“I’ve come back. Give me a drink, Brother Kipling. Don’t you know me?” – The Man Who Would Be King
I guess I should be sorry about telling all those the bad yolks now.
Wednesday is usual the “wealthy” part of Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. Why? Because it starts with W.
Duh.
But I can’t this week. I normally like to talk to the deeper issues, the longer trends, and those timeless aspects of the human condition. There is more than a little evidence that we’ve been, in one way or another, been two sides fighting for thousands of years across a gulf between two factions. One is open, and the wellspring of Western Civilization.
The other is one that, for lack of a better allusion, is best represented by the worst aspects of Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings (reprinted at the end of this, because it’s old enough that Disney® doesn’t own it, it’s wonderful, and it’s True) – that implacable urge to move away from those values that emphasize what is Good, Beautiful, Right and True to placate what Kipling called “The Gods of the Marketplace”. It is a battle that provides humanity amazing wealth, meaning, and prosperity when The Gods of the Copybook Headings win.
Spoiler alert: The Gods of the Copybook Headings always win.
One signpost in the road downward is the raid on Donald Trump. The word that people are using is “unprecedented” and they’re using it for a reason. It is unprecedented. As I went upstairs a moment ago, the news on the radio was insisting that Joe Biden had “no idea” what was going to happen.
The Mrs. remarked, well, it starts with “Bull”. You get the idea. If Biden didn’t know about this, then the system is horribly broken. If he did, the system is horribly corrupt.
What’s Biden’s favorite musical group? The Who?
Do I believe a former president should be above the law?
I certainly do not. But unless the FBI® found a dead stripper or a live boy in the safe, it ain’t enough. As much as the Clintons were corrupt and literally stole items out of the White House, there was no real push to have them arrested. Sure, Bill was impeached, and sure, because he perjured himself he could no longer practice law. That was about it.
And I’m okay with that. Even Nixon, who took part in a conspiracy and looked like, well, Nixon, was pardoned. Why?
Because Nixon was politically neutered and could never take part in the public sphere again in any consequential manner. He was humiliated enough that the Left could enjoy it. Bill was humiliated, but (unlike Nixon) was he decided he’d try to bilk millions (and bimbos) out of those that wanted to buy influence with his political machine.
What toothpaste did Nixon use? Colgate®.
It is clear that every president since (and certainly including!) FDR has likely committed multiple felonies in office. It’s our system. Some, because they were not good guys. Some simply because there are more felonies on the books than hairs that were implanted in Biden’s head. The Federal way is now the way that the Soviets liked it – as Lavrenty Beria, former head of the Soviet NKVD and GULAG architect extraordinaire said, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”
Now, Trump.
In every case during his presidency, he has been the boogie man for the Left – the man that gives them I accidently killed John Wick’s dog-level night sweats. Why?
I’m not sure. Even though he couldn’t build a wall, Trump certainly upset the apple cart. Perhaps his singular achievement as president was to return the Supreme Court into a court that could actually read the Constitution in plain English again. The Constitution was written the way it was, for common men. It was written that way so that nearly every man in the United States could read it and understand the plain language. I mean, today they’d do it with angry cat memes, but you get the picture.
Given hundreds of years, the language was buried in a stream of emanations and penumbras such that what was clearly the written language of the Constitution became ignored in favor of piles of case law that in some cases twisted the original meaning nearly 180°. The Fourteenth Amendment, so beloved by the Left, turned a series of prohibitions on Federal activity into a prohibition on activity by the Several States.
When Ma Wilder caught me with a copy of the Constitution, I told I only read it for the articles.
Why is this important?
Because it became a weapon of the statists, of those that would become globalists to use as a club so that the centralized government that the Founders feared could be put in place. Now every Federal law could be pushed into the Several States with impunity. Horrible Federal bureaucracies could be put in place. I remember reading that OSHA (which regulates workplace safety) was challenged in court by a company in Maine.
The company in Maine argued that they only worked in Maine, digging a hole for people who lived in Maine, in Maine. What business was it of a Federal Administration that sounds like the noise I make when a cigar ash hits my bare chest? Why did anyone care that the Maine hole didn’t match what a government rule written in Washington D.C. said?
The Federal prosecutor didn’t even refute the argument. The administrative (not Constitutional) judge in this case ruled against the guy from Maine, since the judge said, “they have a phone and use the mail” so they’re engaged in interstate commerce.
Really. It’s a nonsense ruling, like you’d see in Alice in Wonderland but involving people who hated their lives but who were just “doing their job”. In 2022, for the first time in my life, this sort of nonsensical reasoning is being challenged at the Supreme Court level.
Go ask Hunter, when he’s at the mall.
And they hate Trump for it. They hate him with every fiber of their being, even more than they hate Vladimir “Putler” or people who don’t take the vaxx or people who would deny teachers the right to indoctrinate kindergarteners into the world of S&M. They hate it more than they hate people who won’t kill their babies.
For that, Trump must be punished.
Is it rational? Not at all. They’re willing to destroy the Republic for that, because they want to destroy the Republic anyway. There are those on the Right that are accelerationists: anything that brings on the actual shooting war with the Left should be embraced. On the Left, there are accelerationists, too. Anything that can pull down another statue, anything that can pervert another value, anything that can make the legacy of the United States die is to be saluted.
Really. They hate it so very much, and Trump has been an inconvenient speedbump along the way.
So, their most fervent fantasy is Trump in an orange jumpsuit, whereas the most fervent fantasy of the Right was Hillary being an impotent drunk wine aunt staring from the outside in at a party she could never be a part of. Sure, the crowds at the Trump rally chanted “Lock Her Up” but what they really wanted was her humiliation.
The Right got it, and then some.
Hillary tried to sell her soul to Satan to become president, but Satan responded and said that was like Bill trying to sell his virginity.
Perhaps that was what drove them over the edge into insanity. Again, they want the destruction of the United States, so, they’re cool with that. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I’m not really sure what bizarre fantasy plays in their heads as they contemplate the collapsing economic system and the utter lack of any shared goals or morality. Perhaps it’s a rainbow, though I doubt they’ll understand that the only actual consequence that they can really have is one that will lead to. But Rudyard Kipling understood it, every bit of it.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
by Rudyard Kipling
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper protestations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘The Wages of Sin is Death/’
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you don’t work you die.’
The Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Good article. However I think you missed this one :
the most fervent fantasy of the Right was Hillary being an impotent drunk wine aunt staring from the outside in at a party she could never be a part of.
My most fervent fantasy is considerably more ‘graphic’ than that.
Well, okay. You’ve got me there. But it is (really) the most poetic end. It would even be better if she lived to a thousand years old, never having any real power.
After discovering The Gods of the Copybook Headings about 25 or so years ago, I made it part of my daily walks with my dog. Reciting it brings me peace of mind in these and those troubling times as I realize those wise words apply to mine and all human lives.
It’s a good one, that will (again and again) be proven correct.
Remember playing dodgeball in public school, before it was deemed too violent? The way you would line up and wait to be chosen for this team or that? Eventually there was no one left standing on the wall; both sides had firmed up who they wanted with them, and the wall was empty.
That seems to be where we are now. Anyone who agrees with CNN or The View or Robert De Niro listens to them when they talk. Those who do not, don’t. Any they won’t be anytime soon, either; the left has made their lunacy not just undeniably clear, but intrinsic. Thus, there are no places left in the middle; it’s one side or the other.
Since there seems to be no moderate position left with any legitimacy, and there seems equally to be no hope of reconciliation or dialogue between the two sides, the only thing left to await is the opening of kinetic hostilities.
If history is a teacher of any worth, this is where things are going, unless some term of this equation or other is substantively changed (or a new one introduced, or an existing one removed). This is regrettable, but, seemingly, necessary. There is no other means by which a conclusion may be reached, since all the usual avenues have been successively closed off to us, such that their normal utility has been rendered ineffective.
So much for the checks and balances that were designed to prevent these outcomes. It has only taken a century or more for them to be defeated, such was their solidity in conception. And now we are come to it.
Savour the time that remains, for these will indeed be seen as the good old days. It won’t be long now.
God Bless America, and those who would stand with Her.
Mike in Canada
And this is precisely why I’m an accelerationist. Every year, we grow fewer, older, weaker, poorer. Every year, our mortal and moral enemies grow stronger and richer. They import millions of hostile aliens each and every year and indoctrinate our own children against us to their cause.
There are fewer whites in the USA now than there were 50 years ago. And a third of them are traitors.
At least a third and another third are useful only as meatshields.
I had a great boss who had a saying – “Breakdowns lead to breakthroughs.” Guess that’s where we are . . .
How true. We’re not dealing with rational people. They want Doctor Zhivago II and will say it’s wonderful, despite they’re slowly starving to death, both physically and spiritually.
They do. It’s our job to keep the light of what is good and true burning. I think we can.
I do like Kipling’s poems, and that is one of his best. I found a musical version you may like, music by Doug Moreland: https://youtu.be/ZhwjcDX41zk
If the Supreme Court is successful in returning more and more rights to the States and the people, we may be able to maintain the Union of States, even if the States differ much more wildly from each other than they do now. But increasing State-level differentiation looks like a very difficult task under the best conditions – and economic dangers are all around.
I picture a safecracker, dialing open a safe by ear, while on the tracks ahead of an uncontrolled train barreling down on. It’s probably just going to be a wreck.
Kipling was one of the best. I like the music! He sings better than I do. And plays better, too.
A Union of States might be better. Or it might be the Balkans. But we’re headed to something different, and soon.
Great as always! Only one quibble. You say “If Biden didn’t know about this, then the system is horribly broken. If he did, the system is horribly corrupt.” I say, “The system is *occupied*.” It is working as intended — *against us.*
Well said, a very appropriate turn of phrase.
Agreed. Occupied America. The FICUS did not know because he had dementia.
So *both* broken and corrupt.
I love this one/TY v much
Thank you!!! Kipling did the heavy lifting, though.
This usually ends with a huge amount of people doing everything they can to get rid of their pesky neighbors. That, and those with the most wealth and power watching the show from their safe estates. Maybe it will be different this time. I sure hope so.
Relax. They always get around to the estates, once the city is sealed off.
Then the tumbrels and guillotining starts in earnest.
Like day follows night.
They do have islands. But the system is fundamentally broken. So, it will fail – and I’m not sure that they’re part of the solution – hopefully the new founders figure that out.
As always it is important to reiterate the most pertinent fact about Trump. They don’t hate Trump, they hate who Trump represents to them: normal White people. It isn’t Trump that they hate, it’s us.
well, Arthur; love your blog and your wit, but “they” do hate Trump, for the same reasons they hate the Bill of Rights, AR 15s, and of course white people. We are in their way, and their ridiculous idea of Leftardia cannot be realized because of… us.
We are more than a thorn in their side, or a stone in their fancy shoes (I would have said “burr under their saddle” but they have no concept…) The anger and outrage over the stupid (being kind) raid on Trump’s home is hopefully the bridge too far.
And I agree with McChuck – every year we get fewer, weaker, poorer – while they giggle ‘nothing will happen’. Which would be our ultimate failure for our descendants. The perceptive of us know there’s going to be a fight. As Pete has said “let’s win”. They’ve already labeled us “domestic terrorists”, so in the words of a white American hero, Alan Sheppard; “light this candle”. I’m not getting younger, and I’m not leaving the mess created on our watch for my kids and grandkids. They rub our faces in their corruption, daring us to do something… well then, let’s party.
Original Grandpa
It is. He’s just too close to what they hate the most. What they’ll eventually get will be much worse.
Why would the criminals in power tell Pedo Joe they were going to have their American Gestapo nee FBI raid Mar A Lago. It’s not as if he’s actually in charge. All Slow Joe wants is a fresh pair of Depends, a pudding pop and a ten year old to sniff. Telling him before hand would simply risk having him blurt out the plan prematurely. The people making all these decisions are UNELECTED, UNACCOUNTABLE and mostly ANONYMOUS. Neither Biden and the cackler Heels Up Harris were elected…. they were installed, like a toilet seat. They are in place to serve as scapegoats, convenient faces for the ignorant and gullible to blame. When necessary they will be replaced. The people actually running EVERYTHING aren’t a part of the Fed Gov. They are above it.
I think Garland is a cut-out to take the fall. I think they’re deadly afraid of Trump’s using this to increase his power – heaven knows that man feeds on adversity.
You state: “that the centralized government that the Founders feared could be put in place. Now every Federal law could be pushed into the Several States with impunity. Horrible Federal bureaucracies could be put in place” and by so writing, it seems you are unaware of some relevant history – as are most Americans. The Federalists – the Wall Street crowd, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, designed it precisely that way, Some prescient writing from 1787:
“We have frequently endeavored to effect in our respective states, the happy discrimination which pervades this system; but finding we could not bring the states into it individually, we have determined … and have taken pains to leave the legislature of each free and independent state, as they now call themselves, in such a situation that they will eventually be absorbed by our grand continental vortex, or dwindle into petty corporations, and have power over little else than yoking hogs or determining the width of cart wheels. But (aware that an intention to annihilate state legislatures, would be objected to our favorite scheme) we have made their existence (as a board of electors) necessary to ours. This furnishes us and our advocates with a fine answer to any clamors that may be raised on this subject. We have so interwoven continental and state legislatures that they cannot exist separately; whereas we in truth only leave them the power of electing us, for what can a provincial legislature do when we possess the exclusive regulation of external and internal commerce, excise, duties, imposts, post-offices and roads; when we and we alone, have the power to wage war, make peace, coin money (if we can get bullion) if not, borrow money, organize the militia and call them forth to execute our decrees, and crush insurrections assisted by a noble body of veterans subject to our nod, which we have the power of raising and keeping even in the time of peace. What have we to fear from state legislatures or even from states, when we are armed with such powers, with a president at our head? (A name we thought proper to adopt in conformity to the prejudices of a silly people who are so foolishly fond of a Republican government, that we were obliged to accommodate in names and forms to them, in order more effectually to secure the substance of our proposed plan; but we all know that Cromwell was a King, with the title of Protector). …” http://resources.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/Constitutional/AntiFederalist/09.htm
The Anti-Federalists included Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Mason, and it might be a good idea to review the Anti-Federalist Papers in whole, they predicted the present state of affairs which the Federalist Constitution of 1787 was designed to bring about – and has – http://resources.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/Constitutional/AntiFederalist/antifed.htm
Get a grip.
We may have that present state of affairs, and worse yet to come.
That someone once said it would be so was no guaranteed prediction, any more than was Orwell’s 1984 an instruction manual.
There was a great deal of none-too-subtle grunting, heaving, levering, and dynamiting accomplished, both by single actors and the mob, beyond any intent but malign design, to get us here.
You could look it up.
It’s no accident when someone owns hundreds of guns, and despite a lifetime of using them, never once shoots himself in the foot.
It’s also no accident when someone does, and even more so when he’s working on his last remaining toe.
Neither situation proves guns are good nor evil. They merely show the range of available potential.
———
And while we’re on it, the 14th Amendment merely told the states they were no more empowered to infringe on God-given natural law rights of individuals than was the federal government. It was a check on the power of the state, at any level, over the individual, not an application and extension of its power into every nook and cranny of your life.
If you think Delaware, Iowa, or Arkansas holds some special standing to do otherwise after signing on board the Constitution, explain how you think that works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M6bUI1A9ho
The problem wasn’t ever with the 14th amendment doing what it did. That idea is beyond recockulous.
The problem was and is with past and ongoing misinterpretation and misapplication of the commerce clause within Article I §8 of the Constitution itself, as the means to drive the entire federal Leviathan up your @$$ for all time, on any imaginable pretext, and exactly contrary to the Tenth Amendment, time after time after time.
When you misdiagnose the ailment, you’ll never find the cure, probably not even by accident.
This is like thinking that heartburn has anything to do with the heart, or thinking that houseflies mean houses can fly.
One mea culpa, three Our Fathers, and five Hail Marys should suffice.
Wonderful! Great resources. The Anti-Federalists had some pretty good insight . . .
Second the recommended. We did this when I homeschooled U.S. history. No deadly pablum glurge doorstopper textbooks by committee, but original documents combined with short period overviews.
The anti-Federalists, Brutus et al… What an eye opener that was! HSoD
Bravely and well spoken, Boss. I’d much rather read your blog than see/hear the news, because the news is all bad/irrelevant/rubbish. And that’s where we are this moment. I mostly watch zombie movies, and old war movies, because at least I can understand easily where the lies and omissions come from. Seeing the day-to-day lying and corruption is like BEING in a zombie movie, and you’re cobbled to idiots who fail to see the danger, and the opportunities for escaping the horror. Like in the Spanish Civil War, half the deaths and casualties from the coming CW2 here, are going to be non-military civilian ones, inflicted on each other, for political purposes, and it won’t stop when the CW2 does.
Another gem from Kipling was The Mother Hive, which describes out present situation to a T.
Thank you! The problem with a lot of the news is what they say . . . just isn’t so.
And in CW 2.0, it’ll also be vengeance. Don’t forget that. Scores will be settled.
But one question for the author. Were you adopted? Henny Youngman was surely your father! 🙂
I was! Are you thinking Henny said, “Take my kid, please.”
Excellent as always, thank you for all your efforts, God bless you and yours
Thank you! Sometimes (like this one) they just pour on out . . . .
(and God bless you and yours, too!)
Interesting linked reading here in four parts on why they hate Trump and raided him. I’m not through reading all of it yet.
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/08/why-did-doj-and-fbi-execute-raid-on.html
I love your work, Mr. Wilder.
Excellent post. And thank you for the kind words! It’s always nice to see you comment!!!!
Nice Jefferson Airplane paraphrase. Some of us are old enough to remember.
It’s a good song.
*** delete after reading ***
*** delete after reading ***
I see your point . . . updated with quotes. I was speaking from their POV.
Perfesser,
Thank you for leading me to investigate the use of ‘Putler’.
I had no idea some people mangled the two names.
(But, then, that would be expected of me, the staunch ‘least political person on this particular planet’.)
.
Although I think your quotation-marks establish ‘Putler’ as a cutesy-pundit term used by some individuals with too much time on their hands…
… I believe my point stands:
* degrading the humanity of any one of us inevitably degrades us all.
.
Let’s leave that sort of nincompoopery to the dirty reds, shall we?
.
.
PS:
The apt descriptor ‘dirty reds’ was spoken by actor Emmanuel Goldenberg (aka Edward G. Robinson) as the OfficialsAndAuthorities were in the process of sending his character back to the Old Country based on his strenuous pursuit of extra-legal pursuits:
* “They’re trying to boot me out… like some dirty red!”
Watching that scene, I thought he would benefit from sharing more of his bribes…
Key Largo?
Remmy Marko?
Well said.