left for whom they carry water keep trying to muddy OUR waters with their media-carried sewage.
In the end possession is 9/10 of the law and we are the ones who possess it - and that because we came and stayed while they couldn't be bothered to do the same. And we improved it - the other tenth. Teepees in temporary camps do not constitute improving the land. Permanent villages do (as in the Woodland Indians) or adobe houses but not most of the lands that were "taken". And you can't claim land a hundred miles from where you live just because you hunt there.
That was why the Indians were in a constant state of war to begin with; they had no good definition of property, and who owned what. So does the Left and that will cause the same bloody conflicts in the end.
BTW the title of this comes from the Seventies song Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree by Tony Orlando and Dawn which says "I'm coming home I've done my time...and I got to know what is and isn't mine".
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The Long Climate Con
Timothy Birdnow
Here is a good article from American Thinker yesterday explaining how the media gets their "warmest day on record" claims and how they "prove" it's caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide.
As the old saying goes, it's all done with mirrors. Or in this case with models based on a base model that does not comport with reality.
From the article:
Most people assume these studies compare today's weather with historical observations. In reality, they compare the present world with a hypothetical world that never existed—a computer-generated version of Earth's climate in which industrial carbon dioxide emissions never occurred. The difference between the two simulations is then presented as the human contribution to the event .
Attribution studies typically compare today's climate with a simulated pre-industrial climate to estimate how human emissions altered the probability of a particular event.
That sounds scientific until one asks a simple question: how do we know the model accurately represents a climate that no one has ever observed?
Climate models have long struggled to reproduce observed temperature records accurately, with many projections diverging significantly from other observational datasets [ii]. They have difficulty reproducing important regional climate patterns, and one of their most important tests—hindcasting, or reproducing known historical climate changes—remains problematic. If a model cannot reliably reproduce the past, confidence in its simulation of an imaginary pre-industrial climate should naturally be limited. Yet attribution studies depend precisely upon this capability.
And they fudge the real-world data to prove it.
How, you ask?
First, proxy data often diverges from what they think they know about pre-industrial climate, so they "data smooth" the record. Since data is coming from multiple sources they can decide that higer temperatures found in ice core or tree rings are an aberration and so they throw those out but keep in the lower temperatures. Traditional historical temperatures are then deemed inaccurate and the powers that be - NOAA, NASA's Giss, The Hadley Center in Britain, etc. then revise historical data down, so as to make it appear that our current observable temperatures are higher. It's a cute trick, a kind of three card monty.
The second trick they use is to increase surface data temperature by either citing bad stations (they are situated in some of the craziest places - guaranteed to give bad data) or they simply eliminate stations altogether and ASSUME an average temperature between two much more distant stations. The whole point of a temperature station is to take the guesswork out of it but they have been multiplying the guesswork on the theory that it doesn't matter.
Of course it DOES matter which is why we take the planet's temperature where we do in the first place.
Satellite data has long disagreed with surface stations but is generally dismissed. The main satellite data comes out of the University of Alabama Hunstville (UAH) where NASA satellite data is collated largely by Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christie. This data shows only a very modest planetary temperature increase and Roy Spencer's work suggests that increase is tied to land use changes - exactly as Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. insisted for decades (Pielke was at UC Boulder). I spoke to Roy Spencer about Pielke's theory (I had spoken to him a number of times when he used to have his blog) and Spencer laughed "he ALWAYS says it's land use changes!) but then Spencer ran the numbers. Now he agrees. A blacktop is hotter than a pine forest.
At any rate the datasets are corrupted and purposely so to get a warming trend, and they are "smoothed" to reject any evidence that the planet is NOT warming as much as they claim.
The reality is this is well within normal geological variability.
As for rising carbon dioxide, so what? We are in an era of low carbon dioxide and probably need some more. I would add that carbon dioxide generally rises AFTER a warming period and usually between four hundred and eight hundred years. The Medieval Warming Period was in full swing in the Thirteen century.
The article goes on to question if carbon dioxide is a primary driver of climate (I doubt it - Mars is drastically different than Venus despite both having primarily carbon dioxide atmospheres). He also points out that increasingly models are being used in litigation over all sorts of things and that they are probably unreliable.
Of course they are; a model is a representation of reality simplified so it can better be studied and understood. A model complex enough to understand something as complicated as the weather would have to be as complicated as the weather and then there would be no need of a model. So we dumb it down so we can grasp it. But what do we lose in the process? It's "flatter" than reality, far less nuanced.
I remember a story I read once, a science fiction story, that pretty much explained this very problem of relying on computer simulations. In it a guy was a laborer for the government who got mad when a directive came down that he had to haul his tools back to the headquarters every day rather than leave them on the job site. He talked to his boss, then talked to his bosses boss, and so forth and so on until he went to Washington and spoke to the head of the Department of Labor. This guy said "this policy is based on a report I received from the bureau of labor statistics". So the hero began working his way back down the chain, always being pointed to the next guy below. Eventually it turned out the whole thing was based on a computer report and the hero finds an old man who trolled inside the basement of an obscure data center who had taken to altering the computer code when he decided something should be done. It was this guy who saw some shovels left out in the rain and thought it wasteful so he programmed the computer to say it was more cost-effective to take all tools back to the warehouse. The old boy wanted to retire and the hero realized the implications. He volunteered to take this guy's job and essentially become king of the whole world by controlling the data stream to the power brokers.
It's kinda like that; I wonder if the original Gang Green guys who came up with this hadn't read this short story from the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
At any rate this is a very sneaky and underhanded trick used to push the narrative, and that narrative is done for money, power, and to promote societal change on a massive scale.
Don't believe it. It's a magic trick, a con, a swindle and you are the mark.
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Someone's Kingdom Come
Timothy Biirdnow
Here is a good essay at American Thinker discussing how Dope Leo dissed America on her 250th birthday to wail and moan about the fate of illegal muslim aliens trying to invade Europe.
The author is right; this Pope doesn't understand the fundamental job description of his own position, thinking it is misplaced empathy rather than to defend the Church.
Prevost was seduced during his time in Peru and is a big supporter of Liberation Theology. Of course he came from Chicago, a city that gave us Saul Alinsky, Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama, and now it has given us Pope Leo. It is a habitation of demons, a place of every foul and unclean bird. And Prevost didn't get his job because he was the best man for it so much as because he would continue the work of the late Pope Franics and Francis packed the College of Cardinals to see to just that, as well as demoted all the Conservatives in Rome.
If Leo is so touchingly concerned with immigrants why doesn't he open the Vatican to them? He is the king of a sovereign country after all.
The sad thing is even most Catholics don't understand the limited nature of Papal Infallability (ex cathedra). The Pope is only infallible when he is formally speaking ex cathedra and he must say so. Also, it is ONLY about matters of "faith and morals" meaning he can say homosexuality is a sin and say so infallibly, or say you have to believe in the Trinity and likewise be infallible. Speaking about immigration is just his personal opinion. (The last time the Pope spoke infallibly was in 1959 when the papacy declared the doctrine that Mary was bodily assumed into Heaven was confirmed.) Oh, and the Pope can't just do it; he has to consult with the Majesterium and it must settle a long-studied question. It is a very formal process.
I am always amazed at how many Catholics think the Pope is never wrong and if he says something they defend him no matter how ridiculous he might be. And of course this provides fodder for Protestant and other critics who sneer at the idea that a Pope is never wrong. He's wrong all the time - just not about very specific issues.
The American Spectator, which used to be a sensible publication, is now riddled with folks who think that the Pope said it so we must believe it. I stopped reading TAS some time ago because it became another NeverTrump operation, along with The National Review.
Anyway this Pope thinks it more important to welcome aliens who have no intention of becoming Westerners and will destroy what is left of Christendom through jihad by immigration. And he's so thick he doesn't see that is what is happening even though all sorts of terrible things are happening, like rape gangs in Sweden or France and Britain.
This is the prime mission he has chosen, apparently. He seems to think that surrender will change their behavior - it won't. Nor will it save any souls as in Islam you cannot change religions. They kill you if you try.
If Islam is to eventually be overcome by the Church it won't be by kowtowing to them. They respect strength and see what we see as kindness as weakness. Contemptible. The only way we will ever convert the Muslims is by the carrot AND the stick; they have to see that their way is a failure and that the Christian way is the better of the two. Obsequiousness and backside sphincter kissing isn't going to do anything but make them hate us more.
Leo either doesn't understand that or he believes the real danger is from Christians rather than Muslims, which would fit a man steeped in Leftism rather than Christ.
The Catholic Church has always believed the False Prophet of the Book of Revelations would be a Pope. I don't know if it is Leo but he appears to be a precursor.
Here is what Dope Leo says to the American People in his address to us on our 250th birthday:
Defending human life also includes welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants, whose hopes, sacrifices and contribution have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning. In every generation, those who have arrived seeking freedom, opportunity and a place to belong have helped to shape the nation’s character. To receive them with compassion and generosity is not only an act of charity, but also a recognition of the dignity that belongs to every human person.
In my recent Encyclical Letter, Magnifica Humanitas, I wrote about working together for the common good. "Building a world in which everyone can flourish requires shared responsibility and courage. No one can single-handedly bear the weight of the challenges the world is facing” (no. 13). We need one another, and we need to work together in unity to confront the challenges that the world is facing today.
May this milestone renew the shared commitment to the promise of freedom, justice, opportunity and democracy.
Here is a twofur of extreme liberalism - demanding we keep allowing huge amounts of immigration (illegal aliens aren't immigrants but invaders but even legal immigrants can't be enculturated at the pace we've been experiencing, and any fool can see it's destroying the entire Western world. Why aren't the immigrants fixing their own countries instead of coming here to wreck ours?) and the other calling for "community" by which he undoubtedly means a kind of socialism "everything within the state, nothing outside the state" as Mussolini explained of Fascism.
Just choosing these issues rather than speak of, say, abortion or rising sexual deviancy like transgenderism show where this man's heart lies. His is a social Gospel. No mention f the salvation of souls, his prime duty.
America was not built on communalism. It was built on the fundamental idea that the individual, first and foremost, was the core building block of society, followed by family, then local community, then state. We built our nation on the bedrock of "inalienable rights" held by the individual. All Leo can speak about is communal rights, communal responsibilities. As Christians we want to be servants of our communities but to do that we must first be servants to our families and ourselves. Putting the community first inevitably leads to societal disfunction. Human beings are not colonies of bees. We are communal but individuals living in communities. There is a reason why Jesus died for us as individuals, not just as part of some Borg collective.
Leo fails to understand that about his own country. Service to country comes first from service to ourselves, and that comes first from service to and love of God. Basically he's making a God of society and the State (as did Mussolini and Hitler).
Pope Leo was chosen to act as a counterbalance to President Trump. It was always said there would never be an American Pope because America was too powerful as it was and that would be gathering far too much power into one nation. But they chose Leo when Trump became President to pull the rug out on him.
Understand that and you understand him. He won't ALWAYS oppose Trump on everything but he'll oppose him on key issues, ones that have a lot of popularity among the People. This is to sever Catholics from his voting block. That is the intent. So he'll come out at seemingly inappropriate times to call out MAGA and Trump rather than call out real evils in the world becauses he's as much a part of the New World Order as is George Soros or the folks at the World Economic Forum.
This man is not trying to save souls. He's trying to win a kingdom for...something.
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July 05, 2026
Naziism is Socialism
This courtesy of Chester McAteer
"According to the idea of the NSDAP [Nazi party], we are the German left. Nothing is more hateful to us than the right-wing national ownership block”.
-Joseph Goebbels
"We are Socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
--Gregor Strasser, one of the founding fathers of the National Socialist German Workers Party
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No Modern Warming in Antarctica
Timothy Birdnow
Data conclusively proves there has been zero warming in Antarctica since 1979:
Ma et al. (2025: https://nature.com/articles/s41597-025-05175-6) - Satellite Data: UAH 6.1 (2025: https://nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.1/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.1.txt)
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/.../v6.1/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.1.txt
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The President Who had a Hot Time in the Old Town
Timothy Birdnow
CNN yucks it up about the death of President Zachary Taylor.
Taylor had been elected just a few months prior to this. The former hero of the Mexican war was elderly and it was very hot that day. Taylor went to the Fourth of July celebration in a heavy coat (as was often the custom in those days) and his military uniform.
He had eaten cherries earlier but had not drank any water. When he suffered heat exhaustion his staff called in the doctor. Now, in those days doctors were pretty lame and his physician thought it was because old Zach was too frail and he needed to be built up, so he made the President drink lots of milk, when he needed water and to rest in the shade. His heat exhaustion began moving into heat stroke so the dimwitted doc decided to let Taylor's blood "to get rid of the poison". So they drained blood out of a man who desperately needed water and to cool down - and he died.
I have no doubt the host on CNN was wishing the same would happen to Donald Trump.
At any rate this story illustrates just how much we've learned since the nineteenth century, and it also shows the value of air conditioning. Our President will never die of heat stroke in these modern times! The late Pope Francis called air conditioning a terrible thing, bordering on sinful, and Europeans heeded his call to abolish it and are now dying literally and figuratively because they got rid of it. Had Zachary Taylor had just a window unit he would have survived.
It would have been interesting to see what kind of President Taylor would have been.
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U.S.S. Clinton
Timothy Birdnow
Does former President Bill Clinton deserve to have a naval ship named after him?
Maybe this vessel would do him justice:
This ship needs to be purchased by the U.S. Navy and recommissioned the U.S.S. Clinton.
Oh, and the Taiwanese operated Panamanian flagged vessel is named the Ever Given. Fitting for a man who is forever givin' it to any woman he can grab.
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Chris Murphy Says the Democrats will End the Filibuster when They get Power
Timothy Birdnow
I don't know why the Republicans can't figure out that the Democrats are going to do this as soon as they are in power.
Top Democrat Vows To Kill Filibuster As Trump Unveils Strategy To Secure GOP Victories For A Century
Dem. Senator Chris Murphy admitted they are plotting this on the Nobody Knows Anything podcast.
Republicans in the Senate have resisted eradicating the filibuster out of some misplaced sense of "tradition". But the filibuster is not written into the Constitution nor is it a venerable ancient rule going back to the beginning; the filibuster was an accident from it's inception.
Aaron Burr accidentally created it when he was cleaning up unused Senate rules. One was a time limit on debate by Senators similar to the one in the House. This made it possible to continue to speak indefinitely - and thus simply gum up the works of the Senate, preventing a vote.
So it wasn't even a rule put in place - just a result of eliminating other rules.
It was named after the Dutch word vrijbuiter meaning pirate because you were essentially commandeering the ship of state and stealing it.
It wasn't until the 1840's when Henry Clay sought to limit Senate debate and the Senate thretened to debate that rule change indefinitely that it started using it extensively that the filibuster became anything other than a curiosity.
But always it had to be someone actually speaking. In later years they would often read from the telephone book.
Cloture was put in place in 1917 to allow an end to debate. Because cloture required a 2/3 vote it was very rare; in the subsequent forty years it was only invoked five times.
Strom Thermond held the record for a talking filibuster - 24 hours and 18 minutes. The old windbag had stamina, I must say. His record was finally broke by Corey "Spartacus" Booker who yacked for a solid 25 hours without pausing for breath.
In '75 cluture was lowered from 2/3 to 3/5ths.
The Senate also made a rule change in the seventies that created a "two track" system so that a filibuster didn't stop ALL Senate business so other business could be conducted.
This had the unintended side-effect of creating the Zombie filibuster where bills could simply be set aside for a time rather than tie up Senate business. The end result was that it was possible to just filibuster one bill by saying you were going to filibuster it - and thus simply force it to be removed from senate business.
If the Senate wants to keep the filibuster out of a sense of tradition they should rescind the two track system and force a talking filibuster again.
The Democrats will do this at a minimum, and if the talking filibuster is reimposed and the GOP starts filibustering they will remove even that. They have shown time and time again that tradition and good manners mean nothing to them - only power matters.
Sadly the GOP in the Senate still thinks these are reasonable people and they won't launch the birds against the Republicans. They are living in the past. Or they want what Democrats are pushing but fear angering their voters.
Politics is a blood sport. If you aren't willing to draw blood you don't belong in the game.
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Travesty of Justice in Birmingham, U.K.
Timothy Birdnow
Lesser Britain has gone nuts.
Here is a video of an incident in Birmingham where a bunch of black men assault a white guy and when police show up they throw the white guy against a wall and arrest him - and let the assailants walk away without even questioning them.
This video is going viral and the Birmingham police, after making outrageous lies about the incident, then changing their story to even admit the white guys was a victim, are continuing to try to prosecute him and even made an appeal to the public not to share this video "so justice may be carried out". Justice for whom exactly? It's so this guy will get railroaded and the department not embarrassed.
Everyone needs to share this abomination. Britain has gone mad with this DEI stuff. A few weeks back there was an incident where an Asian fellow stabbed a white guy in the gut and the cops showed up. The Asian guy said the white guy was making racial slurs - so they arrested the white guy who was laying on the ground dying of his wounds! The cuffed him as he was bleeding out.
Being white in Britain is a crime now.
Police are taught that whites are automatically the oppressors and always in the wrong in any altercation. The minorities there have figured that out, that they won't be charged or blamed in any way so they are now just acting with impunity. Why not? There will be no repercussions, no matter what they do.
A nation that represses it's own people will not survive, nor should it. And if there is ever an argument for defund the police it is this; the Birmingham police should be defunded and disbanded and they need to start from scratch. Clearly the wrong people work there - and they are being indoctrinated in a bad way.
BTW the cop who throws this poor guy against the wall appears a bit dusky herself...
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Paul Pelosi's Crackup
Timothy Birdnow
Old Hammertoe Pelosi was charged with hit and run in Napa.
Close
Paul Pelosi Charged In Napa Hit And Run After Striking Parked Car [WATCH]Paul Pelosi Charged In Napa Hit And Run After Striking Parked Car
Yes, Nancy Pelosi's AC/DC hubby, the man who was beaten with a hammer by a half naked dude in his own home, was three sheets to the wind and cracked up his car. (I suppose if you have to come home to Nancy anyone would ne three sheets to the wind much of the time.)
Authorities say that an alcohol test came back negative. Sure it did. If you believe that I have a nice bridge that crosses the strait at the Golden Gate.
While Pelosi was arrested the Sheriff's department has yet to determine if they will file charges, even though he clearly hit another car and left the scene of an accident. Now why would they do that? For the same reason they would find no alcohol was involved, methinks.
There are two sets of laws in America and Pelosi gets to enjoy the more lenient of the two.
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July 04, 2026
And the Heat Goes On
This from meteorologist Christ Martz:
On today's date in 1901, over half of the U.S. was at or above 90°F and nearly 9% of the land area was at least 100°F. The same weather occurring this week occurred exactly 125 years ago, but according to most climate alarmists, it was just weather in 1901, but this week's three-day event is undeniable proof that we are facing a climate catastrophe.
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In Congress, July 4, 1776
more...
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
North Carolina
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Massachusetts
John Hancock
Maryland
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
New York
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire
Matthew Thornton
Read Jefferson's original draft:
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The America that Was
Timothy Birdnow
An excellent piece by Tyler Durden. He nails it.
Would The Founders Still Recognize Their Republic?
The answer, of course, is a resounding "NO!" The America as it was founded is as dead as the Parthian Empire. Sadly it's mostly a memory.
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The Winds of the American Revolution
Timothy Birdnow
This is a decent essay, although I quibble with a bit of it. While it is true that there was revolutionary fever all over the West with the Enlightenment following on the heels of the Protestant Reformation (itself a revolution) the United States was a revolution that was essentially conservative in nature; it wanted to preserve the status quo while Britain began a very aggressive effort to reform the way the colonies were managed by the mother country.
Prior to the French and Indian War the British were pretty hands-off the colonies; they ran their own affairs and liked it that way. But the British were quite displeased with the colonial support they received during the war and they decided, since they had to leave troops in the colonies permanently, naturally wanted a firmer hand. The British back home also were angry about having to shoulder the cost of the war, which benefitted the colonials who were exempt from the taxes to pay for it. So Brain moved from a policy of salutary neglect to one where they were more active and where the colonies would be taxed.
Pissed everyone off.
In the process the British made a number of foolish mistakes by not treating the colonials with the same deference they did British born citizens. They suspended some of their rights. They taxed them even though they had no representatives in Parliament. They stationed troops in private domiciles without permission. They cracked down on smugglers who tried to dodge the new taxes.
So America rebelled to restore what she had known before the war with the French.
Also, America had been settled by very religious people who left England so they could be left alone to worship as they pleased. The American revolution may not have been openly religious as the Continental Army was diverse as was Congress, but at the core of it there was a religious fever, as sense that they were the modern version of the Macchabees, or of King David. In many ways it was a REJECTION of the Liberalism that was sweeping Europe at the time.
THAT is why America did not descend into a reign of terror as did France after their revolution. We had a diverse nation which had been wise enough to let everyone run their own affairs. If you lived in Rhode Island you worried about Rhode Island while the folks down yonder in Old Virginnie took care of themselves. And you worshipped your way and let those folks worship in theirs. That was quite different from the French revolution which tried to stamp out religion entirely and forced everyone to follow the revolutionary standard or enjoy your head rolling in a basket - or a fun-filled vacation in the Bastille.
See, they were trying to remake Man. We were trying to restore him. They rejected God and we embraced HIm. World of difference.
This essay also speaks much about "free labor" and says the rise of the Bourgeois class made that possible. Fair enough, but I would argue in America it had little to do with a CLASS so much as with the fact there was so much cheap land to be had that every man could be a squire on his own estate if he were ambitious enough. Most Americans were business owners - farms, blacksmiths, dry goods, etc. Americans were ALL Bourgeois and the laborers were temporary; they all had ambitions of being business owners themselves as soon as they could raise the capital. That is why America needed immigrants then; too much work, too few hands. And it was why slavery was attractive for a time.
And it was the hunger for land that helped precipitate the Revolution. The British put the Ohio territory off-limits to settlement after the French and Indian war, largely to protect the Indians, many of whom had settled there to get away from the increasingly anglo east coast. But the colonists wanted that land because everyone who came here wanted land. There was considerable anger at the crown for not allowing the settlement of the Ohio territory.
This was quite different from the European version of the revolution, in which the more crowded Europeans had to acquire what they wanted by killing those who had it and taking it away. It was quite a bit different (even though Americans did kill Indians, it was often over land that was lying fallow for years, decades even but which the Indians claimed because they occasionally hunted there but never developed.)
At any rate this is an interesting essay. As I say I have some quibbles with it but it's worth reading.
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America Speaks English! Or it Should
Timothy Birdnow
Trump "In America we speak English!"
We need to make English our national language. Right now we don't have one.
I would point out American is the second largest Spanish speaking country on Earth, just behind Mexico. If our culture is to survive that has to change; it was built on Anglo culture and we will lose that if we are absorbed by Latin America.
I also want to see an end to this increasing use of the metric system in this country. More and more we hear "meters" or "klicks" or "kilos" on television and in public entertainment, and that is to get us used to metric so they can backdoor it in. In fact they've already backdoored it in and in many places (like the U.S. military) metric is the standard measurement system in place. In America we are supposed to say yards, miles, Fahrenheit, pounds, etc.
If Europe or the Canadians don't like it tough.
When you give us stuff like that, your language and your cultural things, you give up your country. That is the whole point; to make the world one and thus create the great New World Order with the U.N. as an ubergovenment and socialism as the world economic system. Break the old countries with immigration and standardize everything and then the Great Human Empire will form.
Nuts to that!
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Is Consciousness a Function of Brain Alone?
Timothy Birdnow
The problem with this is that the study's authors do not have a definition of consciousness and think it merely a biproduct of material order. This certainly flies in the face of Christian religious beliefs that consciousness is a thing tied to an immaterial soul.
We know from near death experiences (NDE's) that people experience out of body episodes where their consciousness has varying degrees of interactions with the world and with other places. That strongly suggests consciousness is NOT a biproduct of a vastly complex brain but rather that the vastly complex brain is a biproduct of a far more complex soul. By putting the cart before the horse these researchers are simply speculating wildly.
These researchers simply ignore NDE's and they do so out of fear they will lose their street creds as scientists. But NDE's are ubiquitous, universal, and cannot be ignored as phenomenon. If these researchers were truly honest brokers and wanted to take an honest look at consciousness they would take this into account. NDE's are absolutely about consciousness even if you do not believe they are evidence of life after death. Many NDE folks have heard and seen things that they should not have in their condition and placement in hospitals or whatnot.
The authors of this study appeal to a rather tired principle - the Copernican Principle. Once we realized the Earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around science became absolutely determined to show we had no special place whatsoever. Yes, physically we do not; our planet is a rather minor one in a vast universe, and we are out in the mid-latitude of our galaxy, a typical helical spire type. But that does not change some fundamental facts.
As far as we can tell there is no life in the solar system except here. There may be microbes elsewhere, or even floating critters in the gas giants, but nothing conscious. And we have the Fermi Paradox; there is no credible evidence of life around other stars, especially intelligent life. WE are actively trying to contact anyone out there with no luck. IF there were intelligent life out there we should pick up a radio transmission, or find a candy bar wrapper or Big Mac box somewhere on Earth that a careless visitor dropped. We have yet to find any such things.
And the Copernican Principle is crap anyway. Earth is quite unique.
First, nine out of every ten stars are red dwarfs, which are largely unsuited to life as we know it. They have very strong solar winds which strip atmospheres from terrestrial type planets. Those planets would have to be very close to such stars and so would be airless. And most are flare suns, meaning high levels of radiation would scour life from their surfaces. Maybe some life could live underground but it's doubtful you'd find intelligence there.
Second, the Earth's sun is very stable as stars go, being a .4 variable, meaning it very rarely misbehaves. That is very rare.
Third, from what we know about exoplanetary systems, most stars have "hot Jupiters" in close orbits. This gobbles up a lot of terrestrial matter and it also makes the host star flare a lot. And what ends up happening is "super Earth's form in the sweet spot where temperatures are right and Earth-sized planets tend to form too far out. They are iceball planets. Granted, it's possible life could form on a superEarth but it would be quite squat and low to the ground. It seems less likely life would flourish on such a world - and it seems likely the high gravity would mean a much denser atmosphere, a Venusian type atmosphere.
Then too the Earth has a full planet orbiting her. The Moon stabilizes the Earth;'s axial tilt. Without it our planet would suffer ferocious winds and any life would have to be in the seas or low to the ground. It is doubtful sea life would develop high technology; they ca't use fire in the depths. And it would be hard to make fire with hurricane winds blowing. Fire is the most fundamental tool humanity has and ever has had.
The moon also gives us tides which help mix the oceans. Without tides we likely would see huge algae blooms that would choke out much of the life. And it gives us light at night.
Except for the dwarf planets of Pluto and Charon the Earth's moon is wholly unique in our solar system and as far as we know in the galaxy in general.
Our position in the galaxy is unique too; we are far enough out to not be cooked by radiation but well protected by the galactic magnetic field.
So we are not a "garden variety" world as my old astronomy textbook claimed. We have many unique attributes that made life - and intelligence - possible.
And we've never found any evidence of aliens. It may be they communicate in a different way - say, using gravity waves. But we've watched for such things and have not found anything to suggest they are. Certainly they aren't broadcasting anything on the radio bands. There should be a top forty station on, say, Tau Ceti that we should pick up. We don't. They would pick up OUR broadcasts though.
Me, I suspect consciousness transcends our human bodies, which are a reflection of our consciousness as opposed to the creator of it, and I further think if there IS alien life out there it is either just simple organisms, mindless, or if they are intelligent they are, like us, the children of God, made in God's image as are we.
So, did Jesus visit them and offer them salvation too? Or are they in need of Christ?
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote Footfall and delved into this question. In the end the aliens were in need of Christ's salvation same as we, and their attempt to conquer us was God's providence to offer that salvation to them. They lost the war when they decided to replace God with themselves on the theory that we lacked someone to lead us and invented a fiction of such a leader. One of the aliens asked "are you sure this God of which they speak is a fiction?" and the other one said "He must be or He would not tolerate our attacking His people". In the end He did not.
The aliens were seen as a punishment on Mankind.
At any rate I am of the opinion that this study simply fails because it makes assumptions which are not provable and which are probably wrong. Not that alien intelligence is impossible, and especially not that life is impossible in other forms, but that consciousness is something defined by the brain or some other thinking structure. That is the real hubris of our modern era, and it is the true violation of the Copernican Principle.
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1976 vs. 2026: A Tale of Two Birthdays
By Selwyn Duke
A man may look back 50 years, at an old birthday picture, and lament lost innocence and youthful vigor. So can people look back a half century on their land and wistfully observe what was and is no more. In America’s case, on our 250th birthday, some may note that while we no longer call ourselves "these United States” but, rather, "this United States,” we’re now more divided than ever.
In fact, even patriotism itself now takes on the flavor of an ideological position, observers may say.
American Thinker (AT) made this point Friday, contrasting the United States’ bicentennial (1976) with her 250th birthday this year. The site writes that in
more...
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Trump is No Lincoln
Timothy Birdnow
Orson Scott Card is the author of the wildly popular Ender's Game S-F saga:
Orson Scott Card
@orsonscottcard
Our current Civil War:
I must point out that in 2016 a President was elected who was immediately rejected by a certain portion of the population and by state and local governments. They brought criminal legal action against Trump and impeached him before he'd even had a chance to do anything, and accused him of being a dictator and the death of democracy — though it was they who rejected a lawful election and threw the Constitution out the window. Sanctuary laws in defiance of federal authority are in every case the equivalent of besieging and firing on Ft. Sumter.
When Trump won reelection in 2024, the rebels doubled down on their secession from the Union by passing laws against federal officers enforcing federal law within their sanctuary purview, all the time claiming that Trump was oppressing THEM by taking completely proper actions. So by rejecting the results of the election, they are in open rebellion.
And if you say "Trump is no Lincoln” you'd be right. Trump has not arrested and charged with treason the deniers and rejectors of federal authority, including mayors and governors who threaten to prosecute federal officers for enforcing the law. Trump has been far more restrained than Lincoln ever was — though the defiance of the Constitution is no less egregious. Sanctuary laws are exactly the same as secession — a declaration that the federal government has no authority here. They have declared war against the President and openly abused him as has not been done to a President since Lincoln. But the President has not sent federal troops to arrest those publicly guilty of sedition and treason, and take over the defiant government bodies and throw them in jail. They claim to fear Trump's officers — while they are the ones who suppress free speech and try to adjust campaign laws so as to prevent the candidates they oppose from being on the ballot. California doesn't even pretend to be a democracy anymore … but Trump stays his hand.
So, true — he is no Lincoln. He has been infinitely lenient in dealing with people and governments that are in open rebellion against the federal government because the wrong guy made it into the White House.
7:29 PM · Jul 2, 2026
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Not So Temporary Protected Status After All
Timothy Birdnow
28 percent of Haitians in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status were homeowners.
Doesn't sound very temporary to me.
We should not allow foreign nationals to buy property. They should either have to be citizens or permanent residents to do so.
Mexico, after losing Texas to American settlers, made it illegal for foreigners to own property there. You can lease property for up to 99 years but it cannot be sold to anyone but a Mexican citizen. If it's good enough for Mexico it should be good enough for the U.S., which is being invaded by Mexico, and Central America, and Venezuela, and Haiti, and China, and everyone else on Earth.
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God Bless America
Timothy Birdnow
Tokyo, a city the United States firebombed into near oblivion during the Second World War and which we then rebuilt while completely dominating it, has put on a spectacular display to honor their victorious foes turned best friend on this, the 260th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and formal founding of our country.
Yes, the Japanese are more enthusiastic about the United States of America than are many if not most Democrats.
This contrasts sharply with Zohran Momdani, New York City mayor and Marxist/Islamist, who trashed America and American values on this milestone birthday of the country, a country he desperately wants to change into just another socialist hellhole.
For one thing the New Years ball was dropped in Times Square, the first time in history it has done so on a day other than New Years. THAT should have been a huge event. New York City was a major part of the Revolution with battles fought by Washington to hold then retake the city and as a result it should have been front-and-center in the celebrations. But Momdani signed an executive order that forbade any celebrations that would eclipse the World Cup, an internationalist (just what a Marxist would love) event, so the ball drop was limited to ticket holders who had to pay a lot of money to get in to watch it. Reporters on the scene last night said the crowd was very reserved an unenthusiastic - just what Momdani wanted. What should have been a huge celebration was a giant misfire by design.
To add insult to injury Menshevik Momdani sat at George Washington's desk to smear our country:
Mamdani said, while seated at George Washington’s presidential desk, with recently naturalized U.S. citizen immigrants surrounding him, "You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means.”
"The powerful have always known their answer,” he continued. "America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal.”
Uh, if only a select few are allowed freedom in America why were these immigrants who surrounded him present? Did these folks feel they had to MUCH freedom in their former lands and came her for more control and order?
The article continues:
"America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit,” he added.
We have allowed millions of immigrants in and since 1965 have emphasized non-whites. Few white people have immigrated from Europe since; most come from Latin America and Africa although we have plenty of Chinese coming in now and Momdani's own ancestors come from an Islamic country.
The ingrate continues:
Mamdani continued, "As we mark 250 years, what do we see? We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry, while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more.”
"We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands. Those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone, and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few,” the mayor added.
Children are not going to sleep hungry except where they have lousy parents who don't feed them. Food is available all over. And if it is not whose fault is that? If it is too expensive why is that? It's because of inflation, an inflation caused largely by Democrat policies which drove the prices up. Overspending led to the printing of more money which led to inflation. High energy prices make farming and transporting food more expensive. These were all the policies of people like Zohran Momdani, then he wants to blame the "rich" for it. Maybe he should start with, say, Bernie Sanders who is a millionaire but preaches socialism and pushes policies that drive prices up.
Every nation on Earth has soil-stained hands and factories and people chiseling into the Earth; the U.S. isn't unique. But in the U.S. that is not the inevitable fate of those who labor in that fashion - they can and often do transcend the manual labor and use their talents to better their position. Many CEO's of corporations started as exactly this. America is a nation where such jobs are just the floor and the ladder is wide and open. Other nations don't offer that, which is why people all want to come here. And where does Momdani think all this wealth has come from? Other countries have these sweat and soil soaked hands too but we have so much more. Now why does this pinhead think THAT is?
In America you can just do things without asking permission from some government bureaucrat. In most foreign nations if you want to work as your own boss you have to ask permission, get permits, and give the government their cut. In America you can grab a lawnmower, knock on a door and get cash for cutting a guy's lawn and that is that. Yeah; you are supposed to pay taxes on what you earn but of course everyone cheats a bit on that if they are paid cash. But you can make a living cutting lawns, or painting, or doing all sorts of labor without asking some damned government agency for permission.
In fact in most foreign countries there are underground economies (like in New York with the sale of "loosie" cigarettes) which operate outside of the law. Most Third World countries couldn't survive without the underground economy, and socialist countries ALL need them to survive. You buy contraband in places like Cuba - you don't buy stuff from the official markets. It's the only way you can get stuff. And you steal what you find unguarded so you can sell it on the black market for the stuff you need. In Cuba workers are paid with a government script that is worthless and workers say "if you are going to pretend to pay us we'll pretend to work" and so they do nothing most of the time on their jobs but then use those jobs to steal stuff - cement, garden plants, hoses, stationary, whatever - and sell that on the black market.
We don't really have a black market to speak of in the U.S. except for expensive stuff that is stolen and illicit drugs. It's a very small black market. We don't need one because people can provide for themselves.
Of course Momdani misses the whole point of America and American freedom. It's not about our wealth or our power or our natural resources; other places have the same natural resources. For instance, everyone thought Argentina would be the next U.S. back in the early 20th century and it never happened. Argentina has land that is every bit as blessed as America's. What Argentina had was a socialist government run by Juan Peron and his followers. They were fascists and their economic policies destroyed the Argentine economy.
What makes America great is not her wealth nor her power but the core beliefs that motivated this country, beliefs codified in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. It was the belief that we have inalienable rights granted to each and every person by God Himself, not privileges granted by government. All our rights, all the rights codified in the Constitution, flow from that and so do many other rights not specifically enumerated (and the Tenth Amendment says that is so) - such as the right to private enterprise. Ours is the only Constitution in the world that spells out a very limited scope for our government and says what that government may not do. Most constitutions around the world are packed with all sorts of things that the government has to do and assumes government is in charge of everyone's lives. America assumes you are in charge of your own life and that government is merely there to protect you from predatory people so you can exercise your rights in peace and security. Huge difference.
Of course, Momdani, being a socialist, thinks government is there to take care of people rather than protect them. He wants interventionism to make the world "fair" instead of making the world open for opportunity. You cannot create a fair world; in making things better for some you must hurt others.
Monty Python's Flying Circus had a sketch "Dennis Moore" which illustrated it perfectly. Moore was a Robin Hood type who wanted to make a faiar economic order. So he "steals from the rich and gives to the poor" as the show sang in a catchy tune. But in the end he stole so much from the rich they were reduced to sitting around in underwear with nothing while the poor were living in opulent hovels, rich tapestries on lthe walls, golden silverware, crystal goblets, and they were ungrateful that Moore could only bring them a couple of spoons. The sketch ends with the song "he steals from the poor and gives to the rich...stupid bitch" at which point Moore says "this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought". In the end he stops a stagecoach and makes the travelers take everything out of their pockets "you don't have one of these so you get this, and you don't have this so take that..."
You can't make a just economic and social order in a fallen world. The best you can do is free everyone up to pursue success and prosperity on their own terms. That is what America did. That is NOT what socialists like Momdani want to do, and it's why so many once prosperous nations because hellholes. Socialism is absolutely antithetical to America.
Momdani's problem is he lacks humility and he lacks humility because he does not believe in the Judeo-Christian God. I don't know if he believes in Allah or not, but Allah is not Yahweh and civil rights are not divinely ordained in Islam, but rather the public is simply under Sharia law and do not have rights but rather are subject to the power of the rulers ordained by Allah. It's a very, very different way of viewing the world.
So either way Momdani is anti-American in his core. Japan is more American than is he.
Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We've forgotten who we are, why our country is great, why everyone wants to come here. I was watching a man on the street thing on Fox (or was it Newsmax? Don't remember) where they were asking why America is great. Nobody got the answer right. Most said "capitalism" or "we care about our neighbors" or whatnot. That is all wrong. We are great because, as de Toqueville is alleged to have said, because we used to be good. At the center of America was a solid moral core steeped in our deep faith in God and Jesus Christ. That is why we had rights in the first place; we recognized them as coming from this God in whom we trusted. From those rights flowed every blessing which made America great. It had little to do with us except that we humbled ourselves and put ourselves under the Law of God. We sought God's face. We stopped doing that some time ago and while people in the interior still do to a degree certainly the coasts have become completely apostate. They are neither hot nor cold towards God - they are indifferent. In the Book of Revelation when Jesus is addressing the Church of Laodecia He says "I wish you were hot or cold, but since you are neither I will spew you from my mouth". That is what will happen to America if we continue down this path. The rise of socialists in the Democratic Party is the rise of our own undoing for our apostacy.
Momdani is a bad leader. God gives nations the leadership they deserve. Certainly New York city has come to be another spiritual Babylon. God has given it what it deserves. Babylon became a cautionary tale to the rest of the world. Hopefully New York will be a cautionary tale to the rest of the United States.
So to sum up, what makes America great? The Lord Almighty. God bless America!
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