Tag: Joe Biden

TBT: Modern Art and Influence

The Portly Politico3 Comments

It’s that dead time of the year, news-wise, when nothing much exciting is happening—unless, of course, rising food, gas, and home prices are your idea of excitement.  Everyone’s in a summertime mood, and no one wants to worry about the troubles and strife in the world when we can be out swimming and eating ice cream.

Of course, as we’re out there on the beaches, we’re going to see a lot of people, beautiful or otherwise.  We’re all beautifully and wonderfully made in God’s Image, and He Cares about each of us.  There is Beauty and dignity to be found in every human life.

Naturally, some humans are blessed with more Beauty than others.  Nevertheless, I’d like to think that, as a species made in God’s Image, we all instinctively appreciate True Beauty when we see it.  That our ruling class actively supports “art” that is anti-Beauty is another sign that they are illegitimate and, quite frankly, Satanic.

Most modern “art” is not worthy of the moniker.  We all understand that a great deal of its support comes from wealthy doofuses who want to look cool.  Unfortunately, these hipster doofuses—whether intentionally or not—are destroying culture in the process of celebrating “art.”  The destruction of Beauty is a crime against God and civilization; the celebration of ugliness is a sure sign of moral and artistic decay.

Fortunately, there’s still a great deal of Beauty in the world.  We just have to seek it out—prayerfully and intentionally.

With that, here is 28 July 2021’s “Modern Art and Influence“:

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TBT: One Week [and One Year] Under the Usurper

The Portly Politico9 Comments

Well, it’s been one year and one week since Biden the Usurper seized the throne and assumed his reign of the federal government.  Of course, he’s a senile puppet—or maybe he’s playing at senility—and rubber stamps whatever the progressives want.

I’ve really disengaged from national politics over the last year, as I find much of the wrangling fruitless.  I personally advocate for radical decentralization and focusing our energy and attention at the lowest levels of government to bring about change.  If economics functions on a “trickle-down” basis, politics “trickles-up”—(re)gain control of the mechanisms of power and the institutions locally, and you’re going to change—albeit slowly—the greater heights.

That said, even I am not ignorant to the state of the country.  Workers are quitting their menial jobs in droves—or not returning to them after being furloughed—as they can enjoy excessively generous unemployment benefits.  Prices are through the roof on everything, especially food.  Farmers are facing higher prices for the inputs for fertilizer, which means food is just going to get more expensive.  The supply chains are totally disrupted.  And we’re wringing our hands over The Virus, which has gotten milder over time, and was never all that deadly anyway.

Police officers are arresting nine-year olds in New York City for not having vaccine passports.  Masks—which don’t work at all—are a sign of the pious—the New Elect—and increase carbon dioxide levels.  Companies are forcing employees to get The Vaccine, which isn’t even a vaccine in the traditional sense, but an experimental gene therapy that appears to increase dramatically the incidences of myocarditis in even the healthiest individuals—including professional athletes, who are dropping like flies.

Americans might have lost their spirit of ornery rebellion, but if their kids are getting arrested and/or discriminated against and they can’t buy stuff they want at low prices, they’ll make a fuss.  They already are.  The Biden Administration might not bear the responsibility for everything that is happening, but they’ve done precious little to ameliorate—and much to exacerbate—our current situation.

That’s why now more than ever, we’ve got to get serious about fixing things where we are.  Grow your own food, stack cash (even if inflation eats into it), and learn to live lean.

With that, here is 27 January 2021’s “One Week Under the Usurper“:

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TBT: The Morning After

The Portly Politico9 Comments

It was one year ago today that The Z Man wrote that “America died” on 3 November 2020.  I don’t think he meant it melodramatically, and it certainly encapsulated what a lot of us were feeling as we watched the fraudulent votes magically appear in the middle of the night.

The 2020 election woke a lot of people up, but even blatant fraud across multiple States has, sadly, gone largely ignored.  The silver lining is that folks seem to have abandoned national politics and are focusing on what’s happening at the local and State levels.  Indeed, there seems to be a general disengagement from politics, something that in the past I would have decried, but that now I think might actually be healthy—provided people are willing to make tough decisions for themselves.

Regardless, it’s hard to think about the 2020 election.  Since then, we’ve been stuck with a old man who is essentially a corpse dangling from the strings of invisible hands.  I thought a year ago that The Usurper Biden would be tossed from office at the first opportunity, but it’s occurred to me that he is too perfect a patsy for the radical elitists performing the marionette.  For one, Kamala Harris somehow manages to be less likeable and more phony than Hillary Clinton, and progressives don’t like her.  For another, it’s better to have a hollow man like Biden than a strident floozy like Harris, who might occasionally make a decision on her own.

Well, this topic is depressing.  You can see why I’ve switched over to writing about music and the weather.

With that, here is 4 November 2020’s “The Morning After“:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Decline, Part I: Afghanistan

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Events of the past few years give one the distinct sense that the United States—and, indeed, Western Civilization—is in a steady decline.  As I wrote in an old post:

We’re no longer the Roman Republic, but we’re not the Roman Empire in the 5th century, either.  We’re more like the Roman Empire in the 2nd or 3rd centuries:  coasting along on the remnants of a functioning system, with a play-acting Congress shadowing the motions of republicanism.

We’re in what might be called the “decadent” phase of our existence:  past generations forged a nation from their sweat and blood; their successors solidified and consolidated on those gains, creating a powerful economy and culture, and winning major wars; their successors are currently coasting along on the fruits of their ancestors’ efforts.  But a culture, a nation, a civilization can only coast for so long before it loses all momentum entirely.

The recent unpleasantness in Afghanistan is a stark illustration of our current decadence—and our blind arrogance.  We believed we could plant a functioning democratic republic in a land that has been war-torn and riddled with autocratic warlords since time immemorial with an investment of twenty years of blood and treasure.  Instead, we botched a pull-out, abandoning American citizens and military equipment in the process, allowing the Taliban to seize control of the entire country in a leisurely weekend.

Ironically, The Pretender Biden was probably the perfect patsy for American withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was about nineteen years overdue.  Every administration has known we needed to get the heck out of a place known as “The Graveyard of Empires,” but no one wanted the bad optics of a withdrawal.  Biden is so senile and mentally foggy that he probably still doesn’t realize what he did, and certainly doesn’t feel any shame about abandoning Americans to the Taliban.

But even given our incompetent, mentally hobbled executive, the withdrawal from Afghanistan—quite necessary, I think—was botched so terribly, it condemns the entire US government and our military leadership.  Any ten-year old could have said, “Yeah, get all the weapons and people out first, then withdraw the last of the American troops.”  Instead, we did the exact opposite.  Ripping off the Band-Aid and getting out of Afghanistan was necessary, but did we have to rip the skin clean off the arm?

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Modern Art and Influence

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Most readers of this blog will likely agree with the following sentiment:  “modern art is terrible.”  In my more intellectually generous moments, I’d add “most” as a qualifier to start that phrase, but with age comes orneriness, and orneriness does not lend itself to intellectual generosity.

Perhaps the best treatment of this sentiment in a scholarly—dare I say “intellectually generous”—way is Roger Kimball‘s The Rape of the Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art.  The book is a quick read, but even in 200 pages, it’s depressing seeing the increasingly bizarre, flat-out wrong interpretations politically-motivated Leftists bring to classic works of art.  The unfortunate trend of comparing everything that ever happened to Harry Potter is no-doubt the watered-down, pop cultural version of this academic shoehorning of the ideology du jour into artistic interpretation.

Of course, there is a corollary to the maxim that “modern art is terrible.”  It’s that “modern art is only successful because wealthy dupes want to look cool.”  That’s a bit of a mouthful, we all know it’s true.

So it is that two close relatives to the current Pretender’s regime—scandal-ridden, sister-in-law-loving drug addict Hunter Biden, and not-pretty-enough-to-be-a-model model Ella Emhoff (Vice President Kamala Harris‘s stepdaughter) have made good money peddling “art.”

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Friday Rundown (18-22 January 2021)

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It’s been an eventful week, so I figured an extra post today running down the posts from the past few days would be worthwhile.  Also, I’m a slave to the WordPress daily streak counter, and when I scheduled this morning’s post on Wednesday, WordPress for some reason immediately e-mailed a preview; ergo, I want to make sure I get the daily post streak.  Gotta keep the streak alive!

 So, here is a quick rundown of this week’s posts:

Enjoy!

—TPP

Inauguration Day 2021

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The day has arrived—the briefly delayed third term of Obama’s presidency.  In the years since Obama left office, the progressive Left has become even more insane.  After a four-year reprieve under Trump, the radical progressives aren’t going to let another opportunity pass to transform the country completely.

Things are going to get worse before they get better, which is why I’m encouraging my fellow conservatives, Christians, and traditionalists to think and act locally in the years to come (H/T to historian Brion McClanahan for that pithy phrase).  Now is the time to attend town/city and county council meetings, to run for local and State offices, and to build up communities.  While we can do some of that online, we’ve got to get out and meet people—join Bible studies, form local clubs, revive forgotten civic organizations, etc.  Heck, even play at an open mic!

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The Last Day of Freedom?

The Portly Politico7 Comments

Here we are, 19 January 2021—the last day of basking in liberty before Biden the Usurper assumes the throne.  For all his personal foibles and occasional missed opportunities (while acknowledging, of course, his many achievements), President Trump at least fought to ensure that Americans could enjoy freedom and opportunity.  Under progressive rule, no such guarantees exist.

But rather than look about gloomily at what is to come, I’d like to offer some words of exhortation.  Times will not be easy for conservatives and Christians over the next four years, but I’m trying to embrace this new progressive era with some cautious, small-scale optimism.

For one, I think the whole sordid election fraud, as well as the bipartisan effort to impeach President Trump for—if we’re honest about it—discouraging violence and encouraging peaceful protest—has confirmed for many of us that the elites of both parties are against us.  As such, effecting change at the national level seems increasingly futile.

That might sound discouraging, but consider it from another angle:  if we can’t make much of a dent at the national level, then why waste the energy?  Instead, let’s focus our efforts locally.

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