Flag Day

A century ago today, the bête noire and the Persona Non Grata of this weblog gave a Flag Day address.

On What Side of History?

Over at Taki's Magazine, Jim Goad reflects on the sides of history. He starts off:

As the leftist juggernaut blithely steamrollers its way over what’s left of this country, its blinkered acolytes have smugly convinced themselves that they are on “the right side of history” and that any dissenters are troglodytic throwbacks to a less moral and less enlightened era. They freely smear, degrade, disgrace, tut-tut, pooh-pooh, pee-pee, and skeet-skeet anyone who questions whether their shallow tokens of “cultural progress” might be nothing more than cynical window dressing that obscures an increasingly “empowered” governmental behemoth.

He continues:

Despite the historical record, a peskily persistent fallacy is argumentum ad populum, the idea that the majority is right. The mob, no matter where it’s headed, whom it’s beheading, or what it’s burning down, has always deemed itself to be on the right side of history.

Further down:

Tell someone who’s just been diagnosed with cancer that all change is good.

The next time you wish to conflate “new” with “good,” consider that the proliferation of AIDS among humans is relatively new.

Is it wrong to try and “turn back the clock” on a ticking time bomb?

Mr. Goad concludes:

History seems headed in the wrong direction, so I’m happy to be on the wrong side of it.

Ray Stevens Inquires the POTUS

The Flag Day Address

Four score and a long dozen years ago today, the Persona Non Grata of this blog gave a Flag Day address.

Change

Lots of people complain about Obama not representing change.

However, if you don't specifiy what you want to change and how you want to do it, chances are you can deliver on your promise of change. Most things change is some way or another.

If you change the rate of growth of government, that is change.

If you introduce online hearings on bills or other measure on the Presidential table, even if the right advice is not heeded, that is change. Some may argue that it is just a change on the surface, but it still is change.

We could go on for quite a while. Change there will be.

Obama Equals Bush on Steroids?

Glen Beck interviews Dr. Ron Paul, suggesting that Obama is a Bush on steroids:



The good Congressman comments parts of the Inaugural Address:



Professor Emeritus Dom Armentano debunks Obama's “stimulus” plan.

Dr. Michael S. Rozeff tackles “Obamanomics” and gives some fearful predictions.

An LRC reader is tired of the “historic inauguration.” And he is not alone in thinking that skin color is not important:



The Western Confucian has more here, here, and here.

The Southern Avenger at Taki's Magazine has change we really can believe in:

The Empire Strikes Back!

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is President of those United States. He is the 44^th POTUS and the 17^th POTUS of the Wilsonian age.

The President was born to a subject of Her Britannic Majesty and the British Empire. Who was the last President whose father was a British subject at the time that President was born? Is the empire striking back?

Dr. Sean Gabb has made some comments in that respect here and here.

Some may wonder what I think of someone from the Land of Endless Sunshine, which once was my home, becoming President of those United States. Frankly, I couldn't care less, apart from my feeling sorry for those who are proud. I do know that there are a lot of people who have been celebrating this half African's elective victory as a victory over racial considerations. These celebrations only go to show that race does matter, and they hence disprove their claim.

If this Presidency is a victory for all black struggle in those United States, I was not aware that East Africa was a source of slaves to North America.

I will not engage in the speculation that the POTUS was not born in Honolulu. No one has ever claimed he was born in Alaska or the contiguous United States. I consider him born in the Kingdom of Hawai'i. If that makes him eligible for the office he has now taken, so be it. Some don't believe so.

The Rod Blagojevich Case arose after Obama's resignation as United States Senator. Buying votes for other peoples money is OK. So is giving favors for campaign contributions. But some corruption is apparently not OK.

The new POTUS is going to solve all problems for America and the world, which one example demonstrates:



The POTUS has an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan:



Or is it this one?

Peter Schiff tells us this is pouring gasoline on the fire:



There are also reportedly plans for a government-run bank.

We have a POTUS with semi-divine status, he almost perfectly manifests “we are the government,” and he can claim a popular mandate with which he can do much harm.

We have here apparently had an “advanced” public speaking contest as a way of selecting the head of state. It is not far from obvious that this not a very good way of choosing a head of state. All the warnings from the ages about demagoguery seems to have come true. If you believe you have any influence in a modern mass democracy, go and pour a bucket of water in Lake Victoria and watch the water rise. Look out for the hippos and crocodiles though.

As Peter Schiff has told us, Obama has bad medicine and unfortunately is a good orator, so he will convince many people that the bad medicine is good medicine. People are going to be afraid of opposing his plans.

Via Arimathea (and American Monarchist):



Peter Hichens had some thoughts after the election.

Irish Tory had some thoughts too. So did the Joy of Curmudgeonry.

Over at the Philadelphia Inquirer, former United States Senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Rick John Santorum has some thoughts on McBama.

The Paleo Blog gave some thoughts on the election and Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.

At Scotland on Sunday, Gerald Warner has some thoughts.

The Western Confucian takes a look at the outgoing POTUS, whilst also lamenting the end of the Old Republic.

The Southern Avenger at Taki's Magazine also has a look at the outgoing POTUS:

Demagoguery Works

At LRC, Charley Reese says that demagoguery works.

Obama and the Masses

The expected 16 ^thsuccessor to the Persona Non Grata of this weblog has been on the grounds of the world that said Persona Non Grata effectively pushed into complete destruction, as mentioned previously here and elsewhere.

Søren Kern of the Brussels Journal has more. So does Gerard Baker of the Times.

"Princess Obama"

Ms. Melanie Philips debunks the upcoming Orator-in-Chief.


H/T: Sunlit Uplands

Blog Action Day

Today is Blog Action Day.

This year's topic is the environment.

I'll just remind you that the environment is in fact being used to empower the nouveau régime.



In light of the awarding of a certain prize to a certain demagogue last Friday, we should now move to have the prize renamed the Nobel Prize for Outstanding Demagoguery and Propaganda.

This year's prize should, however, not come as a surprise. The prize was awarded in 1920 for 1919 to the bête noire of this weblog, and he was not exactly innocent in the atrocities of the 20^th century. It did not stop there.

Awareness of environmental and climate change issues is supposedly a way of avoiding future conflict. So if conflict possibly may arise out of situations that possibly may occur in the future, one awards a peace prize to someone who uses alarmism and propaganda to create “awareness” about a possible situation in the future, which mankind possibly (?) can do something about? Impressed? I guess that's what happens when you put members of the Norwegian political class to the task of awarding a peace prize.

I guess the members of the political class are blinded by their own utopian visions. They seem not to be able to see the problems with a world (attempted) made in the image of politicos. This at least goes for the issue of peace. In fact, political utopias have had a tendency to promote the opposite of peace.

On another note, what about all the resources we stand at the risk of wasting due to climate hysteria, resources that alternatively can be used for measures that more obviously are peace-promoting.

Al Gore is a proponent of more government coercion. If you have a seven foot guy with a baseball bat standing above you, and he threatens to slam you in the head if you move, and you don't move, you might say there's no conflict, and politicos would probably call it peace.

Jeffrey Tucker told us last November that the Nobel Committee seems always in the position of following the zeitgeist rather than leading.

Mike Rozeff has an LRC article on the prize today.

Jan Oberg of Lund, Sweden is one of those who made a statement Friday.

Please also feel free to visit or revisit my article on the nomination of Al Gore to the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007.

H/T: Vampus (video)

World Climate Champion

Yesterday the Norwegian Cabinet met at the Royal Palace in Oslo for the sole purpose of having its climate plan rubber-stamped by His Majesty.

According to a major newspaper here in Norway, the ambition is to be "World Climate Champion." Isn't this nouveau régime great? Meddling in everything is the order of the day. How wonderful?!?

Judging by the following critique, it seems it isn't as bad as it looked in the first place. When environmentalists criticize the plan for not beeing good enough, that often is a good sign.

Flag Day Address

90 years ago today, the Persona Non Grata of this blog gave a Flag Day address – or a propaganda speech if you will – at a place none other than the Washington Monument.

The Persona Non Grata, amongst other things, said:

A Government accountable to the people themselves will be set up in Germany, as has been the case in England, the United States, and France—in all great countries of modern times except Germany.

Apart from the fact that democracy had been expanding in Germany for quite a while at the time, this faith in popular government is little more than outright pathetic.

With modern, Wilsonian democracy, every check worth speaking of on popular power has been removed. In the words of Bertrand de Jouvenel, we have "the most cumbersome, and the most burdensome state authority ever yet experienced by our civilization."

Lloyd George – Friend of Liberty?

Today is the 90^th anniversary of Lloyd George's address to the American Club in London following the entry into the Great War of those United States.

Lloyd George praised the tradition of "never having engaged in war except for liberty." He called it a war for liberty, democracy, and the end of war. He uttered some baloney – resembling the Whig Theory of History – about rise out of autocracy for America, France, and now Russia.

The British Prime Minister did have some truth:

I don't mind saying that I rejoice even more in the knowledge that America is going to win the right to be at the conference table when the terms of peace are being discussed. That conference will settle the destiny of nations – the course of human life – for God knows how many ages.

A single conference didn't settle it, although the Versailles Conference was important, but Woodrow Wilson got to have his say about the post-war order, oh yes. Stalin, Hitler, and modern democracy, with its soft totalitarianism, oh yes. Something to rejoice about, oh yes!

Who is this Lloyd George to lecture about liberty? He and his comrades had emasculated the House of Lords, so it wouldn't be in the way of their agenda of expanding government. Who is this Lloyd George to lecture about Prussian militarism? Germany had tried to engage in world trade peacefully, but had been bullied by the Royal Navy. Who is this Lloyd George to promise liberty?

Where is my liberty? Has anybody else seen it the last 9 decades? Is it because I've only been around about a third of that time I haven't seen it? Is it because I haven't lived in a country party to the Great War I haven't seen it? No that can't be it, for I have. Or is it because I haven't seen the light of democracy I haven't seen it?

Where is that time machine?!?

Cameron and Gore

The Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition now seems to have bought a metaphor of Gore's, namely "your house will be burning down." He also believes in the "consensus."

Please note that global warming is just one of the issues Cameron comments.



Not even the IPCC believes the alarmism of Al Gore, but obviously "conservative" politicians do.

Al Gore tried to take credit for the Internet. He has claimed credit for initiative in creating the Internet while in Congress. Now, that's pretty impudent, considering that the Internet actually has a history from before Gore entered the U.S. Congress, notwithstanding claims that Gore has been misquoted. How can Gore be trusted?

Gore has been caught in a not so low energy personal life style. See articles on his mansion (thanks to Mike Tennant) and jet travelling.

I commented before Easter on a recent visit of Gore's in the Oil Kingdom of Norway. He had a car brought by truck from afar, just so he could drive around town in an environmentally fiendly way.

Again, how is this man to be trusted?

It is frightening to think of how far this may lead us into government control. George III and Louis XVI would probably have gazed at how far we thus far have come. How much would they be gazing up ahead?

Al Gore's Diesel

In this day and age, we have all sorts of demagogues. They wish to do what's best for us. They have, in the words of C.S. Lewis, the approval of their own conscience. Al Gore is one of these. I had an article on him some two months ago.

It turns out he's been to Norway. Luckily, I didn't find out before he had left. He recently visited Kristiansand, where he, of course, drove an "environmentally friendly" car. The only problem was that the car was transported from Oslo and back by truck. The truck spent 0.35 liters of diesel per kilometer – totally 230 liters for the return trip. That's about 0.1488 gallons per mile – totally some 60.76 gallons. Gore thus burnt off more than 60 gallons of diesel in order to drive around a Norwegian town in an environmentally friendly way.

So Norwegian radio station P4 reports (in Norwegian).