Sir Roger Scruton, R.I.P.

A true warrior for Western culture has passed from this world.
Seeing culture as "a vessel in which intrinsic values are captured
and handed on to future generations," Sir Roger Scruton thus saw
the accumulations of traditions, lessons, and habits necessary for
a good life and a just society go into that vessel; these all being more
beautiful and real than anything made by the most brilliant
planners and intellectuals, especially the intellectuals on the left.
He thought the latter were contemptuous of the wisdom of the past,
always trying to replace it with ideologies which either were untried
or have been tried but failed miserably, i.e. socialism.

Sir Roger subscribed to a worldview based largely on the philosophy
of Edmund Burke, an 18th century Irish-born statesman who served
in the British Parliament and is a forefather of modern conservatism.
As a young man in Paris in the 1960s, Scruton witnessed the 1968
unrest which turned him away from the radicalism of the socialists
and communists and toward conservatism. He was vindicated upon
seeing the mass privations and suffering perpetrated upon other
parts of the world, and took a principled, if lonely stand, in the realm
of academics as a university professor; a conservative prof in a
crowd of far left-wing sorts is not at all a comfortable situation.
Scruton often told the story of how he watched protesters in the
streets outside his window in his Paris apartment, during which he
came to realize that building things of value, i.e. communities,
societies, nations, legal and economic systems, educational systems,
and other institutions of civil society is difficult and requires much
time, while it is so easy and quick to destroy them. This realization
thus triggered another, that Scruton was a conservative, or was on
the way to becoming one.

Scruton was by and large known as a "conservative philosopher",
and there was more than a little truth to that. But always a loyalist
to the truth, he wanted always to honor the truth in full. So Sir
Roger would show the sense in which a particular opinion of his
was conservative. As with conservatives of all kinds, Scruton
despised communism and all forms of socialism, regarding these
ideologies were soul-eroding abominations as well as failures
at delivering economic prosperity. Consequently, he had little use
for his native Britain's Labor Party, even during its more moderate
era when Tony Blair was their leader, later becoming Prime Minister.
He also viewed with equal disdain the Democratic Party of the
United States, even before its leftward land-rocket ride in the past
twenty years.

However, Sir Roger was not copacetic with the economic philosophy
of the British Tories (conservatives) or the American Republican
Party. Although he believed in market mechanisms and was strongly
opposed to central planning and what he recognized as a dependency-
inducing welfare state, Scruton denied that the outcomes of free
exchanges in the marketplace are automatically just. Liberty, in his
mind, was but one important value among community and solidarity,
order and decency, honor and faith. As a result, Scruton believed that
some amount of regulation was just and necessary for the purpose
of protecting persons and institutions of civil society --- drawing upon
his hero Edmund Burke, who called these the "little platoons" which
should play the lead role in promoting health, education and welfare,
and ensuring that new generations would receive and utilize the
virtues which people need to thrive and to contribute to society.

Although Scruton would ally himself with classical liberals, even with
Austrian-school liberals in the struggle against communism (Sir Roger
held seminars and built underground institutions behind the Iron
Curtain), he rejected "individualism" in any serious sense. Most funda-
mental to his moral and political thought was the dignity of the human
person. He did, it must be noted, acknowledge that in order to flourish
persons need relationships, beginning with the family. It followed,
then, that Scruton believed that one naturally and quite rightly had
a special and unique love for, and a duty toward, members of one's
own family, tradition of faith, local community and region, and one's
own fellow citizens.

Scruton categorically rejected "multiculturalism" which he regarded
as anti-cultural in that it lumped and melded all the different cultures
into a monoculture of contemporary upscale progressive ideology.
Sir Roger was then shrilly accused of racism, xenophobia, and other
crimes against "political correctness" when in fact he respected cultures
much more than those who hurled their emotionally-based epithets
at him. Scruton learned Arabic in order to read and study the Quran.
He also made in-depth studies and analysis of Hindu and other Eastern
Traditions of faith to discover for himself the wisdom he thought them
to possess.

Leftist philospophers, such as Karl Marx, believe that the point of
philosophy is to illustrate how the world should be remade, quote:
"The philosophers have thus far merely interpreted the world; the point
is to change it." Sir Roger did not think that philosophy, or really any-
thing else, could usefully plan or radically reform the world, nor did
he want to see it happen in the first place. But he did believe that philo-
sophy could help us see the value of good things, things which should
be preserved by doing small repairs via moderate reforms, so as not to
throw the baby out with the bath water.

Sir Roger Scruton passed away, aged 75. We could sure use a lot more
people like Sir Roger in our topsy-turvy world. Rest well, Sir Roger.


MEM

An Unforgettable Evening

On January 14 I joined an old friend from my high school days
and fellow conservative activist to attend a political rally
unlike any I have ever attended before; this event was the
biggest, boldest, grandest, most emotionally affecting, and
rousing rally your thrilled Peasant had ever been to.
To be succinct, we went to a Trump rally.

Held in the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, the rally was
but one of which President Trump has held and appeared in
around the country. These rallies are what amounts to the
president's own version of long-ago President Harry Truman's
"Whistlestop Campaign Tour" of 1948 which, by the way,
was successful; Truman won a nail-bitingly close race to
be elected to a full term in the White House. But Trump
has held these gatherings to be in closer touch with the
people, in which he lists his achievements --- his promises
kept, the figures touting his programs enabling the growth
of jobs, people getting off food stamps to take many of those
jobs, the tax rates lowered, and deadly crimes declining to
name but a few, firing up the attendees. In a sense, he has
been campaigning for a second term not very long after
having been inaugurated for his first.

And they have been most helpful in getting his message across
to the public. Heaven knows he cannot rely on the media
to do this; they are trying mightily to get the president
removed from office. Impeachment proceedings have
already begun, and the impeachment articles have been
delivered to the Senate from the House. All the while, the
Democrats in the House (where they are in control) and
those in the Senate have been continuing to make false
accusations about President Trump, spinning lies about
him while the Mainstream (HA!) media swears to each
of them. Meanwhile, Trump has swung some voters who
didn't trust him in 2016 along with some voters who have
been unsure about him to his side, causing him to rise in the
polls throughout the country.

And not only have the Democrats and their media pals been
watching their lies about Trump explode, their lies about his
supporters have been blowing up as well. Although these
purveyors of lies have been desperately trying to make Trump
out to be a racist, black and Hispanic voters have been flocking
to his rallies; As my friend and I made our way to the site of
the rally, we saw many Trump supporters selling Trump
campaign merchandise --- the ubiquitous MAGA hats, T-shirts
saying same, buttons, bumper stickers. as well as tees and
stickers with other pro-Trump as well as pro-Republican and
conservative messages at their merchant booths along the
streets. We saw as many black merchants as white, along with
Hispanics, women (black women too), and people ranging in
age from their teens to their golden years, all selling Trump
merchandise. And the people in the long and ever-growing line
to enter Panther Arena greatly resembled the vendors, as if all
these people were Skittles candy pieces poured out of a giant
bag, with all the colors of the candy pieces to see.

Inside Panther Arena there were at least 14,000 people by one
account; there were only two empty seats that we could see
(and they were, oddly enough, right in front of where we were
seated!). We were addressed by various Republican luminaries,
including Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign manager, as well
as by our U.S. Senator Ron Johnson. The GOP members of
Wisconsin's congressional delegation all made an appearance,
some of them addressing the assembled Trump supporters.
Your faithful Peasant's district U.S. Representative James Sensen-
brenner was there as well; he is a dependable, unflinching stalwart
conservative and will be retiring at the end of his current term;
he shall be greatly missed.

And yes, there were protesters on hand; mainly they stayed outside
of the Arena, chanting and banging drums, calling for President
Trump to be removed from office, arrested, and imprisoned for
crimes which none of them specified in their chants or on their
signs. Much like the congressional Democrats. A few, three of
them by your gimlet-eyed Peasant's reckoning, did sneak through
to get inside and make mischief but were quickly apprehended
and hustled outside by security. One of them was actually a few
rows up from where we were sitting! Many of us, especially in
our section, booed the protester and cheered the police officer
who grabbed the radical; your favorite Peasant made some
mischief as well, shouting to the cop "Please officer, don't take
her alive!". My friend got a laugh out of it.

Where President Ronald Reagan made us comfortable in showing
our pride in being proud to be American, President Donald Trump
infused us with the courage to stand up for our country, its founding
principles, and the benefits of life in our free and prosperous country
and to tell the Left --- the Liberal Establishment with all their minions,
and the more extreme radical elements --- who would take our great
country away from us and turn it into something we would not recog-
nize and would want no part of when hell has a polar vortex. This
feeling is sweeping the United States like a mighty wave, neither recog-
nizing caring about skin color, gender, sexual preference, age, earnings,
educational level, or any other category in which we all have been
pigeon-holed by those who want to classify, label, and indexed in
order to keep us from being truly united, despite the name of our
magnificent country. That was the feeling which my friend and I had
gotten from the event and everything leading up to it, including a music
track playing songs with a patriotic flavor, including Country star
Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud to Be an American".

Thank God, on our knees, that we have a country where we can express
our pride and love for our grand country and not have to kowtow to
radical bullies who want to shut us up or force us to chant for what they
want instead.Yes, the far lefties, and their "political correctness" are
attempting to do just that, but as long as we stick to our principles
and values as Americans and support candidates for office, especially
the presidency, and exercise all of our constitutional rights in order to
preserve them through frequent reliance upon no one, left-wing bullies
nor any other mendacious menace, can ever force change upon our
country and our way of life that we would never freely choose for
ourselves.

And this, even more than to re-elect our courageous president, is the
underlying point and purpose to these rallies. President Trump is our
point man; the reasons why we elected him form our shared righteous
cause.


MEM

Britain's Bold Move

Great Britain recently did something rather earth-shaking:
despite some oftentimes weak and inept leadership displayed
by the last two Conservative prime ministers and some ongoing
disagreements between the moderate and the more conservative
factions in the Conservative party on many issues, most notably
whether to end Britain's membership in the European Union
(Brexit). They elected yet another Conservative PM, Boris
Johnson, while roundly rejecting the ever-leftward lurching
Britain's Labor Party and their candidate, Labor Party leader
Jeremy Corbyn. In doing so, the British people reaffirmed
their desire and demand to leave the EU, which they made
clear in a prior election on June 23, 2016. The Brexit was
set to occur on October 31, 2019, but it was pushed back
by Labor and Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) members
in Parliament. This act angered the British electorate
to the point that they voted to give the Conservatives an
larger --- much larger --- majority in Parliament. 368
seats for the Conservatives to Labor's 191. This is the
weakest position in which the Labor Party has found itself
since 1935, in having lost 60 seats in the latest British
election.

Several issues came into play with this event. The Brexit
supporters were given the opportunity to make their
message louder and clearer: WE WANT OUT OF THE EU!
NO IFS, ANDS, OR BUTS! Even voters not enthralled with
the prospect of leaving the EU were appalled at the arrogant
and elitist way in which the will of the people was snubbed
and thwarted. Conservative leader Boris Johnson promised
to "get Brexit done" and the electorate took him at his word.

Next, there was the frightening extremism of Jeremy Corbyn.
The soft-spoken labor party candidate carried a big ideological
stick, extolling the supposed virtues of his socialist ideas which
Britain had tried nearly fifty years ago, with the more senior
voters remembering them and the pain they caused --- raging
inflation, economic stagnation, skyrocketing unemployment,
frequent strikes, frequent power cuts, horrible customer service,
and the nationalization of the railroads and many other services.
Corbyn claimed that his policies were popular with the people;
when the people gave him a cold, hard dose of reality in response,
the Marxist resigned from both his party leadership post and
his seat in Parliament. Moreover, again in a contrasting opposite
juxtaposition, Corbyn stated that he had nothing against Jews
and that they were welcome in the Labor Party. But again, the
older voters remember differently; they remember a Jeremy
Corbyn who rubbed elbows with radical Islamic political
figures and other politically extreme and unsavory sorts which
included anti-Semites along with various dangerous kooks,
cranks, and nut jobs.

It must, however, be noted that the appeal of the British Conser-
vative Party is greater than that of its leader and new PM
Boris Johnson. As it was his obligation to ensure his election,
Johnson struck a bargain with the British people: Trust me
to make good on Brexit, and I'll govern from the center on
other matters. This has been the tried-and-true strategy of winning
over voters who may not have been at all willing to vote for
the Tories otherwise, promising to deliver on a particular thing
while hugging the center on most other things. But let us hope
that PM Johnson will mature and grow into the job, the tremendous
and daunting job of running a country of over 60 million people,
most of whom are either enraged or burned out by politics and
the politicians who have made too many pie crust promises
(Gee, that sounds familiar!) and now have put their trust in
Johnson who promised to be the one to deliver to them Britain's
exit from the EU and restore the measure of sovereignty which
Britain gave up when it joined the EU in the first place.

And doesn't it say something about a party that loses in a landslide
to a party that had recent back-to-back prime ministers who were
little more than empty suits, who were so incompetent as to be almost
clownish, yet the people would chance having a third such leader
from the party with more sensible ideas of governance rather than
vote for the party which would blindly charge ahead with a
radical agenda which would result in wrecking the economy and
erasing the liberties enjoyed by the people?


MEM

Paul Volcker, R.I.P.

Inflation's worst enemy, the man who clipped the
inflation bat's wings, Paul Volcker, the creator
of the "Volcker Rule" which prohibits banks from
conducting certain investment activities with their
own accounts and limits their dealings with hedge
funds and private equity funds, and restored at least
some measure of respect for the U.S. system of
government during his time as the Chairman of
the Federal Reserve, died after a lengthy illness
at the age of 92.

Politically a moderate Democrat, Volcker was
nominated by President Jimmy Carter to the post
which he would hold throughout Democrat and
Republican administrations, Volcker broke the
stranglehold of inflation which was poisoning the
national economy by pushing interest rates up to
20%, making him at the time much despised but
getting strong results, resulting in his becoming
one of the most successful Fed Chairmen in the
history of the Federal Reserve.

After four years at the New York Federal Reserve
Bank, Volcker became the head of the Fed. When he
took office the country was suffering with an economy
with the highest sustained high inflation ever recorded.
Constricting the monetary supply (hence the incredibly
high interest rates), Volcker finally saw the results
of his gambit when the inflation rate sunk to 3% by the
end of his first four-year term as the Fed's leader.
President Carter praised Volcker for his work and his
performance as the Fed Chairman upon learning of
his passing: "Paul was as stubborn as he was tall
(Volcker was a tall drink of water at 6 foot 7 inches),
and although some of his policies as Fed chairman
were politically costly, they were the right thing to
do." President Ronald Reagan would nominate him
for a second term, after which Volcker retired in
1987. Alan Greenspan then succeeded Volcker
at the head of the Fed.

Volcker then became a proponent of breaking up
large banks and banning commercial banks from
engaging in higher-risk activities, such as proprietary
trading so as to quash speculative trading. Although
he was also a proponent of certain regulations to ensure
protection against any future crisis, he was in favor of
only prudent regulations to guard against speculation,
not regulation which would hamper regular banking
business or the economy.

Even in retirement, Volcker kept working for ethical
banking practices; in the 1990s, he headed up a commit-
tee investigating long-dormant bank accounts and other
assets having belonged to Holocaust victims. A decade
later Volcker headed another committee which helped
establish global accounting practices. In 2004 Volcker
was hired by the UN to research possible corruption in
the Iraqi Oil for Food Program. Despite his politics,
Paul Volcker was not hesitant to speak critically and
openly about the actions of liberals in business
(especially banking) and government, playing no favorites.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Volcker. Your legacy and impact will
be felt for generations to come.


MEM

The Democrat Party is Its Own Worst Enemy

Daniel Henninger stated in a recent column that your
favorite Peasant came across in the Wall Street Journal
today that, if the Dems' never-ending attempts to impeach
and remove President Donald Trump from office "we would
have had a 'normal' presidential term, mostly about domestic
and foreign policies, which would have given Republicans
space to disagree with Mr. Trump. But the Democrats ---
by making Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Alexandria Ocasio
Cortez (the infamous AOC; your Peasant's notation),
... and Medicare for All the faces of their party ---
have turned themselves into something no Republicans,
many independents and frankly more than a few centrist
Democrats cannot abide." Henninger hit it out of the park!

With an at first gradual but now galloping pace, the radical
elements which have made their home in the Democrat Party
like fleas taking up residence on a dog have now all but
taken over their host. These elements, straight outta The
Far Left, eschew the rules of compromise, meeting the
opposition halfway in order to get legislative work done;
they have neither time for compromise nor for dissent
within or from outside their ranks. When the Green New
Deal was rolled out by AOC and her fellow far-outs the
entrants in the Democrats' field of presidential hopefuls
all showed their fealty to it by genuflecting in synchron-
ization right from their first candidates' debate. They all,
in addition, did the same with the subjects of Medicare
for All (the Dems' latest plan to foist government-run
medical coverage, A/K/A/ socialized medicine, upon
all Americans) and the preservation (and possibly the
expansion of the scope of) Roe v. Wade, keeping abortions
legal and ending restrictions on abortions and the funding
for them, e.g. the Hyde Amendment. On abortion, the
Democrats have made abortion a political sacrament;
pro-lifers are no longer welcome in their ranks, especially
if they wish to run for any office --- especially the presidency.

Recently, one of the more extremist candidates vying for the
Democrat Party's laurels as their presidential standard bearer
dropped out of the contest, after showing her astonishing
lack of preparation for the debates concerning several of the
topics, including Medicare for All; she couldn't even
clearly lay out how her own Medicare expansion program
would work. Having been perceived by many both inside
and outside of the party as the progressive bellwether, that
spot is now shared by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, the faux 
Cherokee, and Bernie Sanders, the avowed socialist who
ran four years earlier and lost to eventual nominee Hillary
Clinton despite turning out huge crowds to his rallies while
Clinton addressed few attendees and many empty chairs.
Joe Biden, the Vice President during the Obama years,
is the centrist's best hope, or maybe they have a second,
better choice; former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
who recently entered the fray. Being more fiscally prudent
while still being socially (and considerably lefty), Bloomberg
is also a better public speaker and has greater command of the
pertinent facts regarding the topics of great interest to the
Dems, and can readily fund his own campaign since he is
a billionaire.

Ah, but that won't fly with the progs; they claim to want to
drive Big Money out of politics starting with the Democrat
Party. Also, with Sen. Harris' departure from the race they
are now down to one non-white candidate, Sen. Corey Booker.
They have a gay candidate, South Bend, Indiana's mayor,
Pete Buttigieg (Mayor Pete to his supporters), but they have
soured on him because he once did some volunteer work
for (GASP!) the Salvation Army, a charitable organization
which is not a fan of gay marriage (Mayor Pete has a husband),
and is one of many such organizations regularly lambasted by
the LGBTQ crowd, which purports to speak for gay people and
members of other sexual-classification minority folk. They are
certainly determined to have a voice in choosing a nominee
at the Democrats' convention in Milwaukee next summer, and
they have the clout to ensure being heard and listened to.

While the radical sorts bemoan the dearth of non-white, non-male,
non-heterosexual candidates in the Democrat presidential pack,
it is important to keep in mind the fact that when the Dems won
back the House in 2018, it was centrist candidates who led the way;
31 successful Dem candidates, mostly middle-of-the-road sorts,
defeated incumbent Republicans in suburban districts where
many female voters were venting about the president, whom they
found distasteful and disturbing. And many of these newbies,
being the centrists that they presented themselves as while on
the campaign trail, were reluctant to help impeach an duly
elected president on the flimsy "evidence" that President Trump
twisted the Ukrainian head of state to get him to dig up dirt
on ex-Vice President Biden's inept, family name-riding son
who was appointed to a cushy position with an Ukrainian
energy company despite his having no knowledge about how
the firm operates and being paid a whopping salary for ...
doing nothing other than just being the son of a former American
Vice President. You see, the Dems couldn't find any proof
of Trump's allegedly having had a similar deal with Russia
in order to win the 2016 presidential election, not could they
find anything to hang on him re: many many many other
allegations and accusations of a variety of mischief, including
hiring prostitutes to pee (!) on the bed in the Ritz Carlton Hotel
in Moscow (!!).

Meanwhile, as Henninger additionally pointed out, for once the
GOP is unified. Oh yes, there's no major squabbling among the
party stalwarts on Capitol Hill, in the White House, or anywhere
else. Because if the Democrats' all-out war that they are waging
on the Republican president, the party luminaries are muting
their criticisms of their titular leader so as to put up a united
front against the Democrat foe. And the radicals in the latter
party, the self-proclaimed "Resistance", can credit themselves
for the Republicans' newly established adhesiveness thanks to
their myriad FAILED attempts to hang a scandal on the object
of their hatred; President Donald J. Trump.

The more center-leaning members of the Democrat Party,
independents, Republicans, be they conservative, moderate
or liberal, are all sick and tired of the wild and wooley,
Failure Du Jour show being staged by these loony lefties.
Some of these fed up folks have vented on local and national
political radio shows, and many of them have declared their
intentions to vote for President Trump in next year's election
despite their being turned off by his bravado and other traits.
But they also have seen our economy improve, their taxes cut,
jobs coming back, regained respect from our allies and the
return of the worry and fear in the minds of our enemies.
For these reasons, these voters will eschew the radicalized
Democrat Party, their empty promises, and their nasty,
vicious lies in 2020.


MEM