Andrew Sullivan, the Cicero of the republic of gay, finally observes that the empire of transqueer means to abolish him . . . and biological sex for everyone

From his essay here:

 

[Judith] Butler and the TQ+ movement are trapped by their logic into being homophobic: they have to deny that gay men can exist at all, because men cannot exist at all, unless they include women in the definition of man. 

 

That’s why the Trevor Project, the massively-funded TQ+ organization, now tells troubled young gay kids that a gay man is defined as someone who has sex with biological women as well as with men. A gay man is not attracted to the same “sex” but to the same “gender” and that now includes biological women. Trevor has abolished homosexuality! ...

 

In the postmodern world where we invent reality hour by hour, depending on how we feel, being gay now includes heterosexual sex — and by far the biggest group in the “LGBTQIA+” umbrella are bisexual women in relationships with straight men. At some point, gay men will wake up and realize that they have abolished their own identity — indeed merged it into its opposite. ...

 

queer theory’s core pioneers — Michel Foucault, Gayle Rubin, and Patrick Califia — all once defended adults fucking kids. Foucault defended sex with infants. This is not extraneous to queer theory; it is intrinsic to it. The point of queer theory is that there are no limiting principles. Defending the integrity, dignity and safety of children makes you un-queer. It’s a label I will gladly wear. ...

 

The truth is: we have come a long way in understanding and respecting the unique human experience of being transgender. In the US, trans people are protected by the gold standard of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They are everywhere in our popular culture. An entire generation has even been told that being trans is the most glamorous thing you could possibly be. But none of this is sufficient for the transqueers. What they want is an abolition of biological sex for everyone; the end of men and of women as separate categories; the sex reassignment of children on demand; the destruction of the nuclear family; an end to the Hippocratic Oath; the abolition of homosexuality; the presence of male bodies in women’s showers, prisons and shelter; the creation of fantastical post-everything genders and pronouns; and the criminalization of anyone who would ever question this cultural revolution. 

 

Revolutions always come for their most ardent supporters eventually.

 

Think Leon Trotsky, Thomas Paine, and now Andrew Sullivan. 

Progressive lunatic Jamin Ben Raskin wants America to memorialize Thomas Paine as our greatest founding father lol

 It's no mystery why Paine came to be shunned by the founders. He was a radical, anti-Christian kook, kind of like Jamie Raskin.

Story here.

Gold bug Ralph Benko thinks Richard Nixon had to resign over the closing of the gold window!

I like Ralph Benko. Ralph Benko often makes important arguments on behalf of the gold standard. But when he tries to force everything in the universe to be interpreted through the lens of it you know you have met an ideologue who has become unhinged from reality. Which is why Forbes is a good place for him.

His latest screed here is a mere flight of fantasy, imagining Richard Nixon was forced to resign over the closing of the gold window in 1971. Had he presented it as such, it would have entertained and illumined, even pleased. Instead, its talk of correlation only annoys, the way a chart reader plots two things on a graph and yells 'See! See! They both go up together!' Against Benko, Pat Buchanan may be forgiven for ignoring what didn't exist, just as Nixon's enemies ignored it, except in the fever camps of utopianism.

Benko makes Thomas Paine's opinions about gold a prophecy reaching 200 years into the future where gold becomes Nemesis and the end of Bretton Woods Hubris. Covering up Watergate? Well, simply an instrumental little detail:

"The House Judiciary Committee’s charges and the Connally indictment uncannily fulfill a prophecy by Tom Paine. ... Connally was acquitted on the charges of graft and perjury.  Later he underwent bankruptcy before dying in semi-disgrace.  Nixon resigned rather than undergoing impeachment, also living out his life in disgraced political exile.   The spirit of Paine’s declaration was fulfilled in both cases. Connally and Nixon engineered this violation, abandoning the good, precious-metal, money contemplated by the Constitution. Nemesis followed hubris. The closing of the 'gold window' was based, by Connolly, on deeply wrong premises.  It was sold to the public, by Nixon, on deeply false promises."

Methinks Tom Paine himself would be a little embarrassed at the almost religious regard with which some of his present day followers come to what he has left behind for us on paper.

He'd probably call them Burkeans.

Preparing Our Hearts For Christmas, With George Washington and Thomas Paine

From Paine's December 23, 1776 The American Crisis, which Washington had read aloud to his troops as they prepared to attack Trenton on Christmas:

Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.


Enjoy it all, here.

"The Sons of Liberty and Nullification of State Power"

The nullification of the power of the British state during the American "Revolution" actually prevented a revolution as far as the founders were concerned. The only thing revolutionary going on was Britain's attempt to deny the colonies their chartered rights as Englishmen.

(Click here for the source)

In 1765 the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act. This act was applicable to Britain's North American colonies. The act called for a one cent tax on all newspapers, wills, codicils, manifests, contracts, paper, glass, lead and paint. The act was part of a larger plan of the British government to tighten its hold on its American colonies after the Seven Years War with France, which ended in 1763. The object of this essay is to give a history lesson. This lesson has been lost, but provides an excellent example of what an oppressed and determined people can do to resist tyrannical government power and actions.

What did the colonists do? They did two very important things. They formed into secret organizations like the Sons of Liberty, and they forcibly resisted and nullified the Stamp Act. Yes, I said "nullify". This word makes statists the world over gasp with trepidation. Through the actions of the Sons of Liberty, protests, mass meetings, inflammatory news articles, and sometimes violence were employed to thoroughly disable and nullify the act. Many conspiracy theorists will also gasp and fret that the birth of the American Revolution was started by a secret society. Yes, the Sons eventually came out publicly, but even today we do not know their full membership. Let's examine some of their tactics.

Secret Meetings

In Boston, Newport, New York, New Haven, Ct, Savannah, Ga, Philadelphia and Charleston men calling themselves "Sons of Liberty" (after the name given to the colonists by Colonel Issac Barre in the British Parliament) organized themselves to resist the hated Stamp Act. Many of these men came from the upper classes, but a large section of them came from the colonial middle and lower classes. In these meetings they vowed to oppose the Stamp Act and prevent it from being enforced in America, effectively nullifying it. Stamp collectors were threatened, beaten, tarred and feathered, harrassed, and in some cases had their property destroyed. Many were made to sign pledges to refuse to collect the tax, and were threatened to be labeled "enemies to their country" if they didn't reject their new positions. Many Marxist historians, while praising the resistance of the Sons of Liberty, condemn them as rich white men who only cared about their own liberty. Of course in any mass movement there will be people who are myopic and concerned only with their own interests. To broadly paint the leaders of these secret societies as selfish only furthers the Marxist myth of class warfare. The fact is, no revolution can survive without leadership. This leadership generally comes from the upper and middle classes, and all revolutions up to our day have proven this. What revolutionary leaders cannot do is continue any revolution without the mass support of the populace. Let's examine this further.

Support of the Masses

When one truly examines the American Revolution it is apparent that it was a mass movement of the colonial population. Murray Rothbard, in his four volume history of the American colonies, Conceived in Liberty, details this in full. Men in the Sons of Liberty, Masonic Lodges, and colonial churches lead the charge, but it was the people who made the Revolution possible. From 1765 through 1776 the American people were subjected to increasing tyranny from the British establishment in America. Higher taxes, impressment of sailors, nepotism in the colonial governments, dual officeholding, enforcement of mercantilist laws, like the Navigation Acts, suspension of several legislatures, particularly New York and Massachusetts, and the keeping of a standing military in the midst of the civilian population all contributed to the restiveness of the colonial population. The Boston Tea Party, the burning of the British warship Gaspee in Rhode Island, tarring and feathering of royal officials, threats and protests against Stamp agents, are just a few examples of the actions of the people. The people were lead by men like Samuel Adams, Charles Thomson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Warren, John Adams, most of whom were members of secret societies like the Masons and Sons of Liberty. These men lead the populace in nullifying the power of the British government in America.

The Nullification of British Power

Throughout the period of the American Revolution, royal governors and officials routinely complained about the violence of the populace and how their authority was threatened by the revolutionaries. They recognized that their power was slowly evaporating. They saw laws like the Stamp Act repealed due to pressure and threats, the Townshend duties resisted by nonimportation agreements, mass meetings in defiance of law, and confrontations with soliders, like the Boston Massacre, and colonial assemblies asserting their power. This nullification movement was lead by secret societies like the Sons of Liberty, behind closed doors. Masonic lodges met and developed plans and agreements for their members to utilize for resistance. Leaders met in taverns and coffeehouses to discuss resistance measures and plot, yes plot, future actions. These combinations effectively nullified and eviscerated British power. We could learn from their examples. Americans should use non violent means to resist the following:

1) Any attempt to submerge the USA into a North American Union with Canada and Mexico

2) A war with Iran

3) Increased power for the UN or WTO

4) Continued abuse of eminent domain

5) Fascistic measures destroying American liberties

6) Any gun control legislation

7) Any attempt to increase the power of the federal government

8)Any attempt to institute a draft or civilian conscription

9) Any law or act that further restricts liberty

10)Any attempt by the federal government to suppress a secession movement within the USA

11) Further evisceration of our constitutional rights and liberties (particularly the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments). The Bush Administration's attack on attorney-client privilege is particularly appalling.

I am in no way advocating any violence. I do not believe that we are at that stage. Non violent protest and action should always be a first step.

The New Stasi

The Stasi was the feared and ruthless secret police of the German Democratic Republic, or more appropriately, Communist East Germany. In America today the neocon rightwing and leftist groups are building a new despotism in our nation of liberty. In the growing power of the Federal government are the building blocks of a new Stasi, so to speak. The FBI, DIA, ATF, and DOJ are amassing great power through laws like the PATRIOT Act, The Real ID Act, and the definition of some American prisoners as "enemy combatants". People may laugh, joke or wave my comments aside as paranoia, but the building of this massive power structure is real. A new "Sons of Liberty" type movement is needed.

Liberty and freedom are not free. Both are typically destroyed by the overpowering hand of the state. It doesn't matter if you are rightwing, leftwing or libertarian. Our freedoms are ours to have, not government's to grant.

POSTED BY DL AT 7:58 AM

FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2008