Should Folks Stand for the National Anthem?

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Progressive-Democrat Vice President and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris was asked that question, and she gave an answer that, at first blush (at least in this edited clip) seems a non sequitur. It was, but it needn’t have been had Harris actually understood the question and the significance and importance of our national anthem and of standing for it whenever it’s played. Her answer:

I think that one of the beautiful things about our country is that we were founded on certain principles that we articulated in 1776, that we are all to be treated as equals; we articulated those principles in our constitution. And part of what we decided that makes a fair and just and noble society is, in a democracy, a true democracy, is freedom of religion, freedom—right—to association, freedom to organize—first amendment. So, that is part of who we are as a country, and I will defend it to the core, which is that we give people certain choices in our country.

Her words are muddled, but in context, I think are substantially correct (leaving aside that we’re not a true democracy, but a republican democracy, but that’s a distinction for another time), but her problem—the Left’s problem, our problem, our nation’s free speech problem—is that Harris doesn’t understand why her muddled words are correct. That context of her lack of understanding makes her words, counterintuitively to be sure, wrong.

Her words themselves are consistent with accuracy for two reasons. The first is where she didn’t directly answer the question. Yes, I answer for her, folks should stand, and face our flag or face in its direction, hats off, hand over heart, or salute if in uniform, for our national anthem. Doing so shows respect for the symbol of our nation, respect for our nation itself, respect for all of those who’ve fought under our flag in defense of our nation, and especially for those who have been killed or maimed in that defense.

That’s what makes possible the intent of Harris’ fuddled words: not standing cannot be a protest of anything if standing is not a requirement, of respect if not of law. Absent that requirement, there is no counter; there is nothing to protest.

Joe Biden’s Passive-Aggressive Timidity

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The lede says it all.

Well, that was fast. Iran fired 181 ballistic missiles on Israel Tuesday, and a day later President Biden was already telling Israel what it shouldn’t do in response. Asked Wednesday if he’d support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the President said “The answer is no.”

Our Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is showing his desperation for Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, which he knows full well will be used, promptly, to attack and destroy Israel and to exterminate Jews in the Middle East.

He broadened his desperation:

He also hauled in the leaders of the G-7 democracies to add to the pre-emptive pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We will be discussing with the Israelis what they are going to do. All seven of us agree that they have a right to respond but they should respond in proportion,” he told reporters after a G-7 conference call. “We are giving them advice. I will talk to Bibi relatively soon.”

This is, as The Wall Street Journal editors put it, Biden tell[ing] Irans [sic] Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the US will help the regime protect its most prized and threatening military asset.

Proportion. I discussed what true proportion is nearby. I can only hope that Netanyahu has the courage and the IDF has the wherewithal to carry out its necessary active defensive (which is to say offensive in respond to Iran’s murderous attacks) actions against Iran, and against those targets the IDF deems most useful to Israel’s national security, independently of Biden’s despicable interference.

Joe Biden’s behavior—favoring as he does Iran getting nuclear weapons along with his parallel antisemitic attitude toward the Jewish state—is both disgusting, and a national humiliation to rival his panicky running out of Afghanistan.

To Abuse a Metaphor….

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Iran has had its inability to defend itself against direct Israeli attacks, and Hamas and Hezbollah, although still fighting, have been severely damaged. The Biden-Harris administration wants a “proportional” response by Israel to Iran’s latest assault, a murderous-intended, ballistic missile attack all across the geography of Israel. They’re not alone. Michael Knights, Washington Institute for Near East Policy senior fellow:

Israeli retaliations always tend to match the reduction in its civilian morale, done as a reassurance that the Israeli qualitative edge is still there and that Israel can hit its enemies back harder than they can hit it. Now, in this case, these Iranian strikes didn’t seem to have hit very hard.

Proportionality: Iran keeps attacking Israel, directly now, through its terrorist clients north and south of Israel also. Our Progressive-Democrat administration’s version of proportionality is to just trade tit-for-tat strikes that do nothing to put an end to Iran’s repeated strikes, and as they continue, the likelihood grows that one strike will get through and severely damage or destroy Israel.

True proportionality would have Israel strike hard enough to prevent Iran from being able to strike again for a good, long time—generations, ideally. Dina Esfandiary, International Crisis Group‘s Middle East and North Africa senior adviser:

It [Iran] really is stuck between a rock and a hard place[.]

It’s time to slam the rock down hard on the hard place and severely damage, if not cripple, Iran. That’s the only way to prevent Iran from continuing its murderous attacks.

The Utility of Automation

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The International Longshoremen’s Association is demonstrating that, in spades, with its strike and its intent on inflicting maximum damage to our nation and our economy. Here’s the ILA MFWIC, Harold Daggett:

We’re going to show these greedy bastards you can’t survive without us!

Pretty nice business you got there. Pay up, suckers.

People are going to sit up and realize how important longshoremen jobs are. They won’t be able to sell cars. They won’t be able to stock malls. They won’t be able to do anything in this country without my f—ing people.

Automation will make such threats to business’ ability to function at all destructions of the past.

In today’s world, I’ll cripple you[.]

That’s Daggett’s response to speculation that the Biden/Harris administration might invoke Taft-Hartly to force the union workers back to their jobs. In the process of crippling our nation, he’s said he’d include slow-walking every step of every task.

Oh, and robots won’t hold out for a 77% pay raise as a precondition to entering into any negotiations at all.

The sooner this union is replaced with automatic facilities at the docks, the better off we’ll all be—including those dockworkers.

“I Don’t Believe in Taft-Hartley”

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Those were Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s words when a reporter asked him if he’d intervene in the now in progress International Longshoremen’s Association strike against East and Gulf Coast ports.

Q    Mr. President, will you intervene in the dockworkers strike if they go on strike on Tuesday?
THE PRESIDENT:  No.
Q    Why not?
THE PRESIDENT:  Because there’s collective bargaining, and I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.

Taft-Hartley authorizes a President to intervene in strikes that create a national emergency—such as, for instance, a strike that shuts down all of our ports on the East and Gulf Coasts, a strike that thereby cuts imports of food, vehicles, heavy machinery, construction materials, [and] chemicals as well as cutting off critical supply chain imports needed for those and for other products all across our economy, which is still in a fragile state, for all the headline numbers. The strike also cuts off all our exports to trading partners, friends, and allies that would leave from those ports. Those exports include products like oil and LNG destined for Europe, whose economies are in a fragile state from the reduced energy availability due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This is Biden is proclaiming his disdain for a law he’s sworn to enforce. That disdain is consistent with his disdain for immigration and border control laws and, by extension, for our laws in general.

This is the Party that wants to reign over us for the next four, and more, years.