The Existential Threat

It was not a unifying speech Biden gave September 1^st. Once again The Babylon Bee gets it right. They satirically quote him as saying, "It's real simple, folks! America can be united if we can just murder everyone who disagrees with me. Peace in our time, Jack!"

Joe Biden give angry anti-Republican speech
amid scary lighting, September 2, 2022.
Image found as a screenshot from here.

Some have speculated that the dark, scary lighting and angry, hate-filled rhetoric was not necessarily intended to get his base to hate Republicans; that would just be a bonus. The speculation is that he intended to upset the people he is accusing—us conservatives—to the point that we will riot or take to the streets, or otherwise do something overt that they can construe as insurrection. And then they can make some arrests and say, “See, we told you so,” thus silencing the rest of us.

Maybe. It’s hard to get into the head of evil unless that’s a place you frequent.

Mocking is probably the best response. And there has been quite a lot. Here are a few, plus some other brief responses.

Responses

Communist version as a meme,
found here

No need for comment. Found as a screenshot here,
where memes were discussed, not created.

Post on a Facebook group, including
the ubiquitous and unhelpful COVID-19 warning.

Ben Shapiro tweet about the speech.
Found as a screenshot here.

 

Ted Cruz tweet about the speech.
Found as a screenshot here.

Law vlogger Viva Frei points out the detail
about the timing of the speech.
Found as a screenshot here.

 

Video and Written Responses

·        “Biden’s Catastrophic Speech” by Charles C. W. Cooke for National Review, September 2, 2022. 

·        “Biden is Trying to be Trump but Turning into Hitler” Mr. Reagan podcast, September 2, 2022. 

·        “POTUS Speech; More Oh Canada; Viva Frei-Days (& Anniversary Stream)” Viva Frei livestream, September 2, 2022. 

·        “Ep. 127: Trump's EMPTY FOLDERS! Biden Speech; Zuck LOSES; Louden; Danchenko & MORE!” Viva & Barnes Sunday night livestream, September 4, 2022. 

·        “Trump Judge UNSEALS More in Mar-a-Lago; Biden Declares WAR on MAGA; Hungover Joe BACKPEDALS” Robert Gouveia livestream, September 2, 2022. 

A Better Plan for Unity

I have a better plan for being unified: We all unify around the Constitution, the document detailing the limits of government, enumerating the powers granted to this government, and enshrining the natural rights government cannot be allowed to infringe upon—that ideal we have pledged allegiance to, after all. This will lead to peace and prosperity.

Or, in Spherical Model terminology: freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

This speech was just a week or so after Biden referred to his political opponents as “semi-fascists.” When confronted about what he meant by that, he said, “You know what I meant.” Yes, we do. We recognize that he is going to throw a hateful label on anybody who dares to disagree with him and his agenda (and that of his behind-the-scenes controllers).

There isn’t any amount of name calling that will actually confer the status of fascist onto Constitution-abiding citizens. What we’re seeing is more accurately confession by projection; they’re doing what they accuse us of. 

In a recent post we quoted Michael Millerman saying,

If you can legitimate calling all of your enemies fascists, and you can legitimate, you know, fascists are so much the scum of the earth that they should be cancelled—or killed—well, you’re not very far from legitimating the killing of your political enemies.

In other words, The Babylon Bee’s assessment of the speech is on point.

The term fascist has been tossed around as an epithet more than usual lately. But my guess is, if you did one of those man-on-the-street interviews, you would find people who know it’s a bad thing, but they can’t define it or accurately identify fascist behavior.

I think the Spherical Model can help with the needed education. This is an ongoing education project. I’ve done this before. The fact that my blog does not reach millions of people means I need to repeat a lot.

Back in April 2019 I used my dictionary to define fascism. The essential definition is:

A system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism, etc.

A couple of months ago, while talking about the EPA ruling, Joshua Philipp on Crossroads casually defined Nazism this way:

Essentially government using corporations and their control over corporations or public private partnerships to do things that they can't legally do.

I think that’s only part of it. But it’s a part we’re increasingly seeing, here in America, where we pledge allegiance to a constitutional republic, not some sort of authoritarian dictatorship. So it’s disturbing. (See Mark Zuckerberg’s interview on Joe Rogan's show.)

Even people on our side seem to be unclear on the definition, especially when comparing it to the fellow Marxist labels of communist and socialist. They’re not different, except possibly in some particular seasoning in the standard recipe. On the Spherical Model all the flavors of totalitarian statist tyranny occupy the same portion of the sphere.

The Spherical Model, showing fascism, socialism,
and communism all occupying the same quadrant, 
because they are all just forms of statist tyranny.

 

What Was in the Speech?

I read, rather than listened to, the speech. I used this transcript. 

Biden used the word “democracy” 31 times. He referred to our “republic” twice, one of those calling the “republic” the guardrails for our “democracy.” So he seems unclear on the concept of our being a constitutional republic.

He refers to Republicans 16 times. Two of those had “mainstream” attached as a modifier; all others were used to reference this threat to democracy, which I’m inferring means “threat to our power.”

He doesn’t define precisely how to identify those threatening, evil MAGA Republicans, who are different somehow from other Republicans that he "can work with." But he does characterize them as extreme—more than once. He says they do not respect our Constitution—and he spent some time, using the historical setting, to set himself up as a Constitution follower and protector, against all obvious reality. He claims these evil extreme Republicans are angry, hateful, and violent. In fact, he used the term "clear and present danger," which is a term used to justify entering into war.

What are the crimes of this existential threat to America?

1.      They refuse to accept the results of a “free and fair” election.

2.      They support pro-life rather than a mother’s “right” to kill her baby in the womb (or possibly shortly thereafter in California).

3.      They support the definition of marriage that has been used by societies for millennia.

4.      They don’t characterize January 6, 2021, as an insurrection.

That first one seems to be the biggest sticking point. “Elections” comes up 11 times. Twice he uses the term “accept the results” of “free and fair elections.” The thing is, we so-called MAGA Republicans, more than any other segment of society, want free and fair elections. That’s why we have been insisting on the rule of law. And each time Biden insists that election fraud is without evidence, we bring out more evidence. (I’ve offered some here, here, and here.) There are boatloads of evidence showing that the results are not what was foisted upon us. Meanwhile, these accusers have spent six years trying to assert that Donald Trump was not a legitimate president.

Yet our reaction has not been to riot in the streets. It has been to amass evidence, bring it before courts when possible, but look mainly toward the future by writing legislation to prevent fraud in the future. And to activate as poll workers and poll watchers. How dangerous!

He claims, “We’ve seen election officials, poll workers—many of them volunteers of both parties—subjected to intimidation and death threats.” I have seen zero evidence of intimidation and death threats toward Democrat poll workers. Zero. Not a case. If there is one somewhere, it is an anomaly. If there are threats against Republicans, that is the Democrat machine doing business as usual.

Neither the second nor third on that list of accusations was a Trump agenda priority. Those were priorities of the people who were looking for someone to represent our viewpoint. He was smart enough to go along with us, particularly in our desire to have Constitution-adhering justices.

That fourth one—we don’t call it an insurrection, because it wasn’t one. Definitions matter. There was violence that day; no one disputes that, and we all decry any violence. However, it is appearing more and more to be instigated as entrapment. Despite their hopes that mass riots would result, only a small fraction participated in violence. The only deaths were caused by police toward non-violent protesters. Most of the rally goers that day remained outside, nonviolent, and uninvolved in anything but a rally. Among the ones they’re accusing are regular Americans, grandparents, patriots, the vast majority of whom at worst walked through the capitol peacefully after being invited in by police. Yet good, nonviolent American citizens have been held, often without charges, unable to talk with counsel, unable to see family, often in solitary confinement, for months going on years so far—just the way authoritarian dictators treat their political opposition.

But we nonviolent law-abiding citizens who voted for Trump are the biggest threat to America?

There’s a segment where he says things I agree with:

This is a nation that honors our Constitution. We do not reject it.

This is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We do not repudiate it.

This is a nation that respects free and fair elections. We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it.

And this is a nation that rejects violence as a political tool. We do not encourage violence.

We are still an America that believes in honesty and decency and respect for others, patriotism, liberty, justice for all, hope, possibilities.

It’s just that each of these things means something different in reality than in Biden world. He and his “team” do not honor our Constitution. They repudiate the rule of law (see my last post). They don’t want “free and fair elections”; they want outcomes their way at all costs. They stoked violence all through the summer of 2020, refusing to call it violence when we saw our cities being destroyed. And then they falsely accused hundreds if thousands if peaceful rally goers of trying to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021, describing it as the worst violence since Pearl Harbor. Worse than 9/11.

As Mr. Reagan said on his September 2 podcast linked above, Trump didn’t create a movement; he got in front of it. He said he would represent the people who weren’t getting represented. He would stand up for them, and he would do what he said he would do. His following through on that is what got my vote the second time around.

Trump is a populist, not a constitutional scholar. So, as long as he keeps his promises to uphold our Constitution—to get back to it—he has supporters. These are not blind followers. And these are certainly not a threat to our constitutional republic.

Biden, et al., meanwhile, is the actual threat. The liar. The hater. Perhaps the most stunning line of the evening was, “I give you my word as a Biden.” We know what that is worth, as he sells his country to China and anyone else willing to pay.

He’s right that America faces a dire threat. But it is from him and his authoritarian fascist cronies, not from the MAGA Republicans or any other keepers of the Constitution.