Clear Alternative

It’s all very well to boycott foul companies like Anheuser-Busch and Target, but what are the alternatives available?  Reader JC_in_PA writes about one such organization:

“Kim,

“I heard the founder of this company on Mornings with Maria (Bartiromo) radio show, she’s a legit conservative in business broadcasting.  To counter the ESG nazis driving American companies to adopt insane Global Cooling Climate Warming Change postions, and kowtowing to the LBGTQRSTUVWXYZ fanatics, he created a business network for businesses called Public Square, to proclaim their opposition to this nonsense by proclaiming a set of principles that guide their business practices and connect them with like-minded consumers.  I’ll relay my experience with them shortly, but this is their statement of principles.

“Our Values

    • Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom.
    • We are united in our commitment to freedom and truth — that’s what makes us Americans.
    • We will always protect the family unit and celebrate the sanctity of every life.
    • We believe small businesses and the communities who support them are the backbone of our economy.
    • We believe in the greatness of this Nation and will always fight to defend it.
    • Our Constitution is non-negotiable — government isn’t the source of our rights, so it can’t take them away.
    • When a business signs up with PublicSq, they agree to respect the values above.

“I heard that interview a month or so ago and never checked out their website. But I needed new blue jeans and I’ll be damned if I’ll buy from Levi Strauss or Wrangler with their anti 2A stance. So I started emailing American jean manufacturers (there are a surprising number of them) with something like the following. ‘I need new jeans and while I don’t need you to make a positive statement of support for 2A, I need to know you have not made any public statements which are anti-2A, I just need to know you are at least neutral.’  Needless to say, crickets, all around.

“So I went to Public Square’s website and found L.C. King Manufacturing, a 115 year old American company making quality work wear at reasonable prices, and got a 25% discount from them for a Public Square promo code! The site is fairly new, but they have a number of clothing companies, housewares, skin care… all sorts of stuff, and the network is growing. I find it fascinating. Much as I love the travails Bud Light and Target are going through right now, I think this is better than boycotts. Spend our money with firms that actually RESPECT their customers. What a concept!

“Anyway, I don’t do this often, but I thought you might find this blog-worthy, and I’d sure like to get the word out about this group.”

And now you know.  I especially like the links just under the masthead:

That’s some good-looking stuff right there.

Give them a shot, and let’s do our bit for the America we want, as opposed to the fucking shit we’re having shoved in our face every day.

Plus Ça Change…

I’ve just finished re-reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower — which, if you haven’t read yet, I urge you to do so — and despite the fact that Tuchman was a tired old Lefty, she still was of an era where historians relied on facts, uncomfortable though they may be.  Unlike today’s crop of Newspeak toads, for whom the old adage “If the facts don’t conform with the theory, they must be eliminated” is carved into their stony little hearts.

Here’s one such fact, and it’s a quote of then-Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed (R-Maine), who said of the Progressives of his era:

It was true of Progressives back then, and it’s still more true of their philosophical descendants of today, whether politicians, Greens or the Gender Studies Brigade [some considerable overlap].

Seriously:  think of Guam “tipping over”, the “trillion-dollar coin”, “defunding the police”, “anthropomorphic climate change”, “ESG”, “patriarchal hegemony”, “DEI”, “Green New Deal” and all the other modernist, oh-so fashionable tropes and tell me that these “philosophies” (actually more like religions because they rely on belief rather than substance) are not doing today exactly what Reed ascribed to the mountebanks of his era.

Actually, today’s “progressive” tropes are even more antithetical to knowledge than before, because they insist on ignoring or worse, destroying the fundamentals of civilization’s accrued wisdom — because it’s obvious that it’s only without that wisdom that their policies can survive the first question or challenge.

Even worse, when the time comes to write the history of their many failures, the historians, being of the same tribe, will almost certainly lie and ascribe the causes thereof to “fascists”, “counterrevolutionaries” (an old Marxist standby), “revanchists”, “Trumpists” or whatever their fevered little imaginations can devise — anything other than admit to the inherent fallacies of their policies and the crashing, grinding failures and concomitant miseries caused thereby.

Even Tuchman would weep.


[stupidity erased because embarrassing]

Pushing And Shoving

It is worth noting that almost every instance of an ordinary citizen going crazy and killing government agents has come as a direct assault on his property rights.  In some cases it’s been linked to eminent domain seizures — e.g. that farmer in Missouri who gunned down two local government surveyors (and then shot himself immediately after)  over a “right of way” infringement on his land.  (I can’t find a link to the incident, but it happened at least ten years ago and I still remember the salient details.)  Here’s a more recent situation of Gummint getting too big for its britches (although as yet, there’s been no gunplay because Amish).

Anyway, all that’s unimportant to this post, because enter Fuckface Kerry:

John Kerry claimed that US farm confiscations are not off the table, as he stated that small farms contribute significant greenhouse gasses.

And no doubt he got his loony idea here:

Recently, the governing body of the European Union officially endorsed measures to compel farmers to vacate their lands as part of the EU’s Natura 2000 scheme, which categorizes farms as significant emitters of nitrogen. Under the plan, farmers would be offered 120 percent of their farm’s value through a “buyout” program. However, those who decline this offer would face the risk of being forcibly removed from their land without any financial compensation.

Farmers in Holland are undergoing the most radical regulations that are causing the culling of herds and destroying crops.

Because the Dutch farmers are unarmed, of course they have to resort to peaceful protests by blocking highways with their tractors.

Our American farmers (and their many supporters) are not similarly disadvantaged, and I think that anything that Fuckface starts is going to make the Cliven Bundy episode look like a Sunday church picnic.

Pass the popcorn, Simon.

Predictable Commie Response

As many people know, Chile is one of my favorite countries on Earth;  so when I saw that the Commies had been routed in the last elections there, I did a little Happy Dance:

Chile’s most prominent right-wing party has romped an election on Sunday night aimed at selecting members for the constitutional assembly responsible for drafting the country’s new constitution.

The assembly was tasked with creating a new constitution to replace the one that was implemented during the military rule of General Augusto Pinochet which many credited for making Chile the most prosperous country in the region.

Needless to say, the Commies wanted to get rid of this horrible thing because Commies:

A draft by a predominantly left-wing assembly was overwhelmingly rejected in a national referendum. The draft had proposed numerous changes, including replacing the Senate with a Chamber of Regions and recognizing Chile as a “plurinational state,” granting indigenous groups additional rights and guarantees.

It also guaranteed several social benefits and environmental standards, making it one of the most progressive constitutions worldwide.

But unfortunately for them:

The proposal was turned down by 62 percent of voters in September 2022, prompting the latest election.

The Republican Party, led by conservative firebrand José Antonio Kast, emerged victorious with 22 seats after winning over 35 percent of the votes.

Here’s what happens next:

The assembly will now face the challenging task of reconciling the conservative majority’s ideas with the demand for change that sparked the process. Starting from June, the newly appointed constitutional councilors will have a four-month window to deliberate, converse, and implement alterations to a new constitution.

A final decision from the voters on the redraft will be made via another vote in December. If Chileans reject the updated constitution, the country will retain its previous Pinochet-era constitution.

Looks good for our side, huh?  A decisive (conservative) majority is about to set about making changes to the national constitution, if needed.

Well, the Left aren’t going to let a little thing like a popular majority interfere with their plans, of course.  So in typical fashion, they’ve responded the way they always do in such situations:

Unidentified hooded men attacked the home of conservative Republican Party lawmaker Héctor Urban on Tuesday evening. Urban was recently elected to help draft a new constitution for Chile.

The attack at Urban’s residence took place hours after a group of unidentified men set a vehicle on fire that belonged to the local Victoria Municipality and opened fire on the government official that drove the vehicle, seriously injuring one of his legs. Urban’s father, René Urban, a farmer who was presently working at the scene of the fire, also had his truck shot at but suffered no injuries.

Unknown assailants also attacked a police station in the town after the attack on Urban’s residence on Tuesday evening. Two members of Chile’s Carabineros law enforcement gendarmerie were reportedly injured with pellets. 

Yeah, “unidentified gunmen” — probably some of those White Christian supremacist groups that we’re always hearing about.

These scumbags are the brothers-in-arms of those Leftist bastards who violently demonstrated outside the homes of our conservative Supreme Court justices and made death threats against them around the time of the Dobbs (anti-Roe v. Wade) decision.

Cuius Emptat?

As the border crisis goes from crisis to catastrophe, I was struck by a pic that Breitbart News  used to headline this article:

Simple question:  Who paid for all those t-shirts?

I really, really think we should be told — and not just the name of the organization itself, but also where it gets its funding.

Of course, that would require some actual, you know, journalism.  So don’t hold your breath.