A Moment to Decide

by

Once to ev’ry man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision,
Off’ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
‘Twixt that darkness and that light.

– James Russell Lowell

So the first shots in the shooting war have been fired, to the surprise of practically no one who has been following civic matters over the last six months. Admittedly, that the first would be fired in Kenosha, of all places – that’s a bit of a surprise. Although it isn’t at all startling that a Trump supporter would be gunned down on the streets of Portland by an Antifa thug shortly thereafter, to resounding cheers of approval. The hateful rhetoric and the violence against property has been ratcheting up and up, as has the violence against persons. At this juncture, bullets are merely a short step. For at least two people – Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha and Michael Reinoehl in Portland, the choice to pull a trigger has been made, and made irrevocably, whether for good reasons or bad. (It is somewhat ironic, to read of this linked story, of progressive activists sniveling about the presence of “self-appointed” vigilantes being tolerated by local police, harshing the mellow of all those justifiably indignant progressive protesters, whose street protests have, unfortunately and most mysteriously, turned into orgies of arson and looting.)

Other people have also made choices before this week, choices which they may now deeply regret, although since they are politicians, in the news media, or some form of mass entertainment, they probably would prefer to have their fingernails and toenails pulled out with pliers rather than admit it. Progressive mayors and governors have made a choice to permit and excuse increasingly violent protests, allowing them to turn into riots. Finding such urban conditions intolerable after months of lockdowns, business owners and residents make the purely rational decision to leave, taking their businesses and the taxes they otherwise would have paid with them. Having decided in haste to permit Antifa and BLM free rein, progressive leftist mayors and city councils now are free to repent at leisure in the long years to come. Will New York, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis all go the way of Baltimore and Detroit, with whole neighborhoods abandoned and reverting into prairie and woodlands again?

The national news establishment have also made the choice of being partisan when it comes to reporting so-called “news” – partisan along progressive and Democrat party lines. I believe they made this choice so long ago that anyone in the business who has been in it since the Reagan administration must think that is the way it has always been, forever and ever, amen. Those leaders, managers and players in professional sports have also made a choice. I don’t think they have begun repenting of it just yet, but the falling ratings for live broadcast games within the United States must be taking a toll. Go woke and go broke, indeed.

There’s a matter of small choices as well as the one big choice that we voters will have on November 3rd. Does one stay silent in the face of lunacies like the myth of “systemic racism”, in the face of outright propaganda like the 1619 Project, or of in-your-face demands to take the knee or raise a fist – either actual or metaphorical? Dare one say that ‘all lives matter’ when social ostracism, unemployment or violent harassment may result from such a statement of belief?

Comes the moment to decide – and it will come, sooner or later. Likely sooner than November 3rd.

32 thoughts on “A Moment to Decide”

  1. We are seeing two responses on the “peace and quiet” side. One is to leave and that is happening in New York City and San Francisco. One reason is that many of these people are renters and can leave, many are already working from home.

    The other reaction is from owners. In Kenosha, BLM/Antifa types started to invade a residential neighborhood. The residents fired warning shots and the rioters dispersed, hurried to their cars and left. Some vigilantes are appearing to defend businesses and this led to the Kenosha confrontation in which career criminals, posing as social justice warriors, got shot and/or killed. The 17 year old in Kenosha will probably pay a heavy price, even if he is acquitted. We’ll see if this discourages the owners. Insurance is going away very rapidly.

    I think the Democrats have chosen the wrong side and have probably lost the election. What will happen November 4? I’m hoping a number of DOJ indictments and RICO cases filed against the foundations funding this domestic terrorism. At the very least they should lose 501c3 tax status. Might even balance the budget with the assets of the Ford Foundation and the Tides Foundation and a few others.

  2. I’m hoping that there’s some action on the domestic terrorism front before the election, or there’s going to be attacks on polling stations.
    The Dems have been pushing by-mail so hard that the in-person is going to be mostly “the enemy,” and it’s not like they CARE about innocents or even those they’re supposedly fighting for.

  3. And Biden is issuing threats – you don’t think this will stop if Trump’s elected? – of the most vile kind. Talk about not knowing the values of this country.

    I’ve been struck by people who tell me they hate the divisive life in America post 2016 – I look in amazement. They don’t remember what they said about Palin or the play about killing Bush or Holder discussing his role in meting out justice for “his people”. No, we were divided long ago and there was little that anyone on the left did to lessen it. Have we forgotten the empty seats at the inauguration, the petitions of the swamp to entangle and defeat any Trump initiative (and a good many of Bush’s).

    No, we felt dissed. And we felt dissed when our champions were dissed. Trump is the first that understood that. Bush was from another tradition, he thought that somehow if he was nice, they would be. I think he also didn’t understand how much the world had changed and really how dangerous the other side was becoming. I think the first major award at the Bush Center here, was one his father gave to Ted Kennedy – the man who negotiated behind the Reagan/Bush administration with the Russian leaders, much as Kerry has done his whole life and now does with Iran. No, for these people the campaign/competition certainly didn’t end at the shores to our country. There were, indeed, no limits to their divisiveness.

  4. All of this.
    It will get interesting (for certain definitions of interesting) after November 3. No matter who wins.
    I think Texas will stay pretty sane, even if Austin goes nuts (and sections of Houston as well), and I have my doubts about our mayor in San Antonio, he whom the Daughter Unit terms “that tw*t and his flying monkey of a judge.”
    Sigh. We just had a local kerfuffle – employee of a local Popeyes’ got caught, spitting into the takeout meal for a uniformed SAPD officer. Our neighbor’s grandson works at that very same Popeyes’ – which has had troubles enough, they didn’t need that variety of krep as well. Wish that I could find a better job for the grandson – he’s a great kid, and his parents and grandma are lovely people and fantastic neighbors.

  5. I’ve been struck by people who tell me they hate the divisive life in America post 2016 – I look in amazement.

    Ditto.

    Or they tell me, it’s all because of social media.

    … no, really no. Not except in the way that I caused fights, as a kid, by not letting the bullies do whatever they wanted to me. People aren’t behaving that differently, they’re just having more frequent “encounters” where someone resists.
    And yelling louder, making a scene, has worn off. It sure seems like folks are hitting the “he’s a toddler, treat him like it’s a fit” level.

  6. Yeah, I’m a coward, and I’m not going to do the equivalent of saying ‘all lives matter’. I have some opportunities to talk about this stuff in RL, and am not taking them.

    Lots of stuff pissing me off from sources I don’t have a good way to avoid.

    Don’t get me started on fancy document I received that spent far too much time talking about social media.

    Bush was GOPe, and a traitor to conservative voters. Laura can take her WWII comparisons and ride a nuke down to Mexico City, like Slim Pickens.

  7. “What will happen November 4?”

    Neither side considers the other to be legitimate. The Democrats and their street army do not believe in the Constitution. If Trump is re-elected, the Left will consider it justification for civil war. If Biden [insert substitute as needed] is elected, they will very, very soon commit acts that will convince Conservatives that civil war is both necessary and justified as the only alternative to tyranny.

    If the electoral winner is not known on November 4, it will be the day that the Смутное время will be said to have begun. How long it lasts, and the end result is in the hands of the Great Blue Sky Tengri Nor.

    Subotai Bahadur

  9. The thought came to me the other day of how similar this is to 1972

    I never will forget a political cartoon-was it Oliphant?

    But Nixon, running for reelection, is sitting in the car while rioters are throwing things at him. And he is sitting there counting up the votes.

    Just as with Trump many people had a personal dislike of Nixon but he still won and very convincingly

    And then the other thing that shocked me the other day was reading how so many tenants are leaving Manhattan The big shocker was Victoria’s Secret who’s left along with the $970,000 a month they paid in rent

    I can’t fathom that-I’m almost $1 million a month just in rent for a retail establishment

    It’s a lot of lingerie

  11. There is only one race, the human race. Noone lacks the ability to learn. However, some self program themselves into ignorance. Blacks self program themselves into ignorance. So do liberals. Look at the liberal denial of reality. Trump hates gays. Trump hate Jews. Trump hates Israel. Obama was a great President.
    Stories are legion of blacks who were smart and were forced to choose to be ignorant mofo’s in order be authentically black and avoid being beaten up. Blacks do not lack the ability. The choose to be ignorant mofo’s in order to be authentically black. For those who object to the term mofo’s; you must not have talked to many blacks. It is a wonder their mothers can walk.
    Why don’t black athletes go to black schools and honor the black students who are clearly intellectually superior rather then celebrating the wife beaters, the thugs and the morons? Because wife beaters, thugs and morons are, by definition, authentically black. Why don’t black athletes speak against rap music? Why don’t black athletes pool their money to help their people? Why don’t black athletes work to eliminate slavery in Africa? Why don’t they raise a finger to help themselves? They are not stupid, lacking in ability. They choose to program themselves to be ignorant mofo’s.

  12. When I was dismissing the chances of extreme violence after the election I wasn’t factoring in the effects of the fact that leftists are now permitted to brazenly murder anyone they don’t like, even (especially?) on video. But don’t you dare hit a freak standing on a freeway in the middle of the night, or defend yourself from those attacking you with guns and skateboards during a riot, or even stand armed guard over your own house as aggressive trespassers verbally assault you. Do any of that, and you’ll be immediately arrested.

    That being said, I really don’t see how Slow Joe can win at the moment. Look at Althouse’s blog. She sounds like Charles Bronson, which is an amazing achievement by the Dems.

  13. Mark- A lot of black celebrities do honor those kids who are doing well.

    It seldom gets much coverage in the media. Kind of like Justice Thomas existing doesn’t get much notice.

    You know, the same group that tried to fire an Asian guy for not censoring a black guy demanding to know where these rioting activists were when they weren’t destroying his home, who vanish the victims when a criminal is shot by the police,

    They only report what they expect to hear, given an option– so Mr. Dorn’s vanishes without a ripple, and a guy violating the restraining order to threaten his rape victim with a knife is raised to sainthood.

    Not because the latter is more common than the former– an awful lot of good men are killed doing the right thing– but because these sensation-mongers crave the latter.

  14. Brian –
    only in those places where they have enablers in office.

    Portland, Seattle… dear Lord, I can assure you, that is NOT anything like normal. Stuff that people started complaining about at the end of Bush’s term was normal when my family moved up to Washington, in the middle of Clinton’s. You know, basic stuff like “if you have a vaguely right-associated bumper sticker, it will most likely be keyed.”
    I recently shocked a guy in Des Moines by explaining that no, it is really not completely unheard of for stores to have far-left signs in their windows in most places. (he was having vapors about that place in New York City where the guy had a Trump flag and was abused for it) The Seattle-ites saw nothing odd about having campaign posters for either the mainstream Dem or the craziest far left they could find, and keeping the signs up if they lost.

    I didn’t realize this wasn’t a normal city/rural divide, so it’s likely these morons don’t, either. Which is supported by those Riot Kitchen morons being horrified their strike team got arrested. (Kenosha police, with “assistance” from the Marshals “and various agencies.” Talk about an F U to the enablers.)

    Or look at Des Moines. I think the mayor would really like to be an enabler, but the targets keep not cooperating– and the local groups they depend on to give them cover are more likely to call the police the second a moron pulls out a bottle of accelerant. (Our protests actually stayed mostly “police reform,” and when people were arrested for violence, they stayed arrested.) So there are some broken windows down town near the Federal building, but the damage from that wind storm is much more on point.
    Mildly funny, back when folks were noticing the piles of bricks there was a big deal made about how people were calling them in, and the police were contacting the folks involved. Radio guy was characterizing them as all in construction areas…but so were the other ones. “Amazingly,” these didn’t end up used on buildings. After the police contacted the folks who owned them. *snickers*

  15. Foxfier–Oh, so it’s only a few cities where leftists are allowed to murder with impunity? Well, it’s all good then, nothing to worry about.

  16. Mark- A lot of black celebrities do honor those kids who are doing well.

    Thanks for your courtesy; I am sorry but you and I disagree. For a leftist , the purpose of holding political office is to impose their ideology, their agenda. For those on the right, the purpose is to carry out the duties of their office. I am sure you will assert that there is some liberal somewhere who is actually concerned to carry out the duties of the office. Guess I just don’t see it.

  17. Brian-

    Most reasonable people would consider there to be an important difference between “there are a few cities where leadership is obviously breaking the law– and oh, yes, they’re being investigated” vs “Oh woe is us, all is lost, they enemy can do anything they want without consequence!”

    That difference cannot be summed up as “there is nothing wrong.”

    It isn’t going to be a quick fix, because it wasn’t a quick problem.

    ******

    Mark-
    I do not see where your statement about bad behavior by what I’d call progressives (if I’m being polite) has to do with the objective actions of celebrities.
    You are correct about the rough pattern of behavior for politicians, and heavens knows that they hand megaphones to the idiots, but there ARE folks talking, and walking, the good route.
    It only got a ripple in the news, but stuff like starting a school when the attempts to improve local schools got…um…evaporated, we’ll say.
    https://www.lebronjamesfamilyfoundation.org/i-promise-school/

    (I think a lot of the actual foundations are… um… not doing a very effective job, but the guys who go in and talk about working hard and staying in school, don’t make the mistakes I did, are trying.)

  18. Not being arrested immediately isn’t the same as won’t be charged and arrested. For what could be premeditated murder with special circumstances, It’s damned unusual for the cops to leave someone loose. The antifa hero doesn’t seem to be so tightly connected to the community that I’d want to bet he’ll stick around for some sort of investigation. The contrast with Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha is rather stark.

    As far as I see, the Rittenhouse case is pretty normal for a possibly serious charge and an out of state subject as far as the arrest. The charges are another matter.

    I think that the various activists haven’t thought through escalating this to an armed conflict. It doesn’t take a very exceptional rifle or a very exceptional marksman to put eight out of ten rounds through a fist sized target at a quarter mile. A crowd of these guys milling around is a lot bigger than that. There are a lot of deer hunters in Wisconsin.

    The idea of Althouse with a CCW should strike terror in every Democratic office holder in the country. It’s the strongest evidence yet that they’re on the wrong side of a preference cascade. Not that attackers of women shouldn’t take note as well and maybe develop some other line of work.

  19. Ginny:
    I’ve been struck by people who tell me they hate the divisive life in America post 2016 – I look in amazement.

    Like Ginny says, the difference is that Trump is a Pub who has broken the mold. Unlike Bush or Romney, Trump pushes back against the Lib/Prog/Demo insults and slander. Trump was not my first choice, but as I observed that instead of supinely accepting the insults and slander from the Libs/Progs/Demos, he pushed back. As Trump had proven himself to be the enemy of my enemies- the Libs/Progs/Demos (I am a former LPD) – I concluded that I would support him.

    While LPD rhetoric against Bush could convince some Bush supporters to stop their support of Bush, for the most part that hasn’t happened after the 2016 election. In my opinion, LPD rhetoric against Trump has been much stronger than against Bush, but that rhetoric has had minimal effect in 2016 Trump voters. That is most likely because Trump’s pushing back against the LPD convinced the 2016 voters that he was on their side.

    Yes, thing are more divisive since 2016, but the main difference is that fewer Pubs are supinely accepting the LPD rhetoric. I also suspect that a leading reason for the LPD to ramp up their rhetoric after 2016 was in response to Trump’s pushing back against their rhetoric.

  21. Yes – Trump broke the mold. And I am one who thought initially that his candidacy was a joke in very poor taste … but the thing that won me, almost above all – was that he fought back. He didn’t just take the hits, like some sort of whimpering designated pinata. HE HIT BACK! After watching GWB be savaged, again and again and again (and the same with McShame) it was positively refreshing.
    We can’t spare this man, I posted, a good few years ago – he fights.

  22. On a twitter comment I read that Biden doesn’t deserve “this” in connection with the public display of his ever diminishing coherence. My thought was that: Yes he probably does deserve it but that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable to look at than a public execution. A sort of sick fascination with a rather disagreeable sensation in the bowels.

    Hard to see how you build a winning national political campaign on that.

  23. When I first began to take Trump seriously.

    …Mark Levin excoriated Trump in this clip from 2011, but now doesn’t sing the same tune although the facts he sets out here have not changed in the least (it’s the topmost clip on the page, the one that’s 12:01 minutes long; I can’t figure out a way to embed it).

    You can hear lots of fascinating stuff there. Trump likes Nancy Pelosi (5:14). He wanted her to impeach George W. Bush (5:25), because he says Bush lied about WMDs. At 6:27 he speculates that it would be hard to even imagine a worse president than Bush. At 7:26 you hear Trump saying President Bush is evil. He then contrasts Obama (who at the time he was speaking had been elected but not inaugurated), saying that Obama has:

    “…a chance to go down as a great president…I think he’s going to lead through consensus. It’s not just going to be just a bull run like Bush did—he just did whatever the hell he wanted—go into a country and attack Iraq, which had nothing to do with the World Trade Center, and just do it because he wanted to do it.”

    I didn’t quite know what to think about him then.

    By December, I was getting more interested in him.

    I am not a Trump supporter but I am intrigued at the steady progress he is making toward success. I have been a fan of Angelo Codevilla’s characterization of America’s Ruling Class.

    The recent collapse of Republican Congressional resistance to the left’s political agenda as noted in the surrender of Paul Ryan to the Democrats in the budget, has aggravated the Republican base and its frustration.

    And here we are.

  24. “Oh woe is us, all is lost, they enemy can do anything they want without consequence!”
    What the hell are you talking about? No one said anything like that.

  25. What Sgt Mom said ^^^

    He is really the first high ranking Republican we’ve had that will fight back and attack.

    During the CA primary I was going to vote for Kasich instead of Trump – then he dropped out and I voted for Trump.

    Sure glad I didn’t vote for Kasich. Glad I voted for Trump.

  26. Brian –
    I’d ask what on earth you think ‘impunity’ and ‘leftists are now permitted to brazenly murder anyone they don’t like’, but judging by your reactions thus far it would not be very productive.

    ********

    Bill-
    Glad I voted for Trump.

    Ditto.

    He was a definite “I know the other option is worse” choice, but I am very, very glad with how he turned out.

  27. foxy–I’d ask where you think “woe is us” is implied anywhere above, but judging by your reactions thus far–who are you again?, I don’t even recognize you lol–it would not be very productive.

  28. It may just be me, but I don’t think that Trump counts as a Republican.

    It is abundantly apparent that the Republican elite don’t consider him one of “them”, just like they don’t think “the rest of us” are, either. The people running this country right now are neither Democrat or Republican; they are Uniparty grifters, shills, and con artists. The fact that Trump is not one of them is why they’re so eager to destroy him, so pissed-off at “the rest of us” for electing him, and why they’re so damn scared of him and Flynn. What you’re going to find, when and if the truth ever comes out, is that the grifters have been taking foreign aid kickbacks since forever, and that there are reasons why ever member of Congress retires enriched well past the most fortunate possible outcome for any legitimate investment portfolio possible.

    It’s only just recently dawned on me why the hell we’re still in Afghanistan–The Pakistanis have to be greasing the palms of our Congress beyond all imagination. That’s why the IT scandal with the Pakistani IT people never took off–Too much to hide, too much to come out if that was ever investigated. My guess is that we’ve been paying the Pakis to pay our politicians to keep the gravy train going, and that we’ve been essentially subsidizing the Pakis to pay the Taliban to kill our own troops.

    Ukraine was only the tippy-tip of the iceberg, and if they ever audit Congress, a lot of these assholes, Democrat and Republican, are going to go down. Won’t happen, of course, but we can dream, can’t we?

  29. It’s only just recently dawned on me why the hell we’re still in Afghanistan–The Pakistanis have to be greasing the palms of our Congress beyond all imagination. That’s why the IT scandal with the Pakistani IT people never took off–Too much to hide, too much to come out if that was ever investigated. My guess is that we’ve been paying the Pakis to pay our politicians to keep the gravy train going, and that we’ve been essentially subsidizing the Pakis to pay the Taliban to kill our own troops.

    Interesting theory, which also helps explain the terrible rules of engagement US forces are forced to operate under.

  30. @Xennady,

    I’ve about concluded that it’s the only explanation that fits the open-source facts. Speaking from a purely military standpoint, it’s very obvious that the only thing that keeps the Taliban going is the safe refuge and financing that Pakistan provides them. This is a known fact, and yet we’re still paying the Pakis billions of dollars a year, when they’re Chinese stooges to boot.

    Either our military and diplomatic senior cadre are incredibly stupid, or someone is on the take, wanting the conflict to keep going on so long as they get their share. I mean, for the love of God, bin Laden was in Abbottabad, which is about like finding him hiding next door to West Point…

    And, we still pay the Pakistanis. The whole thing is a sham; you want to put an end to the Taliban? Kill their paymasters in the ISI. Frankly, the minute we confirmed the fact that bin Laden was in Pakistan, we should have immediately declared war on them, and destroyed every ISI facility in the country with an Arc Light visit–Just to make the point with the rest of the world that you don’t get to make war on the US through proxies and then survive.

  31. remember there was an isi chief, general shah I believe who had funnelled money to the highjackers and was meeting with high profile members of the intelligence committees, including future director goss at the time, there was a previous isi director general hamid gul who was the patron of the taliban, and much like the recently discovered russian and chinese moles in respective agencies, maj peter debbins and yuk chang, his company counterpart was blithely unaware,

    My novella jambiya focuses largely on a similar proxy war situation in yemen and the kingdom, that binds the protagonists and his rivals, over several generations,

  32. it’s very obvious that the only thing that keeps the Taliban going is the safe refuge and financing that Pakistan provides them. This is a known fact, and yet we’re still paying the Pakis billions of dollars a year, when they’re Chinese stooges to boot.

    Yup, and the Military Industrial Complex starts talking about a coup every time Trump tries to cut the troops in Afghanistan.

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