Merry Christmas!

 A very merry Christmas to you all!

Well, maybe not to the heathen communists.  They don't celebrate Christmas, anyways.

Past, Present, Future

O’Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child.

‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’

‘”Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,”‘ repeated Winston obediently.

‘”Who controls the present controls the past,”‘ said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’ 

----------

O'Brien smiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt". Our command is "Thou art". No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean. Even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once believed -- Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford -- in the end we broke them down. I took part in their interrogation myself. I saw them gradually worn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping -- and in the end it was not with pain or fear, only with penitence. By the time we had finished with them they were only the shells of men. There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean.'

 - 1984, George Orwell

The Supreme Court Punted

 Friday, December 11th, a day which will live in infamy.

The GOP can go to Hell

We have abandoned hill after hill on the cultural battleground to maintain civility.  Now we stand upon the final dunes, our backs to the sea.  Shall we choose to walk into the sea and end this great nation, merely because our enemies demand that we do so else they call us rude names, or shall we stand and fight for what is rightfully ours?

I swore an oath.  "This we'll defend" is not merely an empty slogan, but a promise.

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

If the enemy blatantly stealing a Presidential election and gloating about what they'll do to us all when they gain power isn't worth fighting for, then nothing ever will be.

Now is the time to prepare your mind and your soul.  Now is the time to bond with your neighbors.  We will not survive the storm by each defending his own home from the waves.  As Ben Franklin said, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

Do I desire the coming storm?  No.  Do I instigate the storm?  No.  As Patrick Henry stated, "The war is already upon us!"  I am not a great orator as he was.  I am not a great leader of men.  I am certainly no politician.  I am merely a patriot, and a man of honor.  That apparently makes me the enemy of both major political parties here in the USA - the evil party and the appeasement party.

I swore an oath.  What I must do to fulfill that oath remains to be seen.  But I will do my duty.  My life, my fortune, my sacred honor.  Here I stand.  I can do no other.  Duty demands it.

The Riddle of Steel

 You must ponder the Riddle of Steel.

You must understand the Riddle of Steel.

You must come to know the Riddle of Steel, as your ancestors did.

You must hold the Riddle of Steel in your heart.