Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia Attacks Again and Fails Again

My basic assessment of authoritarians like Pinochet, Franco and Salazar is that, unlike “Constitutional Conservatives” they were able to protect their people and their countries from communists, anarchists and leftists.

Any credibility of “Constitutional Conservatism” collapsed with the 2020 Pandemic response, with the non-prosecution of Antifa/BLM rioters, validating a stolen election, the unequal treatment of the J6 people, and 100+ bogus criminal indictments against the leading opposition candidate.

If this was the record of a Third World country, it would be marked down as authoritarian with major deficiencies in the rule of law, and protection of individual rights.

I wish it wasn’t the case. Until ~2020 I thought that the US Constitution would be a good model to replace the deficient document that Canadians live under. (Although I was always slightly un-nerved by the underlying Enlightment and Deist hoo-haw, but I thought US Constitution had proved its functionality.)

Well no longer. In 2020, the US Constitution didn’t protect anyone from anything.

Not only that. My brother has been watching the criminal trials of some of the leadership of the Canadian truckers. What is clear is that their trials and the conduct of prosecutors is much more legally just than what we see for the J6 people.

The fact that the Trudeaupia Judiciary provides more fair treatment to political dissidents than the current US legal system is a massive indictmentof the entire Constitutional and legal system of the United States.

Conservatives will eventually be kicked off of all Corporate social media as the Regime consolidates its power. I appreciate the fact that we have Free Republic and I am happy to support it. At best I’m a former Constitutional Conservative but I’m glad I am still allowed on here.

I think that as time goes on, eventually everyone will see that what once was, is not coming back.

Even the most diehard Royalist Ultra eventually had to admit that the Bourbon Restoration was never going to happen.

For Constitutions to function, the basic premises have to be broadly shared by the people. And the principles of the Constitution have to be consistent with the “folk ways” and “folk beliefs” of the people.

That isn’t true for 2023 “diversity” America. And it hasn’t been true for a long time. There is no Constitution that can bridge the diametrically opposed views. Not in the USA. And not in any other Western country.

Reverend Wright: "My basic assessment of authoritarians like Pinochet, Franco and Salazar is that, unlike “Constitutional Conservatives” they were able to protect their people and their countries from communists, anarchists and leftists."

First of all, I thank you for a full throated defense of your views and for not hiding them behind a smoke-screen of obfuscations.
At least we can know for certain who you are and what you believe, unlike so many others here.

And I understand that you are Canadian and therefore not born into the US Constitutional government and the centuries-long debates over what exactly is or is not appropriate constitutionally.
So, for you, US "constitution-speak" is a little like learning a second language as an adult -- no matter how hard you train, you can never really speak it without an accent.

Right now I'm out of time, so must summarize my responses.

The US Constitution has been under constant attack since Day One in 1787, with its most serious single challenge being the 1860s crisis of secession and Civil War.
Since roughly 1932 our Constitution has been bent, twisted and molded into conformity with modern Democratic Socialist ideals and globalists aspirations.
In all this time conservative Republicans are nearly always minorities, sometimes minorities within the Republican minority.
But on rare occasions Democrats have so mislead and abused Americans that we've elected Republican majorities to make things right again.
Ronald Reagan in the 1980s was one time, the 2024 reelection of Pres. Trump may be another.

As the Sardinian philosopher de Maistre famously observed in 1811:

"In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve. "

"Every country has the government it deserves"

The US Constitution debates are long and complicated, and I would not expect a Canadian to either understand them or subscribe uncritically to loyal support for the Constitution.

“As the Sardinian philosopher de Maistre famously observed in 1811:

“In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve. “

As it happens, my whole critique is heavily based on the ideas of deMaistre.

This Youtube guy also used to be a conventional constitutional conservative as well, but after 2020 he came to the conclusion that it was no longer viable.
(9 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZo2pEu3oog

“And I understand that you are Canadian and therefore not born into the US Constitutional government and the centuries-long debates over what exactly is or is not appropriate constitutionally.
So, for you, US “constitution-speak” is a little like learning a second language as an adult — no matter how hard you train, you can never really speak it without an accent.”

“The US Constitution debates are long and complicated, and I would not expect a Canadian to either understand them or subscribe uncritically to loyal support for the Constitution.”

You realize this constitutes a destructive critique of both Propositional Citizenship and creedal nationalism ?

Revereend Wright: "This Youtube guy also used to be a conventional constitutional conservative as well, but after 2020 he came to the conclusion that it was no longer viable. (9 min)"

Sorry, I could only listen to the first two minutes because it's just babbling nonsense, a total straw-man argument unconnected to reality.

The truth I suspect is something different and simpler -- your YouTube guy came from a Southern Democrat tradition, allegedly "conservatives" but descendants of Confederate Democrats who were themselves descendants of anti-Federalist Democratic Founders, who voted against ratification in 1788.
In other words, they have always opposed the US Constitution, for whatever reasons, and have done whatever they could to defeat it.

Revereend Wright: "You realize this constitutes a destructive critique of both Propositional Citizenship and creedal nationalism?"

Those are not terms I'm familiar with, they sound like some new academic critique of basic citizenship.

So let me try again to make some sense of it.
If you are Canadian, then you have no inherited or adopted loyalties to the US Constitution -- it's not your document, you're not a citizen, it doesn't bind you to anything or anyone.
You speak as an outsider and are free to critique and find fault wherever you wish.
And I doubt if any criticism you voice will be unfamiliar to any American who's studied the subject.

Look, I understand if a friendly hoser looks at Yanks and says, "The USA is a real beauty, eh, but your politics are a gong show." You Canadians might want to go out for a rip and bring a two-four with lots of popcorn to enjoy the kerfuffle here -- sure, I get that.

However, from a Canadian outsider's perspective, the key point to remember about the US Constitution is that it is, in effect, a contract, like a marriage or business contract, willingly entered into among all the parties, enforced by each party on the others.
It includes several mechanisms for making changes, both minor and major, and can be fully replaced constitutionally by a convention of the states.

Exactly which changes are needed today to further secure its core principles or to enshrine some new ones, these are matters of ongoing discussion and debates.
Consider this -- the US Constitution includes now 27 amendments, for an average of about one every ten years since 1913, however the last ratified amendment, the 27th, was in 1992, now over 30 years ago.
So arguably, we are past-due for changes, but just as clearly, our body-politic is fractured enough to make new amendments impossible for now.

In my opinion, today is similar to 1980, when the country was last ruled by Democrat "malaise" under Pres. Carter.
The result was a landslide election for Ronald Reagan, and the reversal of many Democrat policies that were later reinstated under the Democrat Obama/Biden administrations.

Hopefully, 2024 will be another such landslide, returning Pres. Trump and conservative Republican majorities to both houses of Congress, such that they can quickly correct the worst of our immediate problems and also address issues of wanton Democrat lawlessness.

JonPreston: "Who’s more dangerous to Americans, Putin or Biden?"

Interesting question -- the enemy without or the enemy within?

I'd say equally dangerous, though in vastly different ways.

The enemy without: Vlad the Invader, representing today's incarnation of ancient empire builders -- who major and minor wars of the 20th century were fought to defeat, at the total cost of over 200 million deaths.
These we believed were finally defeated in 1991, when the Old Soviet Union fell and philosopher Francis Fukuyama announced, "The End of History".

Today it seems that the announced death of history was just a bit premature, and Vlad the Invader looks determined to resurrect history with a vengeance.
Already we've seen more deaths in Vlad's invasion of Ukraine than in any European war since Uncle Joe Stalin ruled in Moscow.

The enemy within: Democrat Pres. O'Biden, representing radical Obama's third term, transforming America as promised from the greatest land of the free, home of the brave into a third world socialist hell-hole.
The resulting death-toll from drugs crossing our open borders alone is said to be circa 100,000 Americans per year, thus matching deaths on either side in Ukraine.

Defeating the enemy without requires a plan, a strategy and effective military support to Ukrainians and others battling Old-Time Empire builders.

Defeating the enemy within requires a plan, a strategy and effective political support to our own good guys battling Old-Time Socialist-Democrat constitution destroyers.

“If you are Canadian, then you have no inherited or adopted loyalties to the US Constitution — it’s not your document, you’re not a citizen, it doesn’t bind you to anything or anyone.
You speak as an outsider and are free to critique and find fault wherever you wish.”

As it happens, like many from Alberta, a large part of our family originally came from the United States. (That goes a long way to explaining the unique political culture of that Province)

But if I can never aspire to understand the history and nature of the US Constitution, how could the ten of millions of foreign immigrants do so? When they have no history at all of Constitutional traditions like the USA, or any prior knowledge of the historic liberties enjoyed by Americans ?

Starting with Ellis Island, The Elites of the USA have deliberately imported tens of millions of foreigners whose “folk ways” have no connection to the traditional rights of Americans.

A stable constitutional order requires that the population largely agree on its underlying philosophical premises. And, the provisions of the constitution must be consistent with the “folk ways” and “folk beliefs” of the population.

But with Ellis Island, tens of millions from Eastern, Central and Southern Europe were introduced whose “folk ways” consisted of political corruption, electoral corruption, patronage and political spoils system as well as demands for socialism, re-distribution and an income tax.

And, for example, if you look at where the demand for disarmament of citizens and opposition to the Second Amendment comes from, it started with (((Ellis Island))) and continues with their descendants.

By 1913, the Progressive and their immigrant allies had gained enough strength to establish the Federal Reserve, as well as implement an income tax and Senate direct elections. With that, the USA lost the elements that made it unique from other Western countries, and it has followed a similar trajectory of decline ever since.

And, after the 1965 Immigration Act, as well as numerous illegal immigration “Amnesties”, the Elites of America have force fed tens of millions more Constitutionally incompatible “immigrant citizens” into the United States.

No Constitution can overcome these sorts of demographically engineered internal divisions, and protect individual rights, when so many in the Elite Institutions want to impose Tyranny, rather than protect liberty.

Some election miracle in 2024 isn’t going to change this. Demography is density. And the Tyrannical future of the USA under the current DC Regime was baked in the cake 150+ years ago.

Reverend Wright: "...if I can never aspire to understand the history and nature of the US Constitution, how could the ten of millions of foreign immigrants do so?
When they have no history at all of Constitutional traditions like the USA, or any prior knowledge of the historic liberties enjoyed by Americans ?"

Yes, I understand your concerns, but in historical terms, today is not so different from our past.
This graph shows the percentages of foreign born Americans going back to 1850, and it has often been about what it is today.

This site updates the numbers to 2020.

So we have to start by noticing that, at least through 2020, the US foreign born population is not particularly high by historical standards.

Reverend Wright: "But if I can never aspire to understand the history and nature of the US Constitution, how could the ten of millions of foreign immigrants do so?
When they have no history at all of Constitutional traditions like the USA, or any prior knowledge of the historic liberties enjoyed by Americans ?"

As a Canadian you are not required to either study our history or take tests on the US Constitution or pledge loyalty to it and allegiance to our flag, and to the Republic for which it stands.
Lawful immigrants to the USA must and do.

What percentages of immigrants fully understand what they've studied -- and pledged themselves to -- is, of course, unknowable, however, virtually 100% of immigrants come to the USA by choice because they've heard life is better here than in their Old Countries.
So they know something about us before they even come, and chose us over other potential destinations.

Even in 1788 the USA was ethnically diverse and included several populations who spoke their own languages and/or wanted nothing to do with the larger citizenry.
Typical example is Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites, and we could also mention French & Spanish speakers, along with native American Indians.
Even among English speakers, the historical-cultural experiences of those from, say, Ireland or Scotland were vastly different from those born in, say, England or the Netherlands, much less of women and African-Americans.

So even in the 18th century there were vast floods of immigrants from countries which knew nothing of the enlightenment ideals foundational to the Constitution's constructs.

Bottom line is, it has usually taken several generations -- three, four or more -- before people growing up in the USA begin to think of themselves more as just Americans and less as hyphenated-Americans.
This has very often included honorable service in our wartime military, which more than anything else possible, confers "rights of citizenship" on otherwise alien-feeling new immigrants.
Many can remember Shakespear's Henry V speaking to his soldiers before the battle of Agincourt in 1415:

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's da"

Of course, all is this was before, before, before... before our own elites went berserk with anti-American lunacies and began teaching our children to hate their own country and our Western Civilization traditions.
What will happen in the future is anybody's guess now.

My guess is Americans will finally get a new grip on reality and put a stop to the worst of the nonsense.
Only time will tell for sure.

Reverend Wright: "And, for example, if you look at where the demand for disarmament of citizens and opposition to the Second Amendment comes from, it started with (((Ellis Island))) and continues with their descendants."

I think, like so much else, "conservative" versus "liberal" or "progressive" depends on the population density of where you live.
People in high density areas tend to be more afraid of their neighbors, more trusting in quick police responses, and want to see neighbors disarmed, whereas those in lower density areas tend to think they need firearms to protect themselves before more distant police can arrive.

The balance of city, suburban and more rural areas is where our political center rests and shifts.

Reverend Wright: "By 1913, the Progressive and their immigrant allies had gained enough strength to establish the Federal Reserve, as well as implement an income tax and Senate direct elections.
With that, the USA lost the elements that made it unique from other Western countries, and it has followed a similar trajectory of decline ever since."

Arguably, there's some truth in what you say here.
However, the Federal Reserve did not prevent the Great Depression and the income tax did not immediately cause an explosion in the size & scope of Federal government.
Other factors were involved, some call it "progressivism" but I think more accurately named Democratic-Socialism, the roots of, for example, a Bernie Sanders socialism today.

It infected both parties but consumed the Democrats and grips them as tightly today as ever.
Republicans today remain the only party officially committed to traditional American values and governance.

Reverend Wright: "No Constitution can overcome these sorts of demographically engineered internal divisions, and protect individual rights, when so many in the Elite Institutions want to impose Tyranny, rather than protect liberty.
Some election miracle in 2024 isn’t going to change this.
Demography is density.
And the Tyrannical future of the USA under the current DC Regime was baked in the cake 150+ years ago."

I don't believe this is the worst constitutional crisis in our history, that came during the 1860s.
And again, I remind you that Republicans only won that war because we waited, patiently, for Democrats to, in effect, defeat themselves by splitting apart their own majorities and then declaring war against the United States.
That lead to two generations of conservative Republican leadership and the greatest economic expansions in world history, before Democrats were again able to reunite their traditional alliances and reclaim national leadership in 1932.

I don't see anything like that happening again, but I do think a "red wave" in 2024 could quickly restore much of what has been destroyed under insane Democrat leadership.

Henry V at Agincourt, 1989 film staring Kenneth Branagh:

I think this discussion is winding down. But I want to make a couple more points.

“Yes, I understand your concerns, but in historical terms, today is not so different from our past.
This graph shows the percentages of foreign born Americans going back to 1850, and it has often been about what it is today.”

It is simply nonsense to say that an Englishman from East Anglia in the mid 19th century, a jew from Poland in the late 19th century, and a moslem from Gaza in 2023 can be put in a common category of “foreign born”.

The “folk ways” of these three groups go from high congruence with the liberties and traditions of early America, to minimal agreement, to absolute opposite and negation.

Which leads to the folly of...

“...either study our history or take tests on the US Constitution or pledge loyalty to it and allegiance to our flag, and to the Republic for which it stands.
Lawful immigrants to the USA must and do.”

This is the “Creedal Citizenship” concept. Where you take foreigners that have no affinity or previous exposure to traditional American liberties ( or more likely extreme hostility) and teach them some elements of the Declaration and Pledge of Allegiance, and they somehow magically transform into citizens supporting a constitution which their “folk beliefs” are mostly or entirely opposed to.

Then you combine this horde, and declare that America is a Propositional Nation based on a shared common creed.

Complete nonsense, and obviously not going to work, and not working.

Not to mention the fact that the institutions who oversea this acculturation are dominated by leftists who are contemptuous and hostile to the very liberties on which America was founded.

No wonder assimilation is increasingly a failing project, and the divisions in the USA run along national origin (as well as leftism) which the recent pro-Hamas / anti-israel protests demonstrate.

This problem isn’t unique to the United States. France has the same problem, where incompatible immigrants are supposed to be taught by the schools to respect the nature and features of the Republic. But this messaging has to be delivered by a marxist dominated school system, who has no interest in undertaking that task.

In the end, maybe just stop pretending and go the whole way like Canada. Which has now declared that there is no Canadian National Identity. This at least has the benefit of candour by declaring itself to the be the world’s first officially Globohomo State.

There is a good deal of ridicule of socialism, and collectivism on Free Republic (and rightly so). The consistent and repeated failures of socialism to deliver the promised results are a constant refrain on this site.

So my question is: at what point will “Constitutional Conservatism” be subject to the same critique ?

Reverend Wright: "It is simply nonsense to say that an Englishman from East Anglia in the mid 19th century, a jew from Poland in the late 19th century, and a moslem from Gaza in 2023 can be put in a common category of “foreign born”.
The “folk ways” of these three groups go from high congruence with the liberties and traditions of early America, to minimal agreement, to absolute opposite and negation."

No, in historical terms, such people are equivalent to German Americans in both World Wars, plus Japanese and Italian Americans in WWII who supported their home countries and whom the Federal government often arrested and imprisoned on the flimsiest of charges.
Everyone remembers the Japanese internment camps of WWII, but not everyone knows that many German and Italian Americans were also detained on suspicions of collaboration with the enemy.

Such hyphenated Americans were powerful voting blocks for isolationism and against US involvement in "foreign wars".

Reverend Wright: "This is the “Creedal Citizenship” concept.
Where you take foreigners that have no affinity or previous exposure to traditional American liberties ( or more likely extreme hostility) and teach them some elements of the Declaration and Pledge of Allegiance, and they somehow magically transform into citizens supporting a constitution which their “folk beliefs” are mostly or entirely opposed to.
Then you combine this horde, and declare that America is a Propositional Nation based on a shared common creed."

Again, you're using some big words -- "credal citizenship" or "propositional nation" -- that are too academic to be of value in ordinary conversations.
The reality is that throughout US history, immigrants came here speaking different languages, and practicing different cultural traditions.
Over time -- several generations typically -- their descendants became more & more American and Americans adopted some of their old traditions too -- if nothing else, we learned to love their restaurants.

What all lawful immigrants have in common is that they chose to come here and they pledged allegiance to our Constitution and the form of government it defines.

Illegal immigrants are a very different story, and today there's no way to predict how bad that situation will become.
My guess is it could at some point rival the 1860s Civil War for violence and destruction, but that is not necessarily inevitable if we can get a grip on the situation soon.

Reverend Wright: "Complete nonsense, and obviously not going to work, and not working.
Not to mention the fact that the institutions who oversea this acculturation are dominated by leftists who are contemptuous and hostile to the very liberties on which America was founded."

I think your assessment is overly pessimistic and things are not yet so far gone they can't be fully restored to sanity through normal constitutional processes.

Reverend Wright: "No wonder assimilation is increasingly a failing project, and the divisions in the USA run along national origin (as well as leftism) which the recent pro-Hamas / anti-israel protests demonstrate.
This problem isn’t unique to the United States.
France has the same problem, where incompatible immigrants are supposed to be taught by the schools to respect the nature and features of the Republic.
But this messaging has to be delivered by a marxist dominated school system, who has no interest in undertaking that task."

The French situation is somewhat different from ours, though exactly how different is debatable.

Recent polls show that Americans support Israel over Hamas by something like 85% to 15%, so all those demonstrations are simply a very loud minority expressing their opinions.

The danger is those 15% represent a large portion of the hard-core Democrat voter base, and Democrats are very likely to kowtow to such radicals at the expense of America's allies in general and Israel especially.

Reverend Wright: "In the end, maybe just stop pretending and go the whole way like Canada.
Which has now declared that there is no Canadian National Identity.
This at least has the benefit of candour by declaring itself to the be the world’s first officially Globohomo State."

Sorry, but I never heard of an official "American National Identity", so far as I know, there never was one.
Of course, I do remember Superman Comics from the 1940s touting "truth, justice and the American Way", but I don't think that was ever passed into law, or later repealed.

The truth is that Americans have always been highly "multicultural" and have never demanded lockstep conformity or loyalty except in times of gravest national emergencies, such was the 20th century's World Wars.

Today is not yet such a time, though it's easy to predict a near-future time when such conformity and loyalty might again be required.

But I would not cross that bridge until we reach it.
We're not there yet.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.