Category: Culture

Welcome Back to History America.

Welcome back to history, America, it was wondering where you were………..

Civilization has always hung by a thread. The Founders of this country knew that, and that’s why they crafted a constitutional order best suited to nurture domestic tranquility and the general welfare.

It is also why they included a Second Amendment.

Perhaps we are appreciating in concrete terms the value of stable homes, industrious values, and faith.  A nation that was abandoning God might reconsider.

Get your kids and grand-kids The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  They had it worse than your kids do, at least for now.  If you think Zoom school is bad, if you are growing weary of beans and rice, try heating your freezing house with twisted wheat and eating grain porridge for every meal.

This was what befell huge tracts of America just 140 years ago where the Twins, Brewers, Cubs and Tigers should be playing right now.

Welcome to history………….

The People Our Loser Elite Look Down Upon Are Saving Our Bacon

Here are some people who are useless, especially now: Performance artists, diversity consultants, magic crystal healers, sociology TAs, members of the mainstream media, and gender-unspecified entities who brew kale kombucha.

Here are some people who matter, especially now: Soldiers, nurses, truckers, cops, the guy who stocks the shelves at Ralphs, farmers, and that dude rebuilding your roof.

The Chinese Bat Soup Flu has certainly clarified some of the blurred lines between what is important and what is frivolous garbage. Yet, in a time when millions of Americans are at risk of dying as a direct result of ChiCom conspiracies and the bizarre need of its serfs to eat any weird thing that crawls or slithers within reach of their chopsticks, our useless elite is fixated on making sure we don’t hurt the feelz of the very people who stuck us in this predicament.

Our elite is full of self-important morons who contribute nothing but more dumb in a time when the only thing we have a surplus of is dumb. The real hero is the guy who trucks in a load of whole wheat bread, ribeyes, and low-priced cabernet to the Trader Joe’s, not the Prius-piloting sissy with a Maddow fetish who shops there. The people our elite laughed at, scoffed at, poked at, are the very people who are going to rescue us from the mess that same elite helped make.

Our elite can’t, and you would think that at a time when their humility has been shown to be so massively justified that they might actually offer some. Instead, they have doubled down on their own narcissism. They are still pretending that their sophomore SJW obsessions aren’t a luxury and that 20-something BuzzFeed scribblers who have never run anything but their mouths have something to contribute to the discussion.

They don’t.

Yet, it’s weird how this virus is an excuse for our garbage elite to do all the stupid things it always wanted to do. Luckily, people aren’t buying it. At least not real people. Team Dummy is in full effect trying to undercut the president. He’s alternatively too harsh – MUH TRAVEL BANS IS RACISM! – and too soft – OBAMA WOULD HAVE ORDERED THE CHINESE VIRUS TO DIE! Clever people are coming up with innovative remedies and strategies and the job of the trash reporters is to shoot down any hope – TRUMP LIES THAT TREATMENTS MIGHT HELP! It’s like they are rooting for the Woking Pneumonia.

Never have so many with so much unwarranted self-regard spread so much bullSchiff so shamelessly.

If there is an upside of this Chinese coronavirus thing – did I mention the Chinese part? – it is that even the densest libs have to be seeing the truth. Everything they believed in is a lie. The bureaucracy they love has failed. It’s regular folks bailing us out. Oh, that won’t stop many of them from telling lies. Lies are all they have. But it will force the rest of us to get serious. ……..

‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ at the DC Museum of the Bible are all forgeries.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the fourth floor of the Museum of the Bible, a sweeping permanent exhibit tells the story of how the ancient scripture became the world’s most popular book. A warmly lit sanctum at the exhibit’s heart reveals some of the museum’s most prized possessions: fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient texts that include the oldest known surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible.

But now, the Washington, D.C. museum has confirmed a bitter truth about the fragments’ authenticity. On Friday, independent researchers funded by the Museum of the Bible announced that all 16 of the museum’s Dead Sea Scroll fragments are modern forgeries that duped outside collectors, the museum’s founder, and some of the world’s leading biblical scholars. Officials unveiled the findings at an academic conference hosted by the museum.

“The Museum of the Bible is trying to be as transparent as possible,” says CEO Harry Hargrave. “We’re victims—we’re victims of misrepresentation, we’re victims of fraud.”

In a report spanning more than 200 pages, a team of researchers led by art fraud investigator Colette Loll found that while the pieces are probably made of ancient leather, they were inked in modern times and modified to resemble real Dead Sea Scrolls. “These fragments were manipulated with the intent to deceive,” Loll says.

The new findings don’t cast doubt on the 100,000 real Dead Sea Scroll fragments, most of which lie in the Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. However, the report’s findings raise grave questions about the “post-2002” Dead Sea Scroll fragments, a group of some 70 snippets of biblical text that entered the antiquities market in the 2000s. Even before the new report, some scholars believed that most to all of the post-2002 fragments were modern fakes.

“Once one or two of the fragments were fake, you know all of them probably are, because they come from the same sources, and they look basically the same,” says Årstein Justnes, a researcher at Norway’s University of Agder whose Lying Pen of Scribes project tracks the post-2002 fragments.
Since its 2017 opening, the Museum of the Bible has funded research into the pieces and sent off five fragments to Germany’s Federal Institute for Materials Research for testing. In late 2018, the museum announced the results to the world: All five tested fragments were probably modern forgeries.

But what of the other 11 fragments? And how had the forgers managed to fool the world’s leading Dead Sea Scroll scholars and the Museum of the Bible?

“It really was—and still is—an interesting kind of detective story,” says Jeffrey Kloha, the Museum of the Bible’s chief curatorial officer. “We really hope this is helpful to other institutions and researchers, because we think this provides a good foundation for looking at other pieces, even if it raises other questions.”

Under the microscope

To find out more about its fragments, the Museum of the Bible reached out to Loll and her company, Art Fraud Insights, in February 2019 and charged her with conducting a thorough physical and chemical investigation of all 16 pieces. Loll was no stranger to fakes and forgeries. After getting her master’s in art history at George Washington University, Loll went on to study international art crime, run forgery investigations, and train federal agents on matters of cultural heritage.

Loll insisted on independence. Not only would the Museum of the Bible have no say on the team’s findings, her report would be final—and would have to be released to the public. The Museum of the Bible agreed to the terms. “Honestly, I’ve never worked with a museum that was so up-front,” Loll says.

Loll quickly assembled a team of five conservators and scientists. From February to October, the team periodically visited the museum and pulled together their findings. By the time their report was finalized in November 2019, the researchers were unanimous. All 16 fragments appeared to be modern forgeries…….

1st-Time Gun Ownership Reportedly Spikes as Anti-Gunners Realize 2nd Amendment Freedom Is Vital

Leave it to a worldwide existential crisis to align moral values.

As toilet paper and hand sanitizer fly from store shelves, be certain to count something else in, as well: guns. Lots of guns.

According to one report, gun sales have dramatically increased.

And what’s more, so have gun sales to first-time buyers.

“I’ve sold 12 handguns in two hours,” Gabriel Vaughn of Sportman’s Arms in Petaluma, California, told KTVU.

“People that tell me that they don’t like guns, but they’re here to begrudgingly buy one,” Vaughn said. “If it makes somebody feel safe, sure, and they’re legal to own one, then sure.”

Ammunition sales are also spiking. According to Yahoo Finance, sales at Ammo.com are up by 68 percent. Alex Horsman, Ammo.com’s marketing manager, knows why.

“We know certain things impact ammo sales, mostly political events or economic instability when people feel their rights may end up infringed,” Horsman said. “But this is our first experience with a virus leading to such a boost in sales.”

“A lot of our customers like to be prepared. And for many of them, it’s not just face masks and Theraflu. It’s knowing that no matter what happens, they can keep themselves and their families safe.”

Exactly.

Sometimes it takes a crisis that puts everyone at risk for folks to rediscover fundamental moral values — like having the means to protect themselves and others.

These values are so intrinsic to our humanity that they made their way into America’s founding documents, namely the Constitution.

Under uncertain, stressful conditions, plenty of folks come to a conclusion they might not have reached otherwise: It’s best not to take chances.

In other words, firearms are just as essential to a family’s crisis supplies as water, foodstuffs and medicine…………

Rights Versus Wishes
Going beyond the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Sen. Bernie Sanders said: “I believe that health care is a right of all people.” He’s not alone in that contention. That claim comes from Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives. It is not just a health care right that people claim. There are “rights” to decent housing, decent food, a decent job and prescription drugs. In a free and moral society, do people have these rights? Let’s begin by asking ourselves: What is a right?

In the standard usage of the term, a “right” is something that exists simultaneously among people. In the case of our U.S. Constitutional decree, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness imposes no obligation upon another other than the duty of noninterference.

As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess simultaneously. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.

Sanders’ claim that health care is a right does impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives resources to government to pay for medical services. Moreover, the money does not come from congressmen and state legislators reaching into their own pockets to pay for the service. That means that in order for government to provide medical services to someone who cannot afford it, it must use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the earnings of another American to provide that service.

Let’s apply this bogus concept of rights to my right to speak and travel freely. In the case of my right to free speech, it might impose obligations on others to supply me with an auditorium, microphone and audience. It may require newspapers or television stations to allow me to use their property to express my views. My right to travel freely might require that others provide me with resources to purchase airplane tickets and hotel accommodations. What if I were to demand that others make sacrifices so that I can exercise my free speech and travel rights, I suspect that most Americans would say, “Williams, you have rights to free speech and you have a right to travel freely, but I’m not obligated to pay for them!”

A moral vision of rights does not mean that we should not help our fellow man in need. It means that helping with health care needs to be voluntary (i.e., free market decisions or voluntary donations to charities that provide health care.) The government’s role in health care is to protect this individual right to choose. As Senator Rand Paul was brave enough to say, “The basic assumption that you have a right to get something from somebody else means you have to endorse the concept of theft.”

Statists go further to claim that people have a “right” to housing, to a job, to an education, to an affordable wage. These so-called rights impose burdens on others in the form of involuntary servitude. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, it means that another person does not have a right to something he did earn.

The provision by the U.S. Congress of a so-called right to health care should offend any sense of moral decency. If you’re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of another. When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment — “Thou shalt not steal” — I am sure that He did not mean, “Thou shalt not steal — unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress.”

‘Death Threats For Me And My Family’: Missouri Lawmaker Trying To Ban Drag Queens From Reading To Kids Says He’s Faced ‘Vitriol’ And ‘Hate’

‘Tar and Feathers‘™ are too good for whoever came up with the idea of letting children be exposed to this perversion, the perverts and their agenda behind it. Flogging might be where to start from.

A Missouri lawmaker said he has never experienced so much”vitriol” and “hate” as he has faced after introducing a bill against drag queens reading to children in public libraries.

Republican Missouri state Rep. Ben Baker’s bill, which seeks to ban Drag Queen Story Hour in public libraries, has been met with opposition from local librarians, the American Library Association, Drag Queen Story Hour defenders and LGBTQ proponents. More than 100 people gathered Saturday at a rally organized by drag queens to protest the bill at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City.

The lawmaker told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he has received thousands of emails from people roused by the American Library Association’s political action committee “Every Library” and received death threats over social media.

The Bill: Parental Oversight Of Public Libraries Act

Baker’s January “Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act” would strip government aid from libraries that allow minors to access “age-inappropriate sexual materials.” These materials include any description or representation of nudity, sexuality, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse.

The bill also would require libraries to institute parental review boards elected by the community — none of whom would also be members of the public library. These parental review boards would determine whether any sexual material offered by the library is “age-inappropriate sexual material” and convene public hearings to help the community determine whether this material is suitable.

Library personnel who “willfully neglect,” willfully violate or refuse to follow these rules could be punished by a fine of up to $500 or imprisoned in the county jail for no more than a year.

What Is Drag Queen Story Hour?

Drag Queen Story Hours are “just what they sound like,” according to the Drag Queen Story Hour official website: drag queens reading to children.

The events are designed to be about 45 minutes long for children aged 3 to 8 years and intended to capture children’s imagination and help them explore gender fluidity through “glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.”

The official Drag Queen Story Hour website boasts more than 45 independently operated chapters across the U.S., including in New York City, D.C. and Chicago, as well as two international chapters in Tokyo and in Berlin.

The American Library Association has also backed the movement and offers a plethora of resources on its website “to support libraries facing challenges.” A spokeswoman told the DCNF in a January statement that the ALA “strongly supports the rights of libraries to host whatever programming they decide fits the needs and interests of their communities.”

Backlash: ‘The Vitriol And The Hate’

Baker called the backlash that has stemmed from his bill “unprecedented,” and pointed out that media coverage of his bill has been mostly negative. Media outlets initially portrayed the legislation as a bill that seeks to ban “inappropriate books” rather than banning Drag Queen Story Hours from public libraries.

“We are deeply concerned by Missouri House Bill 2044, ‘Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act,’” Every Library wrote in a statement after Baker introduced the bill. “It sets up quasi-governmental tribunals that circumvent the normal way libraries review materials challenges and imposes fines or jail time on librarians who violate the act. It’s a bad bill and needs to be stopped.”

“When you take on some of these issues that are controversial, the push back from media and from even the American Library Association, you know, was astounding,” Baker told the DCNF. “I got thousands of emails, I’ve had death threats for me and my family.”……….

Baltimore-area shooting leaves 13-year-old dead, 5 others wounded in ‘horrifying’ act of violence

Read along, then tell me what’s wrong with this picture.
It should be glaring enough, but I will give you a hint.

A 13-year-old Maryland boy was killed in a shooting outside a shopping mall where five others, including four juveniles, were wounded as they walked through the parking lot on Sunday, investigators said.

The gunfire broke out shortly after midnight in Rosedale, a community on the outskirts of the city of Baltimore, Baltimore County police said.

“This level of violence is unacceptable. We had children that were shot last night,” Police Chief Melissa Hyatt said at a news conference. “And an adolescent lost his life for some senseless and unknown reason.”

The victims left an event at the Triple Threat Elite Dance studio and were approached by several suspects, police said. An altercation ensued and multiple shots were fired.

Hyatt said the 13-year-old boy, identified as Rickie Forehand, was pronounced dead at the scene. The five injured victims included two 12-year-old boys, a girl and a boy, both age 14, and a 19-year-old man. They suffered non-life threatening injuries and one has been released from the hospital………

Second Amendment supporters attend militia muster call in Campbell County

CAMPBELL CO., Va. (WSET) — Campbell County joins the growing list of localities holding militia muster calls.

At least 300 people showed up to the militia muster call in Campbell County to protect their Second Amendment rights on Saturday.

The muster call was held on Leesville Road in Lynchburg.

Floyd County held the first militia muster in the area in January.

Bedford County followed suit two weeks ago.

Virginia Code 44-1 defines the four sections of Virginia’s militia which includes the unorganized militia.

Anyone ages 16 to 55 can join an unorganized militia, according to Virginia’s code.

Gun Control And Demographics: I

mmigrants Vote Against American Gun Rights

So Virginia gun owners just dodged a legislative bullet in the form of a proposed ban on so-called assault weapons. But a demographic bullet is still aimed right where it can do the most damage: the ballot box. The Great Replacement that Leftists celebrate—even as they call it a racist conspiracy theory—is the primary reason gun rights are in the crosshairs in Virginia and throughout the country. Immigration has consequences, meaning foreign-origin voters, and if the GOP doesn’t figure that out soon, gun rights will go the way of Confederate statues, along with other American rights currently undreamt of.

Consider the most recent near miss: Four moderate Democrats sided with Republicans in Virginia’s Senate to block a ban on semi-automatic sporting rifles such as the AR-15. Magazines of more than 12 rounds were targeted, too.

This provoked some eloquent opposition. “The people of Virginia are demanding that someone, anybody that is in power, please stand up and defend the Second Amendment,” said Sen. Amanda Chase, a gun-rights champion and GOP gubernatorial candidate. “If I am going to continue to do the law-abiding work of the people I am going to have to arm myself, so I went through all the training, got the licensing and all that and I will just tell you—I won’t miss” [‘We don’t need weapons of war’: Va. Gov. Northam reacts to failed assault weapons ban, by Tim Barber, WJLA.com, February 18, 2020].

Senator Chase was right: Real Virginians are indeed demanding that someone defend their rights, as the massive gun-rights rally on January 20 surely showed. But the last election results showed something else: Non-white Third World immigrants in Richmond and Northern Virginia who put the Democrats in power last election are doing their best to take those rights away.

“The 2020 legislative session kicked off shortly after noon with several history-making firsts as women and people of color assumed leadership roles previously held only by white men for the last 400 years,” gloated The Associated Press:

One of the House’s first acts was to elect Del. Eileen Filler-Corn as the new speaker, the first woman to serve in that role. She is also the first Jewish speaker.

Her top deputy, House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, is the first black woman to hold that role, and the House elected Suzette Denslow to be the first ever female clerk. Ghazala Hashmi, who unseated a Republican incumbent to help Democrats flip the Senate, became that chamber’s first Muslim female member.

[Newly empowered Virginia Democrats promise action, by Alan Suderman and Sarah Rankin, January 8, 2020]

The New York Times has published two separate articles that celebrate the immigrant-driven demographic displacement of white Virginians and what it means for those who still “cling to their guns or religion,” as the presidential scion of a Kenyan immigrant famously put it.

“Guns, that is the most pressing issue for me,” Indian engineer Vijay Katkuri told the Times of his vote for a Democrat. “There are lots of other issues, but you can only fix them if you are alive.” Enthused the NYT, “once the heart of the confederacy, Virginia is now the land of Indian grocery stores, Korean churches and Diwali festivals” [How Voters Turned Virginia From Deep Red to Solid Blue, by Sabrina Tavernise and Robert Gebeloff, November 9, 2019].

The paper gleefully noted that 10 percent of Virginian voters are foreign-born, up from 3.6 percent in 1990, and that the white population in Katkuris’ district has plummeted from 91 percent to 64 percent.

Such is the shift, the New York Times reported in its second tribute to The Great Replacement, that a Muslim woman born in India, Ghazal Hashmi, defeated an incumbent Republican in suburban Richmond:

At the root of this district’s—and Virginia’s—political transition is a slow-moving demographic change, a new kind of suburbanization that is sweeping through national politics. From Atlanta to Houston, this pattern is repeating itself—suburban housing developments gobbling up rural areas and farmland and lifting Democrats to power.

[What Made Virginia Change Its Mind on Guns? by Timothy Williams, January 30, 2020].

Of course, the GOP didn’t help its cause last year by leaving 33 General Assembly races uncontested—10 in House, 23 in the Senate—particularly given that Democrats control the House by a slim two votes and the Senate by 11. Nor can one ignore Michael Bloomberg’s 90-caliber shot at gun rights: $2.5 million that overwhelmed the National Rifle Association’s popgun [Mike Bloomberg’s gun-control group just vastly outspent the NRA to help Democrats win in Virginia, by Lauren Hirsch, CNBC, November 6, 2019].

But demographics are what mattered in the election and will matter long term, as MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough cheerily explained.

Tweeted the ex-conservative:

https://twitter.com/JoeNBC/status/1226906496170102795

Gun Owners Cause Peace- the amazing experiment in Richmond, Virginia proves the media wrong.

The mainstream media tells us that guns cause crime. The media shows us night after night that guns are bad. We see it in their “news” and in their Hollywood dramas. We recently conducted another massive public experiment and the results contradict the media’s story about guns. We put tens of thousands of armed men and women on the street in one small area. The rate of crime dropped precipitously when these armed civilians were there. Guns brought peace. Let me show you what happened.

Virginia Capital on Second Amendment Rally Day

Twenty-five-to-fifty thousand people came to the Virginia Capital on one morning to lobby the legislature. Once they filled the capital grounds, they overflowed into the streets in every direction.

A few thousand people deliberately disarmed to enter the capitol building. I can’t prove that everyone else was armed, but the vast majority of them were since this was a second-amendment protest. Judging from the pictures I’ve seen and the people I’ve talked to, for each person who was not armed at the rally, there was another person who carried multiple firearms. Call it one gun per person in round numbers.

Show us your badges- Virginia Gun Owners Rally Day in Richmond

I couldn’t find reports of violent crime in the area of the protests when I searched the news and police records. The protesters even brought trash bags and left the city streets cleaner than they’d found them. The single reported arrest I could find was of a counter-protester.

Video from ground level- https://t.co/NXZPwDxpPG

This peaceful gathering isn’t a surprise once you study the record of legally armed civilians in the US. We’ve seen this phenomenon before and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I routinely stand in a room with twenty-to-thirty thousand armed individuals. I’ve done that over a dozen times and the results are uniformly boring.

I’ve never seen violence at those sites. I’ll go a step further and say that people are polite and there is very little conflict of any kind. We’ve searched police records and the rate of crime drops in every city when that many gun owners gather together. A public experiment on that scale is a sociologist’s dream come true.

Honest gun-owners bring peace rather than crime and conflict.

It is remarkable when we gather that many gun owners together, and we conduct that experiment for free year after year. You could argue that we conduct a similar experiment every day when these honest gun owners return home and go about their lives.. armed. We are there day after day, but concealed is concealed, and you never see us.

That leaves an obvious question unanswered. Ask yourself why the media continues to sell the lie that guns and legally armed citizens cause crime.

 

In Praise of Wadcutters and Old Men

Old men are not often impressed with the fads of the moment. The millennial movement doesn’t matter to them. They’re not “woke” and never will be. Hillary Clinton referred to them as deplorable because they think that she’s nothing but a corrupt, old, scab on the ass of society. If you don’t believe me, ask an old man sitting on a bench, feeding pigeons (flying rats).
They don’t care. Men reach a certain age when they don’t want drama. They don’t want to fight anyone – and if forced they will not fight fair. They won’t quit and there are no weapons that they won’t use.
Leave men like that alone to their coffee as they sit alone in the Waffle House, reading from an old dog eared book.
Ignore them where they sit in a bar drinking bourbon and smoking a cigar even if it’s a no-smoking bar.
Don’t poke the old men. They will hurt you.
And life in prison when you’re 75 isn’t the threat that it was when you were 25.

Give Me Liberty: A History of America’s Exceptional Idea

Nationalism is inevitable: It supplies feelings of belonging, identity, and recognition. It binds us to our neighbors and tells us who we are. But increasingly — from the United States to India, from Russia to Burma — nationalism is being invoked for unworthy ends: to disdain minorities or to support despots. As a result, nationalism has become to many a dirty word.
In Give Me Liberty, award-winning historian and biographer Richard Brookhiser offers up a truer and more inspiring story of American nationalism as it has evolved over four hundred years. He examines America’s history through thirteen documents that made the United States a new country in a new world: a free country. We are what we are because of them; we stay true to what we are by staying true to them.
Americans have always sought liberty, asked for it, fought for it; every victory has been the fulfillment of old hopes and promises. This is our nationalism, and we should be proud of it.

 

The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free

It is one of our most honored clichés that America is an idea and not a nation. This is false. America is indisputably a nation, and one that desperately needs to protect its interests, its borders, and its identity.

The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump swept nationalism to the forefront of the political debate. This is a good thing. Nationalism is usually assumed to be a dirty word, but it is a foundation of democratic self-government and of international peace.

National Review editor Rich Lowry refutes critics on left and the right, reclaiming the term “nationalism” from those who equate it with racism, militarism and fascism. He explains how nationalism is an American tradition, a thread that runs through such diverse leaders as Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ronald Reagan.

In The Case for Nationalism, Lowry explains how nationalism was central to the American Project. It fueled the American Revolution and the ratification of the Constitution. It preserved the country during the Civil War. It led to the expansion of the American nation’s territory and power, and eventually to our invaluable contribution to creating an international system of self-governing nations.

It’s time to recover a healthy American nationalism, and especially a cultural nationalism that insists on the assimilation of immigrants and that protects our history, civic rituals and traditions, which are under constant threat. At a time in which our nation is plagued by self-doubt and self-criticism, The Case for Nationalism offers a path for America to regain its national self-confidence and achieve continued greatness.

 States That Defend Us—Where Do Our Military Volunteers Call Home?

There’s no end to fun surveys that purport to measure patriotism among the states, with military enlistments often part of the criteria.

However, using enlistment rates to gauge the regional willingness to volunteer for the armed forces betrays a common misunderstanding of the way the U.S. military operates. What matters is accessions to the military, not enlistments. Accession is a term used when a civilian joins the military, having passed mental, physical, educational and legal standards, and swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Enlisted personnel—in other words, not commissioned officers—enlist for a term. When that term is up, they can leave the military or choose to reenlist. Thus, states with a large active duty presence will also then see many enlistments……….

Contrary to popular myth, members of the U.S. Armed Forces are mostly drawn from the middle class, with the lowest income quintile being slightly underrepresented, and the highest quartile being even less represented, with about 17% of enlisted personnel coming from the top 20% of neighborhoods by income. Further, 92% of accessions to active duty have a high school diploma, compared to 90% of adults age 25 and older.

But as representative of the nation as our armed forces are, there are stark regional differences in the makeup of our military, with the South contributing more than its fair share of personnel and the Northeast largely lagging behind, with a few exceptions.

Reviewing a 2016 report from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness titled “The Population Representation in the Military Services” shows that California (17,729), Texas (16,139) and Florida (11,552) had the largest number of people enlist in the military. But these three states are the three most-populous states. Further, new recruits are mostly 18-to-24 years old with about 0.5% of them volunteering and being accepted for active duty each year.

Looking at each state’s share recruits by the number of 18-to-24-year-olds in the state determines how well or how poorly a state is doing compared to its recruitable population. By that measure, the top five states in 2016 were: Hawaii, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Florida. The five places with the smallest share of recruits were: Washington D.C., North Dakota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York.

After Democrats Purge All the ‘Nazis,’ Who Will Be Left?
Trigger warning: This essay is about America’s growing Nazi problem. Some Nazis may be offended.

Democrats are on the hunt for Nazis. Their own elected officials tell us so. Senators and congressmen assure us that in Donald Trump’s America “hate is on the rise.” Nobody can feel safe, they say. Not Jews, not blacks, not immigrants, not women, not even American Indians drumming in the faces of young school boys. Everyone must be on constant guard for hate. It must be confronted and nipped in the bud. If you’re not sure who is spreading this hate, look for red ball caps with catchy political slogans. Otherwise, your default presumption should always be that white males, no matter how ordinarily dressed, are secretly plotting to oppress, harass, and threaten you. Sometimes they do so with smiles on their faces while opening doors.

The important thing to know is that Democrats are all over this problem. They have lawmakers all across America pursuing legislation that targets language for its hatefulness. No longer will people have to sit back and endure distasteful points of view; there are now laws that will allow us to throw people in jail based on what they say and write.

Thank goodness we have reached the Enlightenment’s final stage of liberalism, where we finally understand the danger of words. It has always been an oversight of freedom. Some words are hateful and must be banished. In fact, every day, more and more words are discovered to be hateful, and it turns out there is no shortage of people who believe they have the right to use them.

Here’s the important lesson: if you hear or read something from a person you believe to be oppressing you, then it is best to report that person’s words so he can be added to the list of things we are not allowed to say.

Next to the list of banished words is the list of approved education. Democrats are here to inform, not influence. It is appalling that in this year of 20 A.G. (After Gore), there are still people perpetuating the lie that man-made global warming is a con meant to justify huge increases in taxation, expanded government coercion, and international socialism. Just the idea that people could be so ignorant as to believe that the very molecule they exhale with every breath is not also a pollutant that will force us to cut back on those allowed to exhale boggles the mind.

If you can’t understand that killing off four fifths of the global population and returning to Stone-Age comforts is necessary in order to prevent free markets from destroying the modern world, then you are brainwashed and beyond reach. The best we can do now is censor any of your pseudo-science research from publication so the larger public’s enthusiasm for one-world government is not dampened.

This goes for sex and babies, too. The Dark-Ages superstition of believing that XX and XY chromosomal pairings determine whether a person’s DNA contains the genes unique to males is so absurd that it hardly merits discussion. Anyone who refuses to believe that genetics is simply a social construct imposed on one’s state of mind is living in an age before science and should be openly mocked.

If you don’t believe that men can have babies, then you probably live in a red state where education is low and concentration of Nazis is high. If you don’t believe that males should shower with high school girls after gym class, you are a Nazi. This goes, too, for the outdated patriarchal notion that an expectant father should have any say in what happens to the baby who shares half his DNA. If, after a suitable amount of time has passed after birth, the mother decides to keep the baby, then by all means that the sperm donor is financially beholden to that child for the rest of his life.

Until that time, however, interfering with a woman’s choice to cancel her pregnancy up to and including delivery is nothing less than an assault on her constitutional rights and an unacceptable threat to her “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” When Thomas Jefferson wrote those words, he said nothing about the life and liberty of an unwanted fetus. You would think the very Nazis who prattle on about originalism and the “Founding Fathers” would understand that a baby doesn’t have any rights until the man/woman giving birth makes it official with a legal birth certificate.

That’s what happens when you give fascism room to breathe, though. Nazis begin to insist that the constitution protects everyone, even those too premature to speak up.

That brings us to guns. For too long, Nazis in America have been untouchable because they own all the weapons. That is why Democrats have a plan to end this injustice once and for all. There is no reason in the modern world why anyone needs a weapon to survive. Supermarkets give us food, not hunters. Anyone claiming otherwise is lying to you, or worse, secretly arming himself against the government. There is absolutely no reason in a free society for anyone but the police, military, and federal agencies to be heavily armed. An armed country is a dangerous country. That is why Democrats have the wisdom and strength to demand all citizens hand over their weapons as their first piece of legislation. They have made a promise to the people that they will collect all the guns before pursuing any fundamental changes to the nation in the future.

But before they do that, they have to get rid of the Nazi in the White House. Because Americans refuse to do what’s in their best interest, Democrats will do it for them. It’s never really about the votes, after all. It’s about who counts the votes, and in 2020, Democrats will make certain that Democrats are counting the votes. Just to be certain, they’ve spent years preparing for every contingency.

While American Nazis go overseas to die for American freedom, Democrats have been building a secret army of anti-fascists right here at home. They are trained, armed, and ready to go. Democratic mayors have been giving them space to breathe and grow for years.

Unlike the Nazis in America, Democrats know their history. Using armed paramilitary units in uniform under the color of law is exactly how Heinrich Himmler transformed a little-known outfit of beer hall troublemakers into one of the most feared agencies of surveillance and terror throughout Europe. Whereas he used his thugs for fascism, Democrats will use their peaceful protesters for socialism. There is a big difference.

So, to the American Nazis out there, know this: you have nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, and no future in front of you. Democrats will save freedom from itself, even if they must put some of us up against a wall before tearing it down. They know what they’re doing. They have met the enemy; from every mirror, he stares back at them.

Voicing refusal to comply with new gun laws has historical precedent
The utterly American history of ‘We will not comply’

On Jan. 20, as Americans remembered civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr., an estimated 10,000 people peacefully rallied in Richmond, Virginia, to protest the recent introduction of highly contentious gun control bills into the state Legislature.

Motivated in part by the “Second Amendment Sanctuary” movement that has seen more than 100 Virginia counties and cities pass measures denouncing—and in some cases, preemptively refusing to enforce—constitutionally suspect gun laws, some Virginians at the rally began chants of “We will not comply.”

Many gun control advocates have denounced these chants (and the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement itself) as undemocratic and anti-American. While this reaction was predictable, voicing a collective refusal to comply with laws perceived as unconstitutional or unjust is a fundamental part of American democratic discourse.

In fact, the mantra “We will not comply” helped set the stage for America as it exists today.

In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which imposed a tax on nearly every piece of paper used by the American colonists. The colonists considered this a direct tax on them without the approval of the colonial legislatures—a flagrant violation of longstanding legal precedent and an affront to their rights as Englishmen.

Threats of noncompliance and public protests so troubled Parliament that the act was repealed before ever being put into effect.

Thus began nearly two decades of actual and threatened colonial noncompliance with British laws that increasingly threatened the rights and liberties of the colonists. This included widespread noncompliance with laws that severely curtailed the ability of colonists to keep and bear arms.

Americans routinely circumvented or ignored bans on the importation of firearms and powder, and eventually resorted to armed defensive action against British attempts to confiscate guns and powder stores from colonial communities.

Noncompliance with federal laws mandating the return of escaped slaves was rampant throughout northern states prior to the Civil War. In 1850, the Vermont Legislature went so far as to pass a law effectively requiring state judicial and law enforcement officers to act in direct opposition to the federal Fugitive Slave Law.

Even in jurisdictions that did not act officially act to condone noncompliance, individual noncompliance with federal slave laws was nonetheless widespread. Moreover, a generally lax approach to local enforcement in the North raised the ire of Southern states, where calls abounded for the federal government to send in military units to ensure adequate enforcement.

Importantly, many abolitionists refused to keep their intentions quiet—they, too, were vocal about their refusal to comply with laws they considered both unconstitutional and morally unjust.

“We will not comply” was very much a general refrain of the now-beloved abolitionist movement.

Noncompliance permeated democratic discourse throughout the 20th century, as well. Some of the most revered figures of the civil rights era were actually brought to the national spotlight by acts of noncompliance.

Rosa Parks refused to comply with a city ordinance mandating segregated buses that would force her to the back of the bus. Hundreds refused to comply with state laws by engaging in sit-ins. King spent periods in jail for his repeated refusals to comply with court orders.

Of course, America’s history with noncompliance and civil disobedience has also been complicated. Not all acts of noncompliance are later held to be meritorious. Many times, one side’s appeal to a higher law is another side’s accusation that the rule of law has been betrayed.

Noncompliance with school integration orders resulted in sometimes-violent standoffs among local, state, and federal agencies, and history has not treated these acts of noncompliance kindly.

Noncompliance with alcohol laws during the Prohibition era helped foster the rise of gangster violence (though, interestingly enough, widespread noncompliance was one of the major underlying factors leading to Prohibition’s eventual repeal).

During the Vietnam War, an estimated tens of thousands of young draft-eligible men faced severe criticism and legal consequences for refusing to comply with what they perceived to be an unjust draft system that would send them to fight in an unjust war.

But the fact that history judges some acts of noncompliance more harshly than others does not negate the reality of history itself. It merely reminds us that threats of noncompliance should not be undertaken lightly. They should be based on well-reasoned and principled appeals that will withstand the judgment of our descendants.

Threatening noncompliance is not unique to modern gun owners, nor unique to modern American discourse.

“We will not comply” is neither an undemocratic threat nor an un-American resolve.

It is a long-standing part of democratic discourse, and an utterly American promise to strive for compliance with a higher law.

Majority of Americans would vote against socialist candidate for president

Americans are not happy with the prospect of a socialist candidate like Bernie Sanders for president, a new poll finds.

A majority of US residents — 53 percent — said they would vote against a socialist candidate for president, the Gallup poll released Tuesday reveals. Meanwhile, only 45 percent of respondents in the poll said they would vote for a socialist.

In fact, socialism was the only category in the poll rejected by a majority of Americans.

For example, 60 percent of Americans said they would vote for an atheist while 38 percent said they wouldn’t. And more than nine in 10 Americans said they would vote for a presidential candidate nominated by their party who is black, Catholic, Hispanic, Jewish or a woman.

The findings come as Sanders (I-Vt.) — a self-described Democratic socialist — is a top-tier candidate vying to win the Democratic nomination for president. He was leading in polls to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and has surged ahead of Joe Biden in national polls.

There is a political divide over the socialist candidate question, however.

For example, 82 percent of Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for a socialist while just 17 percent said they would. By comparison, 76 percent of Democrats said they would vote for a socialist, while 21 percent wouldn’t.

Significantly, only 45 percent of key swing-state voters — self-described independents — would vote for a socialist while 51 percent said they would not.

 

Will Somebody Please Hate My Enemies For Me?

Mr French is being sarcastic as he’s one of the big Never-Trumpers

“So my problem with David French’s claim that Christians shouldn’t vote for Trump is that if you take it seriously, Christians shouldn’t vote for anyone because no president in my lifetime was Christ-like enough to meet French’s standard. (No, not even Jimmy Carter, whose public piety is merely cover for a poisonous personality). Now if you want to argue for monastic exclusion from politics, that’s fine (though to my mind stupid). But if you want to argue for it only when Trump is president, then I question your sincerity, and French’s rather pharasaical tone doesn’t help.

But despite his argument, I think even a serious pro-life Christian might conclude that, given a choice between an un-Christ-like politician who is loudly and vigorously in favor of abortion (i.e. any Democrat these days), and an un-Christ-like politician who is without doubt the most pro-life president we’ve ever had, it’s okay to support the latter. French attempts to engage this argument but to my mind he is not successful. I doubt many will find the piece all that persuasive but I think that French’s main intended audience was David French, whose faith in neverTrumpism may need bolstering at this point. And I’m not sure it’s impossible to love your enemies while still trying to kick their ass.

On a broader note, so long as we’re talking about sin, I’ll note that pride and envy seem to play a major role in the NeverTrump movement in general: Pride in (self-proclaimed) moral superiority, and envy of Trump’s accomplishments, which make him by any reasonable measure the most conservative president of my lifetime. I’d suggest some self-reflection on this point'”–Dr Glenn Reynolds

Hate has no place in pro-life America. None. And embracing or defending hate—even hatred of the movement’s most vigorous opponents—for the sake of life contradicts the spirit of the movement and stands to do more harm than good to the political cause that so many Christians value the most.

American Evangelicals represent one of the most powerful religious movements in the world. They exercise veto power over the political success of any presidential candidate from one of America’s two great parties. Yet they don’t wield that power to veto the selection of a man who completely rejects—and even scorns—many of their core moral values.

I fully recognize what I’m saying. I fully recognize that refusing to hire a hater and refusing to hire a liar carries costs. If we see politics through worldly eyes, it makes no sense at all. Why would you adopt moral standards that put you at a disadvantage in an existential political struggle? If we don’t stand by Trump we will lose, and losing is unacceptable.

Why the Left Really Wants to Kill America

The century-long attempt to kill capitalism in America gained a dramatic head of steam in the 1960s with the rapid ascendency of progressivism, a Marxist movement that would quietly seize control of the Democratic Party over the last half-century.

Which was something different. For most of America’s 244-year history, the dominant political parties that evolved had a common goal constantly working to improve the country they both loved.  In the 1860s, a Republican president went to war to end slavery.  A century later, a Democratic president launched another well-intentioned war, a war on poverty.  Democrats and Republicans alike largely saw their country as a force for good, both at home and abroad.  Beginning in the 1960s, that widely- shared view began to show cracks as the progressive movement began tightening its grip on the modern Democratic Party.  Democrat icons of the 1960s — Adlai Stevenson, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Sam Nunn, Hubert Humphrey and JFK, to name a few — were genuine patriots who loved their country, a sentiment that was shared by a large majority of that era’s rank and file Democrats.  Such is no longer the case. Here are four ways Democrats are looking to end the idea of America altogether:

Killing America by replacing patriotism with socialism

In October 2018, The New York Times reported that 69% of progressive Democrats  are ashamed of being American.  Increasingly influenced by the progressive wing of their party, Democrats as a whole have moved sharply away from that love of country, and veered toward socialism that sounded like communism: In February 2019, Public Opinion Strategies found that an astounding 77% of Democrats who plan to vote in 2020 self-identify as socialists.  Aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, the modern Democratic Party has been remarkably successful at driving down patriotism: Gallup found that less than a third of Democrats are extremely proud of their country.  That’s less than a third, and trending sharply downward.

Killing America by making citizenship meaningless

Why has the modern Democratic Party worked so diligently to erode patriotism? Because love of country is a major impediment to convincing voters to support what they really want, which is yielding their nation’s sovereignty to an international governing body, ultimately the United Nations. With patriotism marginalized, a society’s populace can more easily be led to no longer see themselves as citizens of their country, but as “citizens of the world.”  (In his July 2008 speech in Berlin, progressive presidential candidate Barack Obama told an adoring crowd of 200,000 cheering Europeans, “I come to you as a Citizen of the World.”)

In Europe, the long-standing national identity of every progressive-run nation is already being intentionally erased, and it stands as a sort of bellwether of things to come over here.

Government-encouraged mass migration is its instrument, and the same thing is being attempted in America by the modern Democratic Party. This particular phenomenon is particularly associated with billionaire globalist George Soros.  The Hungarian-born “stateless statesman” is the most prolific financier of the progressive push for a world without borders.

In his anti-capitalist best-seller, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, Soros sets out the progressive strategy.  Complaining bitterly about “the sway of sovereign nations,” Soros has advocated for, and since spent immense sums each year fostering “open society alliances” among sovereign nations.  The goal of these alliances is to indoctrinate citizens of western nations to accept the high-mindedness of doing away with national identities in favor of a collectivist world identity.  With national identities erased, people no longer see themselves as patriotic citizens of their countries, but as united citizens of an enlightened global society.  People who oppose the unfettered influx of migrants and refugees are shouted down as racists and xenophobes.  Once open-border alliances have been solidified, the last obstacle is cleared for a borderless world governed by the UN.  For global governance to become a reality, the sovereignty of every western nation, including America, must be eliminated, Soros believes.

When the election of Donald Trump dealt a calamitous setback to the near-term realization of fundamentally transforming America, Soros penned an angry rant comparing Trump to Hitler, and calling him a racist and a xenophobe.  Known as “the puppet master” because of the enormous influence he exerts on Democratic Party hierarchy, Soros’s foremost target in taking down sovereign western democracies is the crown jewel of them all: the United States of America.  In working toward the culmination of that takedown, the billionaire globalist mastermind has powerful allies at the highest levels of the modern Democratic Party.

Killing America through identity politics

To overthrow a capitalist society, The Communist Manifesto calls for fomenting a titanic struggle by pitting an alleged victim class against an alleged oppressor class.  In the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power by pitting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

Over the last half-century, the Democratic Party has taken the concept of Marxist/Leninist dialectical struggle to new heights through its use of identity politics. The term refers to politically subdividing the electorate into multiple factions (voting blocks), whose members are told they are singled out for persecution by a bigoted and unjust society.  To wit: People of color are persecuted by racists & white supremacists, women by sexists & misogynists, refugees & illegal immigrants by nativists & xenophobes, Muslims by Islamophobes, gays & lesbians by homophobes & religious bigots, the 99% by the 1%, and so on.  The goal of identity politics is to turn a majority of the American electorate against their country.

The self-serving narrative of identity politics is that caring, inclusive and tolerant Democrats will righteously defend the members (voters) of each identity group from the constant onslaught of outrages inflicted on them by an oppressive society.  Identity politics is used as a political bludgeon to deceive Americans into believing their country is an incurably unjust place where things can be set straight only by killing off its existing economic and governing systems.

That is the observed pattern and it’s important. It tells us why the 2020 elections will determine whether our free market Republic survives, or falls from within to single-party socialist rule.

 

Paul mentioned this in a comment on a previous post.
It bears serious reading.

Why Liberals Can’t Listen

When Cathy Newman’s absurdly hilarious interview with Jordan Peterson exploded across the internet, it wasn’t just because it was so funny. To a lot of conservatives, myself included, it sounded way too familiar. What we’ve known for a long time, Cathy Newman made blindingly obvious: Liberals really don’t listen. Maybe liberals can’t listen.

I’m seeing it again in a book I’m reading on the history of America’s culture wars. Conservatives’ opposition to new views on morality in the 1910s and 20s was “driven by fear,” the author says. Never mind that when the Pope Pius XI weighed in on the question, his answer was balanced, focused both on the real good that comes for all from true morality, and what dangers may follow upon straying from it. No, it was all “driven by fear.”

Liberals don’t see both sides. In fact, it’s almost as if they can’t. Or maybe we should drop “almost” from that sentence. For there’s some fascinating — and disturbing — research that says conservatives have the ability to understand liberals, but liberals literally can’t understand conservatives.

It has a lot to do with seeing moral issues from multiple points of view. The Pope could do it; can liberals?

I’m sure they think they can. Suppose you went out and struck up a conversation with a liberal friend of yours, or a teacher or a co-worker. Suppose you asked them, “Who’s better at seeing moral issues from more than one point of view: liberals or conservatives?” What would you bet they’d claim they could do it better? I’d put a lot of money down on that one.

Five Moral Foundations

But then along comes New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He and his research team set out on a global project seeking to understand human morality. They found that wherever you go, you’ll find five basic “moral foundations”: Caring, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity. He explains all this brilliantly in a TED talk, if you can overlook some lingering bias. (In his book The Righteous Mind he includes a sixth, Liberty.)

But there’s more. Haidt found a glaring difference between people on the left and people on the right. Conservatives, by and large, tend to live with all five of these moral dimensions in balance. Liberals don’t. They’re strong on Care and Fairness, but they’re weak on Loyalty, Authority and Purity.

And that’s a problem. Jonathan Haidt, who viewed himself as a liberal before doing this study, extended his research to look at what societies need in order to maintain stability and security. And he realized it isn’t just the left’s favorite pair. It takes all five moral categories. He paid attention: he’s a moderate now.

Conservatives could do it. Liberals couldn’t.

The Really Interesting Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives

But hang on — we’re just now getting to the interesting part. Haidt asked liberals and conservatives to put themselves in one another’s shoes; to imagine how the other side would answer a list of ethical questions. Conservatives could do it. Liberals couldn’t. People on the right had the ability to understand people on the left; even to empathize with them to a degree. People on the left couldn’t do the same in return.

The reason, Haidt says, is because liberals’ moral scope is unbalanced. They’re so focused on Care and Fairness, they can’t imagine anyone thinking other values being important. Therefore, he says in this excerpt from his book The Righteous Mind, “If you don’t see that Reagan is pursuing positive values of Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity, you almost have to conclude that Republicans see no positive value in Care and Fairness.”

And if we don’t value Care and Fairness — liberals’ most important values, by far — then we must be Really Awful People.

Misunderstanding Conservatism

Think I’m overstating it? Go back to the link and re-read the rest of the excerpt. Read the New York theater critic who wrote, “Republicans don’t believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. … I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm).”

It isn’t just that liberals don’t want to understand us. Many of them simply can’t. Not without considerable effort and coaching, at any rate; but which of them puts in that effort? Why would anyone want to empathize with Really Awful People? “Many readers,” writes Haidt, “ stayed locked inside their Care-based moral matrices and refused to believe that conservatism was an alternative moral vision.” He continues, “One reader … thought it was ‘sad’ that Republican narcissism would prevent them from understanding my perspective on their ‘illness.’”

We could go on all day explaining our positive reasons for the positions we take; all they’ll hear is us playing cover-up games. We must be driven by fear. Or power, or hate. Anything but decency. “What you’re really saying is…”

They can’t even imagine anything better of us. Why? According to Haidt, they don’t have a place in their minds to process Loyalty, Authority or Purity. For a large proportion of the liberal world, those values don’t even belong in the “ethics” category — even though human societies can’t survive without them.

So What Do We Do?

Need I say it? There’s no magic formula to fix this. It’s going to take time, and patience, and even love on our part, along with constant clear explanation of who we are and what we believe. It’s going to take real relationships, in other words.

Even that, though, may be difficult, since both conservatives and liberals have gotten ourselves fenced off in different towns and cities, or different parts of town, and certainly on different parts of the internet. It’s going to take real relational outreach on our part, in other words.

And even then nothing is guaranteed. Considering how many people ignored Jesus right up until the end of His life — and how eager some of them were to end His life — we need to be realistic with our expectations.

Yet some responded to Him then, and some will respond still today. I’m not giving up. And in the meantime, I for one find this insight from Haidt to be very interesting — and helpful.