Condemning the entire January 6 rally as an insurrection ignores the fact that the vast majority of the people there were exercising their constitutional rights to assembly and speech

In The Economist, D. Charles Bogan of Santa Fe writes that

Donald Trump did not whip up the mob that stormed the Capitol building (“The reckoning”, January 16th). During his speech near the White House he urged his followers to cheer on members of Congress who were objecting to and debating the electoral-college count (Democrats in the House of Representatives also disputed the count following the 2000 and 2004 general elections). Never did Mr Trump call for violence, or tell his supporters to storm Congress. Condemning the entire rally as an insurrection ignores the fact that the vast majority of the people there were exercising their constitutional rights to assembly and speech.

Extremists who show up to rallies are not part of the wider movement. Last year, while cities across America burned and were looted, we were lectured about not blaming the “peaceful” protests for the criminal actions of the rioting crowds. True supporters of Mr Trump denounced the violence, just as they did in places like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle. Many Democrats can make no such claim. Nancy Pelosi actually described law enforcement officers who were defending a courthouse under constant siege as “storm troopers”. Some in her party openly called for unrest. Did The Economist denounce those politicians? Have their social-media accounts also been closed down?

Violence to bring about political change is never justified. Extremism on both the left and right should be condemned.

D. CHARLES BOGAN
Santa Fe, New Mexico

I am disappointed that a publication of your erudition feels the need to use the informal “mobocracy”, when a perfectly good word, “ochlocracy”, already exists.

COLIN MCCALLISTER
St Andrews, Fife

Scott Adams and Dilbert on Female Logic

Scott Adams presents a Dilbert cartoon on female logic with extra credit for wokeness

Pronouns: The Alien Invaders Are Too Late

Scott Adams presents a Dilbert cartoon on Alients And Pronouns

"More Pressing Issues" Than Afghanistan? Left Unsaid About the Chaotic Debacle in Kabul Is that the Democrats Need Their Generals to Focus More on "Domestic Insurrectionists," aka Red-Blooded Americans, Than on Islamists and Communists, Foreign or Domestic

After 20 years of military presence and war in Afghanistan, reports the Wall Street Journal (thanks to Instapundit), "Biden Wanted to Leave … He Knew the Risks. Generals and diplomats warned about a pullout, but the president told his team the U.S. was simply providing life support for the Kabul government while neglecting more pressing issues." 

Joe Biden — Ken Thomas and Vivian Salama explain in more detail —

was committed to ending the U.S. military role in the country. The president told his policy advisers the U.S. was providing life support for the Afghan government, which, in his view, was corrupt and had squandered billions of dollars in American assistance, according to current and former administration officials. He wanted to reorient American foreign policy onto what he sees as more pressing international matters, including competition with China, and domestic issues including infrastructure and battling Covid. “I am deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision,” he said Monday.

What is missing here? What Biden wants, the WSJ reports, is "to reorient American foreign policy onto what he sees as more pressing international matters, including competition with China, and domestic issues including infrastructure and battling Covid."

It seems to me that the main issue missing here regarding "the more pressing international matters" and the more pressing "domestic issues" is that there is a point where the two converge. That is, the members of the Biden administration, like the drama queens in all Democrat administrations, knows that the true enemies of America, of the planet, and of all mankind are not the Taliban, the Islamists, the Chinese, the Russians, the Soviets, the communists, etc, etc, etc…

The top pressing issue is to turn the United States government and the United States military against those whom all leftists, both in America and abroad, know are America's, are humanity's, true enemy — the Republicans, i.e, the American people who still believe in the country, in the flag, and in the Constitution. Also known as fascists, as Nazis, as Adolf Hitlers, and — to this administration — as "insurrectionists" and as "domestic terrorists." 

Those include rewriting elections laws so that the good and competent people (such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris), deserving dreamers all, will remain in power forever, and using all the force necessary to change hearts and minds or at least keep the despicable deplorables in line — such as keeping the January 6 rioters (aka the mutineers?) jailed in isolation forever…

The memes and jokes that the joint chiefs of staff, along with the rest of the Democrats, are more concerned with Critical Race Theory, Karl Marx, and white supremacy turn out, unfortunately, to be very serious: that is precisely where they see the true enemy, aye, the only enemy… (Thanks to Instapundit…)

Update: In the Biden White House's "overarching focus on the domestic matters [that] it has prioritized for the last eight months" (Los Angeles Times), the Instapundit blog just reminded us of Jonah Goldberg's take on the Democrats' “the moral equivalent of war”. As Ed Driscoll puts it:

Not surprisingly, the party whose organizing method is “the moral equivalent of war” views American politics as the continuation of warfare by other means, to flip von Clausewitz’s axiom on its head. And as the last week has illustrated, they’re far more focused on fighting against the American people, rather than Middle Eastern terrorists.

Regarding the NEED for F-15S AND NUKES TO FIGHT THE GOVERNMENT, Glenn Reynolds adds some choice quotes from Larry Correia:

“In something that I find profoundly troubling, when I’ve had this discussion before, I’ve had a Caring Liberal tell me that the example of Iraq doesn’t apply, because ‘we kept the gloves on’, whereas fighting America’s gun nuts would be a righteous total war with nothing held back… Holy shit, I’ve got to wonder about the mentality of people who demand rigorous ROEs to prevent civilian casualties in a foreign country, are blood thirsty enough to carpet bomb Texas. You really hate us, and then act confused why we want to keep our guns?”

From Larry Correia's comments page: 

“How does that saying go? ‘If you want to know who your rulers fear, look at who they threaten to nuke?’ It’s quite obvious that ruling class America hates and fears the American people much more than they hate and fear any foreign power on Earth.”

In our new compassionate, tolerant, be-nice-to-everybody world where hatred and stereotypes are taboo, there is in fact one type of person throughout the five continents whom it is not only acceptable to ridicule, castigate, demonize and, yes… hate, it is in fact almost mandatory to do so. And that is: a leader or member of America's Republican party. And no, that it is not something that is recent (or the fault of Donald Trump or George W Bush…)

As an 1860 presidential contender, Abraham Lincoln, put it more than 160 years ago, as he tried to address Southerners and members of the Democrat Party only five or six years after the birth of the Republican Party,

You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people … Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to [Republicans]. In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of [Republicanism] as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all.

Update 2: 2020s Democrats prove 1860s Republican right — Biden ally claims Trump greater 'threat' to US than al Qaeda by Fox News' Cameron Cawthorne:

A Democratic insider and vocal ally of the Biden administration claimed last week that former President Trump and "Trumpist extremists" are a bigger threat to the United States than the Taliban and all the al Qaeda fighters combined.

David Rothkopf, who is frequently retweeted by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, tweeted, "The Taliban, all of them together, plus every Al Qaeda fighter in the world, do not pose the threat to the United States that Trump or Trumpist extremists do.  Let's maintain our perspective."

  … His columns also attacked Republicans, including one earlier this year that said the Republican Party is the "party of thugs, terrorists, racists and dopes."

 … In an email to Fox News on Wednesday, Rothkopf … doubled down on his tweet and claimed they do not "pose an existential threat to the United States or our way of life" like Trump and his supporters do.

"Trump and his supporters have, with support of one America's most dangerous enemies, actively sought to undermine democracy in America. The coup attempt on January 6th and the propagation of the Big Lie are an example of this," he said. "Their efforts to suppress the vote are an example of this. Trump's active obstruction of justice is an example of this. Should they succeed, democracy in America will be gutted, our way of life end, our values undermined and our standing in the world destroyed. They may yet succeed. As a consequence the threat they pose is far greater to the United States as a whole."

Update 3: Joe Biden Threatens to Fight Texas Harder Than He Ever Fought the Taliban, remarks Bryan Preston, leading Stephen Green to comment, laconically, HE HAS PICKED HIS ENEMIES and Ed Driscoll to quip that

To be fair, that’s what Obama-era retreads simply do out of reflex:
‘Where the Obama Administration Sees War, and Where It Doesn’t.’

While Bruce Carroll shakes his head at Biden "showing more anger toward unvaccinated Americans than toward Taliban terrorists who still hold hundreds of Americans hostage" — indeed, JD Vance protests that "Biden is talking about millions of American citizens like they're vermin" — Glenn Reynolds points out that 

Democrats always hate Americans who won’t bend the knee more than foreigners who want Americans dead.

 

Scott Adams: Too Dangerous To Do Lunch

Scott Adams presents a Dilbert cartoon on gray areas of wokeness.

A Century and Half of Apartheid Policies: From Its 1828 Foundation, the Democrat Party Has Never Shed Its Racist Past

Once again, Democrats, liberals, and other drama queens are going berserk as they proclaim how "racist" a particular Republican is, or all Republicans are. That is rich, quips American Thinker's Deborah Bucknam (thanks to Instapundit), given that

the Democrat party is the oldest and most enduring racist political party in history, and its racism continues to this day.  Here are the facts:

The Democrat Party was founded in 1828. Its first national party platform, ratified during the 1840 Presidential election, stated: 

“ that all efforts by abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery… are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people… and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.”

The message was clear:  the Democrat Party did not consider Black Americans to be “people”  deserving of “happiness.”

That same language was in every national Democrat party platform for the next 16 years. 

Democrat party leaders acted on their racist principles, committing high treason against their country and their fellow Americans between 1861-1865 in order to preserve the system of Black human bondage. 

In 1868, the  Democrat Party platform urged amnesty for the traitors who, during the Civil War, killed hundreds of thousands of Americans for the purpose of preserving slavery. The platform also called for “the abolition of the Freedmen's Bureau; and all political instrumentalities designed to secure negro supremacy”:

In 1904, seventy-six years after its founding,  the Democrat party’s platform complained about the Republican platform:

“The race question has brought countless woes to this country. The calm wisdom of the American people should see to it that it brings no more. To revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed.  We therefore deprecate and condemn the Bourbon-like selfish, and narrow spirit of the recent Republican Convention at Chicago which sought to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife, and we appeal from it to the sober common sense and patriotic spirit of the American people.”

The Republican party’s “hateful” rhetoric in their party platform that the Democrats condemned?  Here it is:

“We demand equal justice for all men, without regard to race or color; we declare once more, and without reservation, for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution which were designed for the protection and advancement of the negro, and we condemn all devices that have for their real aim his disfranchisement for reasons of color alone, as unfair, un-American and repugnant to the Supreme law of the land.”

Throughout most of the 20^th century, Democrats condoned  or excused policies of apartheid and disenfranchisement of Black Americans.  Senate Democrats successfully filibustered a Republican led anti-lynching bill in 1934, and a Republican-led effort to ban the poll tax in 1940.  At the time, the poll tax was so effective  in the American South that  only 3% of Black Americans were registered to vote there. Elected Democrats fought tooth and nail against anti-racist legislation, filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and engaging in so-called “massive resistance” against school integration into the early 1970s. A century and half of racist policies vigorously supported  by Democrat party leaders -- no other political party in history comes close. 

[Vermont Democrat Party chair Bruce] Olsson’s commentary included the perennial claim that Republican President  Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” -- an effort to bring two-party rule to the South in the 1960s -- was racist.  I lived in Tidewater Virginia in the late 1960s.  Coming from New England, I was shocked  at the abject poverty of Black American families and the rigid segregation of virtually all  institutions there, despite the heavy federal military presence.  The South was truly, as one historian put it, a third-world country in a first-world nation.  Since the successful Republican Southern strategy,  the South is no longer a third-world country, but a first-world economic powerhouse.  And today, the South is more integrated than the northern cities run by Democrat machines. Some “racist” strategy.   

The Democrat party has never shed its racist past.  Today the party fights vigorously against school choice and voter ID laws, both overwhelmingly supported by minority communities.  Its leaders support abandoning crime-ridden Black communities by its “defund the police” movement.  It zealously supports expensive and unreliable “renewable” energy which hurts the poor and minorities, and its environmental land use policies are the equivalent of yesterday’s restrictive covenants that redlined minorities.  The Democrats’ latest racist push is critical race theory, which denigrates the courage, sacrifice and enormous achievements of Black Americans, while pushing for resegregation through so-called “affinity groups.”  As they say, a tiger doesn’t change its stripes. 

It’s time for a racial reckoning.  Democrats insist on apologies and accountability from the rest of us.  Democrats must take their own advice and own up to their own endemic racism. Then perhaps real racial healing can take place.

Did you know that in the 1850s, members of the Democrat party were referred to regularly as fire eaters or as locofocos? It kind of sounds like my calling them drama queens, with BDS and TDS being replaced by LDS (Lincoln Derangement Syndrome), does it not?

Related: • Not limited to slavery, Jim Crow laws, and legal segregation: Using lawfare against political opponents is nothing new for Democrats
• What Caused Secession and Ergo the Civil War? Was It Slavery and/or States' Rights? Or Wasn't It Rather Something Else — the Election of a Ghastly Republican to the White House?
• During the Winter of 1860-1861, Did the South's Democrats Obtain Their Aim — the Secession of 7 Slave States — Thanks to Elections Filled with Stealth, Lies, Voter Fraud, Intimidation, Violence, and Murder? (Wait 'til You Hear About… Georgia's Dark Secret)
• Wondering Why Slavery Persisted for Almost 75 Years After the Founding of the USA? According to Lincoln, the Democrat Party's "Principled" Opposition to "Hate Speech"
• The Greatest Myth in U.S. History: Yes, the Civil War Era Did Feature Champions of States' Rights, But No, They Were Not in the South (Au Contraire)
• Harry Jaffa on the Civil War Era: For Democrats of the 21st Century as of the 19th, "the emancipation from morality was/is itself seen as moral progress"
• Why Does Nobody Ever Fret About Scandinavia's — Dreadful — 19th-C Slavery Conditions?
• The Confederate Flag: Another Brick in the Leftwing Activists' (Self-Serving) Demonization of America and Rewriting of History
• How to Prevent America from Becoming a Totalitarian State
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Why They Don't Tell You the Whole Truth: The 1619 Project Summarized in One Single Sentence

Is the Yellow Star Really an Inappropriate Reference for the Vaccine Passport?

Before we get to the controversy surrounding the Yellow Star badge — examining various pertinent facts of World War II with the help of one of our generation's greatest historians in the process (in the second third and in the third third of this post, below Bruegel's Renaissance painting) — let us set the stage somewhat: Glenn Reynolds reproduces two memes in the New York Post from mask bullies that Ann Althouse saw on Facebook. 

One read: “It took ‘click it or ticket’ to get people to wear a seatbelt. I wonder if ‘mask it or casket’ might work.” The other said: “It’s a face mask, not a Star of David or pink triangle, you whiny, privileged dolt. You’re not being shoved into a cattle car and taken to camp. You’re going to Walmart for twinkies and Diet Coke. Grow up.”

They’re both poor efforts at persuasion, of course: Generally, calling people names, threatening them and saying they’re stupid are ineffective ways of winning them over.

 … Maybe the mask fanatics are just poor persuaders. But it seems just as likely that they are engaging in poor persuasion because they aren’t trying to persuade.

As with so much that goes on in today’s society, and especially on social media, this sort of thing isn’t aimed at convincing those who disagree, but rather at garnering high-fives from people who agree and, ultimately, creating an ideological veneer for unquestioned elite rule. 

"I don't want to villainize anyone here," (re)assures Arnold Schwarzenegger — right after calling any mask-averse person "a schmuck" in addition to spitting out "screw your freedom" (if that ain't the height of gaslighting, I don't know what is) — "but I just wanted to tell everyone, let's work together and let's stop fighting."

Playing both good cop and bad cop, the "Austrian loudmouth" wants it both ways, effectively saying, both as a threatening bully and as a gentle father figure, Shut up, ye despicable deplorables, and show pride as ye join the growing army of valiant fellow travelers (or, if you prefer, as ye join behind our intrepid leftist leaders in yet another “moral equivalent of war” or as ye join our archbishops in their latest holy crusade).

Here is one of the memes that I chanced upon, with the final word doubling as a sexual (homophobic?) command to stuff your face and effectively "Shut up":

"lol Imagine having the eligibility and access to get the vaccine and saying nahhhhh" writes one Philip DeFranco with a couple of smileys. "Also to the pearl clutchers offended by this tweet yes I am calling you stupid and you can go fuck yourself you ignorant selfish fuckface."

Leftists can't debate; those drama queens are so full of scorn and… hatred (yes, correct, they are the true haters — with Caroline Glick explaining why below) for the despicable deplorables that they can only insult and demand we shut up. (Danke Schön for the link, Ed Driscoll.)

"The illogical structure of “Click it or Ticket” bugs me every time I see it," JPS tells Althouse:

Setting aside the parallel illogic, “Mask it or casket” would be self-discrediting. “Wear your seatbelt or you’ll get a ticket” only works as a threat if you then have a fairly high chance of getting a ticket if you don’t. “Wear your mask or you’re going to die,” for a malady with a case fatality rate under 2%, tells people who aren’t already on their side, Yes. You people are panic-mongers.

Lloyd W. Robertson adds that 

Something has changed in the way people are accepting conformity that is enforced in one way or another. A mask mandate: if the evidence is in dispute, we are asked to believe the onus is on citizens to prove the inconvenience is comparable to being shipped to a concentration camp and perhaps killed. Isn't the onus on public officials and their alleged experts to prove there is some good goddam reason to do all this? Isn't liberty precious, even during a pandemic? 

The overlying problem with the drama queens' attitude is that not only is the dire seriousness of the Coronavirus not proven, everything points in fact toward it being no worse than the pandemics of 2009 and 2002 (not to mention the 1968, the 1957, and the 1889 outbreaks), or even a common flu season. (The comparison with getting "people to wear a seatbelt" is therefore immaterial and beside the point, as is Arnold Schwarzenegger's parallel with deliberately driving through a red light…)

In view of the fact that during those other pandemics, not to mention during the annual flus,
• the authorities did not force (or even simply ask) the population to wear unhygienic, oxygen-blocking face coverings;
• did not try to destroy the economies of the Western world (with bankruptcies running into the tens of thousands);
• and did not try to implement a freedom-destroying vaccination passport,
some of us are somewhat skeptical as to why any one of those should be necessary this time around…

Related: Here Is the Key Question Regarding the Coronavirus
• And here are the 7 Basic Points about Covid-19 that You Need to Know
And from the March 2020 and April 2020 archives:
• Is There 100% Irrefutable Proof that the Covid19 Pandemic Is Overstated?
• Anti-Americanism in the Age of the Coronavirus, the NBA, and 1619

Now let us examine the central point of this post: to what extent, if at all, is it inappropriate to use the Yellow Star badge as a comparison for the vaccine pass?

Calling the comparison nothing less than odious, Chuck has assembled a list of nefarious villains ("schmuck" and "whiny, privileged dolt" are far too gentle for this this liberal; "ignorant selfish fuckface" is more like it — Chuck is seething with hatred for those dastardly despicable deplorables):

The "Star of David" reference is purely reactive in the context of the vaccine debate. The list of Trumpublicans who began this odious chapter in the saga of the COVID vaccine have made specific references to the Jews' holocaust-era forced wearing of the Star of David is almost too long for a single comment. But...

A GOP state representative in Washington actually wore a yellow star:
https://www.newsweek.com/rep-jim-walsh-wears-yellow-star-david-protest-covid-vaccine-mandates-washington-1605698

Congressional maniac Marjorie Taylor Greene did it back in May:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-holocaust-vaccine-b1853545.html

The Chairman of the Oklahoma GOP engaged in the comparison:
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2021/08/01/john-bennett-oklahoma-gop-defends-comparing-covid-vaccine-mandates-treatment-jews-holocaust/5447961001/

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) made a more general holocaust comparison. Check out this delightful takedown from The Bulwark:
https://www.thebulwark.com/should-lauren-boebert-visit-auschwitz/

There are many, many more links. But you get the idea.

Actually, Chuck, yeah, we get the idea. We get the idea that the left's drama queens, panic-mongers, and outrage peddlers are again at work.

But let us examine the question: in this particular case, might the leftists have a point?

But it turns out that the true question is actually this: is it even a correct assessment to state that (clueless) conservatives using the Star of David image cannot see the difference between those wanting to (cough) protect us from China's Wuhan virus and the instigators of the Holocaust?

Leave aside, for the moment, the — entirely legitimate — point that the drama queens outraged by the Jewish badge (besides putting on regular displays of antisemitism) have themselves been —  invariably — comparing everything and everybody to Hitler and to National Socialists for years, nay, for decades.

They invent the so-called Godwin's Law (click here to see Mike Godwin in person reacting — haughtily and dismissively (i.e., in a typical liberal fashion) — to our blog's pointing out his Law's greatest flaw, i.e., its double standard; see Update 3); and then the drama queens segue into comparing everybody and everything to Adolf and to Nazis and to fascists, from presidential candidates to their wives through the rest of the conservative population…

Related: Calling Republicans "Hitler" since… the 1940s
• WikiLeaks reveals John Podesta's rule for Democrats:
"Compare Your Opponent to Hitler"

Like Antifa and BLM seething with rage at despicable deplorables, and doing all in their power to make them second-class citizens and rain violence upon their heads, the leftists do not realize that if we are seeing seeing echoes of Hitler's Germany, Nazism, and fascism, it is clearly on one side only: that of Antifa, BLM, and like-minded liberals.

Listen to Caroline Glick's insight:

 … the Democrats have repeatedly projected all of their prejudices, malicious actions and plans onto Trump and the Republicans

 … What is clear … is that if you want to understand who the Democrats are and what they are doing, all you need to do is look at what they are accusing Trump and his colleagues of being and of doing.

Chuck derides the comparison of the vaccine passport with the "Jews' holocaust-era forced wearing of the Star of David" while the meme quoted by Ann Althouse said "You’re not being shoved into a cattle car and taken to camp."

What is the truth?

The truth is that the Yellow Star and the Holocaust, although (obviously) related, are not exactly the same thing.

The Holocaust did not start until after the eruption of war, and only (so to speak) two years and almost six months after it broke out, to wit only after the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, although in Soviet occupied territory, it started as early as August 1941 (albeit by bullets, not by gas).  

That was three years and six months after the Yellow Star was introduced, at the end of the 1930s, as a means of a means to publicly identify, humiliate, and isolate despicable and deplorable elements of the population. But no one imagined at the time — including the top leaders of the Third Reich (as we shall see)! — what horrors it could, or would, lead to.

Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels was the first to suggest a "general distinguishing mark" for German Jews in a memorandum in May 1938.

The yellow star led to the second-class citizens' removal from public life but it — and the accompanying ostracizing, scorn, and hatred (along with their easy identification) — did not have to lead to their internment in concentration camps, although it eventually did.

The demonization and internment of the second-class citizens did not have to lead to, second, the horrors of the Shoah, but it eventually did.

In any case, the whole point of the Star of David badge imagery is not the Holocaust; it is that it is the start of a slippery slope…

However, at the outset of the Yellow Star policy, few people had imagined the Final Solution. As Antony Beevor states below, they include the Third Reich's top leaders, not excluding, as incredible as it may sound, the fiends who would eventually meet at Wannsee…

Indeed, leftists: Any Jew, or any other person, for that matter, including pro-Nazis, who would have predicted in the late 1930s, that the Yellow Star would lead to the Shoah would have been as ridiculed and vilified as American conservatives are being in the 2020s, as mad, as outrageous, and as insulting to the (Third Reich) government.

Moreover: Had any Americans of the 1930s charged that the Weimar Republic was curtailing freedom by simply registering firearms (not even banning them), might they not have been mocked and vilified as well? And yet the policies of their Democratic predecessors allowed the National Socialists, once in power and that only years later, to confiscate the weapons, from Jews and non-Jews alike.

What we have, here, is from the good ol' Democratic playing book (aka the handbook of Saul Alinsky?): Just like leftists charge that despicable Republicans are against immigration — when conservatives are only against illegal immigration — they charge that republicans are "anti-vaxers" (sometimes they add "flat earth" anti-vaxxers to hammer the alleged anti-science point home) when conservatives are only against forced vaccination. And the leftists pretend that conservatives are using the Holocaust as a comparison when they are only using the instigating Yellow Star as one.

All what I have written is confirmed by Antony Beevor in his history of The Second World War. The Rassenkrieg chapter provides interesting details:

Until September 1939, the Nazis had hoped to force German, Austrian and Czech Jews to emigrate through maltreatment, humiliation and the expropriation of their property. Once war began, that became increasingly difficult. And the conquest of Poland brought a further 1.7 million Jews under their jurisdiction.

In May 1940 during the invasion of France, Himmler had written a paper for Hitler entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Populations in the East." … [Regarding] the Jews, he wrote: "I hope completely to erase the concept of Jews through the possibility of a great emigration to a colony in Africa or elsewhere." At that stage, Himmler considered genocide — "the Bolshevik method of physical extermination" — to be "un-German and impossible."

Himmler's idea of shipping European Jews abroad focused on the French island of Madagascar. (Adolf Eichmann, still a junior functionary, was thinking of Palestine, a British mandate.) … The problem was that, even if Vichy France agreed, the 'Madagaskar Projekt' would not work in the face of British naval superiority. Yet the idea of deporting Jews to a reservation somewhere still remained the preferred option.

So: let us review some core points here:

• At its outset, the Yellow Star was passably benign, relatively speaking, brought about to humiliate the despised second-class citizenry, and was meant to lead to their banishment from public life and eventually to their emigration out of the homeland

• At the time, as improbable as it may sound, the Final Solution had not been thought of, not even in the minds of the worst Nazis (such as Himmler and Eichmann)

• As an aside, even the fascists initially considered genocide as an exclusive communist way of operating (how many socialist-loving kids are taught about this communist trait in school?)

FYI, Antony Beevor starts that Rassenkrieg section in his Second World War history by pointing out that 

There were essentially two parts to the Holocaust — what Vasily Grossman later called "the Shoah by bullets" and "the Shoah by gas" — and the process which eventually led to the industrialized murder of the death camps was uneven, to say the least.

 … The "Shoah by bullets" is usually remembered by the activities of the 3,000 men in the SS Einsatzgruppen. As a result, the massacres carried out by the 11,000 men in twenty-one battalions of Ordnungspolizei, acting as a second wave well to the rear of the advancing armies, have often been overlooked.

 … there seems to have been no official indication at this stage of encouraging the murder of Jewish women and children.

The killing of Jewish males began as soon as the German armies crossed the Soviet frontier on 22 June [1941]. Many of the early massacres were carried out by Lithuanian and Ukrainian anti-semites, as [Reinhard] Heydrich had predicted. … the process became self-escalating. The original targets of "Jews in party and state positions" immediately expanded to include all male Jews of military age, then to all males regardless of age.

 … The "Shoah by gas" also had a haphazard development. … As several historians have emphasized, the Nazis' [earlier] euthanasia program provided not just the blueprint for the Final Solution, but also the foundation for their ideal of a racially and genetically pure society. … Only from the month of August [1941] did total genocide become standard, with Jewish women and children also killed en masse.

So, as it turns out, the Yellow Star debate (or outrage) fits just about as beautifully as any other "controversial" subject into Larry Correia's summary of the matter (via Instapundit):

THE LEFT WING INTERNET ARGUING CHECKLIST

1. Skim until Offended
2. Disqualify that Opinion
3. Attack, Attack, Attack
4. Disregard Inconvenient facts
5. Make Shit Up
6. Resort to Moral Equivalency
7. Concern Trolling
8. When all else fails, Racism!

As Kurt Schlichter writes (Danke schön to Ed Driscoll),

There’s an important lesson here for when the fake outrage weenies try to swarm you on social media. Never apologize, never explain, always mock. They suck, and they are nobodies.

Hundreds of thousands of untested migrants: Are Democrats a despotic gang of venal socialist thugs who are hell-bent on distributing the virus throughout our country in order to keep us infected and locked down?

What the heck is going on in this country?

asks American Thinker's Bob Weir (thanks to Sarah Hoyt).

As the Biden administration continues to peel away the accomplishments of his predecessor, what I hear most from family, friends, and social media posters is a fear that Democrats have become power-mad with their recent ascendancy to a majority position in the House and Senate.  They wonder if the current crop of radical officials is hell-bent on weakening, and ultimately destroying, the country that gave them those positions.  Beginning with reversing President Trump's southern border policies, which has led to an invasion of illegal aliens unprecedented in our history, to the shutdown of the Keystone pipeline, taking away our energy independence, and several other policy changes that adversely affect our safety and our economy, one has to suspect the motives of those in charge.

The wisdom of Occam's Razor seems to apply in this context.  Watching our country being led by folks who appear to be more concerned with getting revenge on Trump than with solving the problems facing this great republic meets the requirement of O.R. — that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. 

 … as we watch in horror as potentially millions of migrants from all over the world walk casually into our country, Democrats will look us in the face and say things are getting better.

Every time we think the delusional left can't get any crazier, these people come up with more abysmal notions that defy common sense and imperil more lives.  How about telling us how imperative it is for us to get vaccinated, wear masks, and engage in social distancing while they invite hundreds of thousands of untested migrants into our country and transport them to cities from coast to coast?  Does it take a conspiracy theorist to suggest that Democrats are distributing the virus throughout our country in order to keep us infected and locked down?  How else can the Biden administration explain why they are suing Texas to block Governor Abbott's executive order that allows state troopers to stop vehicles suspected of carrying illegal aliens because they may be spreading COVID-19?

Keep in mind that Texas is among the reddest states in the union, and Abbott is one of the most severe critics of Biden's handling of the southern invasion.  Biden wasted no time in stopping the construction of the border wall, another attempt to destroy a Trump campaign pledge.  It's become evident that Democrats have hatched a plot to create a constitutional crisis between the federal and state governments, but only against those states that didn't vote for Biden.  Has vengeance become the driving force behind every tactic employed by Democrats?  Has political rivalry reached a stage in which the winning parties are hell-bent on destroying their opponents?

In the middle of all this political hostility, the American people are captively watching a vindictive ping-pong match among the power elite who seem to have relegated us to insignificant victims of collateral damage.  Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas, 21st District) said it best on the floor of the House a few days ago: 

"The speaker says we must wear masks in the people's house, while we've got thousands of people pouring across our border, many of them heavily infected with COVID, and Democrats don't do a damn thing about it!  Mexican cartels are raping, pillaging, and transporting infected migrants into our country, and what does this institution do?  Tell us to wear masks in this chamber."

The congressman is expressing more than outrage.  He, like millions of other Americans, is wondering out loud what the heck is going on in this country.  It's clear that we're not being governed according to constitutional principles; we're being ruled by a despotic gang of venal socialist thugs who plan to hold onto their power in perpetuity, even if it means using the increasingly left-wing-indoctrinated military to accomplish their nefarious goals.

20 Years Later: Happy Birthday to Instapundit

What A LONG, STRANGE TRIP it has been, notes Glenn Reynolds as he reflects back on two decades of blogging on the 20th anniversary of Instapundit.

No Pasarán joins in the celebrations and the congratulations because our blog would never have made it so far (17 years), with so many posts, without Instapundit's guidance (along with the occasional Instalanche)… 

Related: Speaking of which… Entertainment (for the old-timers)
— Do You Know the Rules to the Instapundit Game?

The Horrific Treatment of Civilians During Japan's "Reign of Terror": Uncle Sam's 2 Atomic Bombings Prevented Unit 731 From Dropping Bubonic Plague Bombs on America; + 18 Other Reflections on Hiroshima

Among the many things we are not conversant with regarding World War II is the sheer number of Chinese civilians wiped out subsequent to the Doolittle raid on Tokyo. Try to imagine the number of Chinese "rebels" punished (killed) for providing solace to 80-some American stranded airmen whose war exploit they knew nothing about, and said exploit having in any case resulted in less than 90 Japanese deaths (although plenty of humiliation for the Land of the Rising Sun).

Do you think it might be about 25 Chinese civilians? 250? Perhaps 2,500? Certainly not 25,000? The answer is perhaps ten times that: close to a quarter of a million! Yes, you read that right: the Japanese army killed an estimated 250,000 Chinese civilians as punishment for aiding the escape of Doolittle’s Raiders from Chinese territory.

Indeed, Jimmy Doolittle himself opined that 

“That was perhaps the greatest tragedy of our mission. All of that horror was retribution against the Chinese for helping us…. They also exacted their revenge against our captured men, which I learned of later… The loss of those men has always stayed with me. When people ask about the atomic bombs and their justification, they come to mind.”

Is it any wonder that any number of World War II experts would come to the following conclusion: "The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal"? Indeed, said Victor Davis Hanson during a lecture, During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost.

Speaking of China under the Japanese Reign Of Terror, inhabitants in the Northern part of the Middle Kingdom would get to know firsthand that a Japanese army medical officer named Shiro Ishii was the Josef Mengele of Japan.

Moreover, while scientists North of Tokyo were working on Japan's own atomic bomb in Ishikawa, General Ishii's Unit 731 was using its biological weapons experiments on Manchurian and Chinese prisoners to prepare equally horrific weapons against America. Although not for use on their immediate foe, i.e., not on Uncle Sam's armed forces.

Ishii’s master plan, “Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night,” intended to use these weapons against the United States.

If this plan would’ve succeeded, about 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin would’ve been taken toward southern California in a submarine. They would’ve then manned an onboard plane and flown it to San Diego. And plague bombs would’ve then been dropped there in September 1945.

Thousands of disease-riddled fleas would’ve been deployed, as the troops took their own lives by crashing somewhere onto American soil.

However, America’s atomic bombings happened before this plan came to fruition.

More details in Inside Japan’s Plan To Bomb America With Bubonic Plague during World War II. In any case, the Firebombing of Tokyo killed more Japanese than the atomic bombs did. (Aligato to Ed Driscoll-San).

Let Sgt. Mom, the author of the WWII novel My Dear Cousin (obrigado to Sarah Hoyt), sum it up:

As for wartime feelings, Americans, Britons, Australians, Chinese and other participants, even the ‘inadvertent by reason of geography’ had no reason to think well of the Japanese who made bloody, brutal, and imperial war upon them and plenty of excellent reasons to think ill. A brief list of those reasons begins with the war in China, including the ‘rape of Nanking’ and similar atrocities, the attack on Pearl Harbor while diplomatic negotiations were underway, the opening of aggressive hostilities throughout the Pacific theater of operations, extreme brutalities inflicted on those with the misfortune of living in Japanese occupied countries, and the horrific treatment of interned civilians and captured military by the Japanese. The most charitable comment which one can make on this all is that at least they were ecumenical in administering barbaric treatment to all those unlucky to experience the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere at first hand.

Americans are, or at least used to be, conversant with the Bataan Death march, but that was just one of the gruesome atrocities against Allied POWs during the war front in the Pacific. Even ghastlier than the Bataan forced march of POWs was the Sandakan Death March, a series of forced marches which took place towards the end of the war on Borneo. Internees and POWs were forced by the retreating Japanese Army to abandon a massive camp at Sandakan airfield and retreat 160 miles through the jungle with them. Of 2,500 British and Australian POWs at the start of those marches, only six men survived by escaping during the confusion. 

Ritual cannibalism, medical experimentation on living prisoners, mass forced prostitution of women, the deliberate sinking of the AHS Centaur by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Brisbane, massacres of medical personnel and patients at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Singapore, mass executions of native military there and in Hong Kong, the execution of civilian and military personnel on Bangka Island, the executions of American POWs at Palawan towards the end of the war when all seemed to be lost for the Japanese, the horrific treatment and the death rates of impressed civilian laborers and POWs on the Burma-Siam railway, the wanton destruction of Manila… All of these and even uglier accounts of Japanese brutality were publicized in the last months and weeks of the war, just as the reality of German concentration and extermination camps emerged earlier in 1945. Knowledge of these horrors was why contemporary opinion approved with mild reservations the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even if many were startled by the suddenness of the events, baffled by the science, and apprehensive regarding the implications of atomic weapons.

A further element had to do with knowing how fanatical Japanese resistance had been in New Guinea, on Guadalcanal, on Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. An invasion of the Japanese home islands could only be much, much worse. And yet, planning for such an invasion went forward. Part of that planning involved a massive order of 1.5 million Purple Heart medals, in expectation of a huge number of American casualties. That backlog of medals was not drawn down sufficiently for another order until 2008; this after the end of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada and two wars in Gulf and the many pinprick casualties from random terrorism over the following seven decades. Knowing that the cost in blood and human lives would be almost unbearably high for a ground invasion of Japan, among the invading troops, the defending Japanese and the hapless Japanese civilians, the choice for atomic bombing was a necessary albeit cruel calculation. Japanese cities were being pounded unmercifully by American bombing, with destruction and death by many conventional bombs equal to a single atomic bomb … 

I’m on the side of those historians who believe that turning segments of Nagasaki and Hiroshima into radioactive glass saved lives. A cruel calculation, but one which saved the lives of Allied soldiers who would otherwise have died in an invasion, the lives of Japanese civilians who would have been thrown into the maelstrom and saved the lives of prisoners and internees all across the Japan-occupied territories who were about two weeks from being killed by starvation or hours and minutes of being murdered outright.

Imagine, if you will; how it would have gone if President Truman had let the invasion of Japan go ahead – with all the casualties; the massive deaths of soldiers, civilians, prisoners, and internees … and then finding out that all that torment could have been avoided by dropping two bombs on Japanese cities (cities already being systematically destroyed by conventional bombing). 

No, the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, as many of these historical choices come down to – the least worst choice of the lot. This is why practically everyone who would have had a real stake in this choice – their lives, the lives of those whom they loved and who would now survive because of it – heaved a sigh of relief at the outcome of a mushroom-shaped cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A perilous choice and one with regrets attached. Because of that decision, they and the ones whom they loved – would live.

Related:
• Hiroshima 15: Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan (Erik Svane) 

• Hiroshima 17: During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost (Victor Davis Hanson) 

• Hiroshima 18: The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal (Trent Telenko)

• Hiroshima 14: "I regard Hiroshima revisionism as the greatest hoax in American history" (Robert Maddox)

• Hiroshima 13: Although It Is Not Said Openly, Hiroshima Also Played a Purifying Role, IE the Baptism of a New Japan, the Event that Put an End to 50 Years of Crimes (Le Monde)

• Hiroshima 12: Political Correctness in Japan: The comment "tramples on the feelings of victims", so… Shut the F**k Up and Lose Your Job! (re the forced resignation of Japan's defense (!) minister)

• Hiroshima 11: If Western elites cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all; most never learned the narrative of WWII, only what was wrong about it (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Hiroshima 10: If Not for the Atom Bombs, Japan, as we know it today, would not exist (S L Sanger, author of “Working on the Bomb”)

• Hiroshima 9: Over one million warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities 5 days before the Hiroshima bombing (Bill Whittle)

• Hiroshima 8: Was It Wrong to Use the Atom Bomb on Japan? (Father Wilson Miscamble)

• Hiroshima 7: Some Facts About Hiroshima and World War II That You Hear Neither From America's MSM, University Élites, and History Books, Nor From Japan's (New York Times)

• Hiroshima 16: Did Japan's top officers know a bomber was approaching Nagasaki, 5 hours beforehand, and do nothing?

• Hiroshima 6: "Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing" (a Japanese American)

• Hiroshima 5: Japan's plans for defense involved mobilizing the civilian population, including women and children, for the customary suicidal battle tactics (Thomas Sowell)

• Hiroshima 4: "Les 300 000 morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires" (Charles de Gaulle)

• Hiroshima 3: A mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (Wall Street Journal)

• Hiroshima 2: Hand-wringing over Hiroshima is just virtue-signaling by people who never said a bad word about Stalin or Mao’s mass murders (Glenn Reynolds)

• Hiroshima 1: Unlike the ends of the majority of conflicts, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (Erik Svane)

Treacher: Them "Rules Wouldn't Keep Changin' If You Peasants Just Did What You're Told at That Particular Moment"

"The Rules Wouldn't Keep Changing If You Peasants Just Did What You're Told at That Particular Moment" quips Jim Treacher (thanks to Ed Driscoll) as he imagines how our betters think:

We got some new COVID-19 rules yesterday. They were different than the rules we got the day before that, and I assume they’re different than the rules we’ll get tomorrow.

To recap:

1. Absolutely do not wear a mask

2. You must, must, must wear a mask or you’re killing Grandma

3. Don’t leave the house or you’re killing Grandma

4. If you can’t avoid leaving the house, stay at least six feet away from any other human being you see or you’re killing Grandma

5. Wash your hands 20 times a day

6. Do not touch your face or anything else, ever

7. Get vaccinated so you don’t have to wear a mask

8. You have to wear a mask even if you’re vaccinated

9. When the above rules change, and then change back, and then change back again, shut up about it or you’re a stupid MAGA-head

10. Don’t forget to vote Democrat!

In a more serious vein, Claremont's Jeffrey H. Anderson posits that Faceless people make compliant subjects, not good citizens (thanks to Instapundit). 

 … rule by public health officials, under which we increasingly live today, encourages excessive risk-aversion and almost transforms cowardice into a virtue. … Human beings were meant to feel the sun and wind on their faces, not a (potentially moist) piece of fabric. 

 … All of this helps to answer the blithe question so frequently posed by mask enthusiasts: what’s the big deal? It is a very big deal. Masks hide from view the familiar faces, infectious smiles, and warm glances that bring light and color to everyday life. To dismiss this loss so cavalierly is to devalue human warmth and sociability in a remarkably callous way. 

 … In sum, not only do masks apparently not work as advertised, they are uncomfortable and unhygienic. They obscure our humanity and undermine our children’s development. They prevent us from seeing the emotions, sensibilities, and affections of others, or sharing our own. They limit communication and erode understanding. They profoundly compromise human interaction and substantially reduce our quality of life.

In the meantime, the Babylon Bee sees fit to bring us this gem of an editorial: To Convince The Unvaccinated, We Need To Scream At Them That They're Brainwashed Morons And We Hope They Die… 

 … how do you convince someone to go against a deeply held belief? It’s hard to say, but I know how I want to convince someone: screaming at them how dumb they are until they change their ways. 

 … If we are to save everyone from this pandemic, we have to find all the people who aren’t vaccinated and scream at them as loudly and as angrily as we can. Remember: The louder and angrier you are, the more right you sound and the more likely you are to convince people.

Vichy Republicans and Other Useful Idiots: If conservatives seek liberty, and our opposition seeks tyranny, it's foolish to think we can compromise — and immoral to try

For the love of God, shouts John Green to RINOs and to all manner of Republicans, Christians, and other conservatives (obrigado para Sarah Hoyt), Get your priorities straight!

While the likes of Liz Cheney, Peggy Noonan, Jonah Goldberg, and Mike Pence insist on "principles" and standing against Donald Trump, why on Earth can't they see that the Leftists do not share the same principles and will not — not ever — return the favor? Never will they return the favor to people that the Drama Queens see as nothing but evil. (This explains my post summarizing The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A world of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables.) 

Why can't they open their eyes to what a bleak one-party state the Compassion Cult™ is promising? Why — why on Earth — are Conservatives So Naïve That They Refuse to See the Beam in the Eye of Those Who Hate Their Very Existence? Can Liz, Peggy, Mike, and Jonah really not see that inside of a month, Democrats redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy? 

Can Liz, Peggy, Mike, and Jonah really not see that Leftists who spent four years role-playing as “the Resistance” against a “stolen election” suddenly started telling us dissent and resistance were treason? To take one of the four (or Mitt Romney), quoting The Lid, “It Is Clear That Cheney Cares More About Earning Praise From Nancy Pelosi And The Corporate Press More Than She Cares About Fighting To Save Our Country From The [Democrats’] Socialist Agenda.”

Listen to John Green's arguments:

Losing [the 2000 election] in such a narrow fashion was too much for the Democrats to cope with.  In their rage, they went insane.

The Democrat party has always had radical elements.  But up until 2001, the party had mostly kept them at bay.  In that year, surrendering to their insanity, they welcomed the guidance of radical leftists — and the purges began.  With primary challenges, the leftists began driving moderates from the Democrat party.  They even forced Joe Liebermann out of the party — and he had been their vice presidential candidate in the election of 2000.  A mere 20 years after that devastating election loss, the likes of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar are now the soul of the party.  The Democrats no longer share any meaningful common ground with Republicans.

After the leftists had taken over the Democrat party, the attacks on Republicans changed.  There was even a political commercial that portrayed Congressman Paul Ryan pushing a wheelchair-bound grandmother off a cliff.  They were no longer arguing that Republican policies were wrong.  They were arguing that all Republicans were evil.  In classic fashion, their war preparations had begun.  The Democrats were dehumanizing their enemy.

And then, before audiences of thousands, Barack Obama called Republicans the enemy.  The Republicans were no longer the opposition — now they were the enemy.  The Democrats weren't interested in working with Republicans.  Their objective was to destroy the Republicans — and they made no secret of it.  Even when Republicans offered to work with the Democrats, they were told, "We won.  You lost."  The war between right and left is now out in the open for all to see.  A New York Times reporter even referred to Trump supporters as "enemies of the state."  Whether the political right wishes to admit it or not, the left has made its intentions clear — these people are at war with Republicans and their conservative fellow travelers.

Republicans in general, and RINOs in particular, need to wake up and realize that the Steele dossier, Crossfire Hurricane, and two impeachments were not about Trump.  None of this was done because The Donald sends mean tweets.  These attacks were done because he had denied them their "rightful victory."  He dashed their dream to become our unchallenged rulers.  Does anyone believe that had Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, or Jeb Bush been elected, he would have been spared similar attacks?  When Mitt Romney (their ideal Republican) ran in 2012, was he spared?  The Democrats would not have extended a hand of cooperation to any Republican president.  They would have extended the same clenched fist which they presented to Donald Trump.

Since President Asterisk's inauguration (we know he was inaugurated; we don't know if he was elected), the attacks have escalated.  The Democrats, and their leftist allies, are determined to never allow another conservative to dethrone them.  Observation of their tactics reveals that there is no limit beyond which they will not go to retain power.  They are seeking to:

• Silence political opposition
• Pack the Supreme Court
• Weaponize government against its citizens
• Nationalize elections and institutionalize election fraud
• Indoctrinate our children
• Manage the population with propaganda
• Suppress our freedom of speech
• Restrict our freedom of assembly (religious and political)
• Eliminate our right to self-defense
• Ally their party with rioters and looters

In short, they're willing to destroy the American dream to retain power.  That will require tyranny — which they are quite comfortable with as long as they're the tyrants.  If you doubt that statement, recall that Joe Biden's inaugural address was the first in U.S. history delivered solely to an armed military contingent.  If given their way, leftists will turn America into Cuba of the North — with their ally the Democrat party.

If conservatives seek liberty, and our opposition seeks tyranny, it's foolish to think we can compromise — and immoral to try.  Every Republican needs to realize that the time for compromise is past.  Democrats allow Republican participation only when it supports their bipartisan narrative.  Negotiating a bipartisan infrastructure bill doesn't serve the American people.  It shows support for those who are trying tbleak o oppress our liberties.  To think we can fight them on the oppression front but find common ground for infrastructure is wrong-headed.  It's the modern-day equivalent of the "he makes the trains run on time" rationalization.  Listen up, RINOs: if they are trying to destroy America, we don't care if a few bridges get fixed — get your priorities straight.

This brings us to the Vichy Republicans — AKA the "Pelosi Republicans."  Whether through stupidity, vanity, or sympathy, they are helping the enemies of liberty.  San Fran Nan's January 6 inquisition includes only those Republicans who will reliably support the Democrat narrative — and specifically excludes any Republicans who would ask hard questions.  It's not a true investigation.  It's political theater, with Republican useful idiots as the star performers.  

It's time to end the charade of comity.  The left will accuse conservatives of being extremists.  But as Barry Goldwater famously said, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.  Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue."  It's time to defend liberty with the same passion that leftists have employed in imposing Marxism.

The past six months have been a time for Republicans to choose — and they have.  Some have chosen liberty, while others are enabling tyranny.  Some stood as patriots, and suffered for it, while others chose to be Vichy and stand with the oppressors.  Now the electorate will judge the Vichy.  Next year, the voters will decide whether to reward or punish them for their treachery.

Related:
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party

• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?

• The Mote in Thine Own Eye: Why Are Conservatives So Naïve That They Refuse to See the Beam in the Eye of Those Who Hate Their Very Existence?

• How to Reply If You Are Being Badgered by Leftists Insisting that You Accept the 2020 Outcome as Fair'n'Square (based on Americans Anonymous)

• Leftists' Abhorrent Behavior: The Democrat Party seeks to demonize, criminalize, and extinguish dissent from the 75 million supporters of Donald Trump" 

• Voter Fraud — A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"

• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored

• The Take of Bill Maher's Coronavirus Expert Guests Happens to Apply Perfectly to the 2020 Election 

• One of Erik's French TV appearances: 99% of the Capitol Protestors Were Entirely Peaceful, as Were 99% of the Group Which Entered the Premises 

• Stare Decisis: The Areas that Precedent Is Not Supposed to Include and Be Concerned With 

• How Would Reagan React to the November Election's Voter Fraud and the Riots of 2020? How About Abe Lincoln? • What judge will stick his neck out for Trump knowing he'll be destroyed in the media as a violent mob burns down his house? Judges have families, too