Michael J. Totten on the two Oregons.

My friend Michael J. Totten at City Journal:

Yes, rural Oregonians are more culturally conservative than urban Oregonians. Rural people are more culturally conservative than their urban counterparts everywhere in the world. Oregon, though, is not fighting a cultural civil war. Rather, people on the inland eastern side of the state have an entirely different set of priorities. Rural voters are being micromanaged by Democratic politicians elected in Portland, whose land-use and water-rights policies are inflicting at times devastating economic hardship on the other side of the mountains. Contrary to Frank, they prefer the Republican Party not despite their economic interests but because of them. If the Democrats want to win back these votes in the upcoming midterms, the first thing they need to do is stop kidding themselves. Understanding Oregon is a good place to start.

Oregon is divided geographically, culturally, and politically by the Cascade Mountains, a spectacular range of volcanoes roughly 100 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean that pick up where the Sierra Nevadas leave off, stretching from Lassen County in northern California to the international border with British Columbia. Those mountains are invisible on non-topographical maps. No political boundary takes them into account. The state line between Oregon and Washington mostly follows the Columbia River, and the international border between the United States and Canada follows the 49th parallel. The Cascade Mountains are natural borders, however. Instead of dividing the Pacific Northwest into northern and southern halves along the Columbia River, it might have made more sense to place Portland and Seattle in one state and everything between the Cascades and the Rockies in another. Coming from Portland, I feel more at home in Seattle and even in Vancouver, British Columbia, than I do just an hour east of my house. ...

Read the rest at the link. Michael is well known for his dispatches from Beirut and elsewhere, but he is very knowledgeable about his native Northwest and it's a pleasure to see him address issues close to home. (Michael and I went on a short road trip together back in 2005 and I wrote about it here.)

Andy Ngo: Racism disguised as anti-racism.

Andy Ngo at Quillette:

When I started my graduate education at Portland State in 2015 after a long hiatus from academe, I attended an event titled, “Students of Color Speak Out.” The university president encouraged all students, staff and faculty to attend the event, organized in reaction to alleged racial tensions on campus. As a student of color and the gay son of refugee immigrants, the event’s premise interested me.

As I sat in the front, I listened to students detail their daily trauma of existing on a campus that was majority white. Students representing many ethnicities repeatedly shared feeling unsafe. I was confounded because their anecdotes spoke of an experience that sounded similar to those who lived in apartheid-era South Africa or Jim Crow Mississippi — not something I remotely recognized in ultra-progressive Portland. Still, I was sympathetic and recognized that my personal experiences may not be shared by others.

My optimism was challenged once I began to pick up on the theme connecting the speeches. ...

Read the rest at the link.

David Wong on America's Urban Elites

Cracked editor / writer David Wong (aka Jason Pargin) - himself a native of rural Illinois - has a splendid article on how half of America went crazy during this election season.  Yes, it's about Donald Trump, but it's not really about Donald Trump.

Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes -- either wide-eyed, naive fluffballs (Parks And Recreation, and before that, Newhart) or filthy murderous mutants (True Detective, and before that, Deliverance). You could feel the arrogance from hundreds of miles away. ...
Basic, obvious truths that have gone unquestioned for thousands of years now get laughed at and shouted down -- the fact that hard work is better than dependence on government, that children do better with both parents in the picture, that peace is better than rioting, that a strict moral code is better than blithe hedonism, that humans tend to value things they've earned more than what they get for free, that not getting exploded by a bomb is better than getting exploded by a bomb.

Go read the whole article at the link.

The Future

The Federal and state governments will likely go broke, and people who depended on government benefits will feel a lot of hurt. Social Security will be long gone. Big liberal states like California will be hardest hit. Infrastructures will suffer and things like serviceable roads, law enforcement, and emergency services will deteriorate.

Depending on how successful Obama is in his effort to wreck our economy in general and our medical system in particular, doctors and hospitals will likely be few and far between.

Over the past couple of generations, a lot of worthless paper has changed hands because (1) loans were given to people who didn’t have the means to repay them; and (2) politicians made promises that they didn’t have the means to pay for.

The government and its agencies will grow hungry and mean – like any other predatory animal – and will increasingly focus their dwindling resources on functions that generate revenue. This means finding ever more creative ways to expropriate citizens of their money and belongings. So we can expect to see increases in everything from petty robberies such as parking tickets to major hauls like seizures of cars, homes, and businesses on the pretext that they were used for “drug trafficking”.

End result is that survival strategies are going to go back to being what they’ve always been. Be honest, courteous, hardworking, competent, and educated, and associate with other people who are. Take care of those close to you and be ready to defend them – and yourself.

Armed Patron Foils Robbery

Awesome. Wizbang has the video, I'll just let you go over there and take a look.

OCALA - The Internet cafe patron who shot and injured two men as they tried to rob the business will likely not face any criminal charges.

“Based on what I have seen and what I know at this time, I don't anticipate filing any charges,” said Bill Gladson of the State Attorney's Office for 5th Judicial Circuit. ...

Samuel Williams, 71, who fired the shots, has a concealed weapons permit, according to the Sheriff's Office ...

And notice how FAST those guys took off! Notice too that the 71-year-old Williams was - to all appearances at least - outnumbered and outarmed. (The second intruder was carrying "a bat or something".) Henderson, who carried the gun, claims it wasn't loaded, and that his accomplice, Dawkins, was injured by broken glass when he smashed a computer monitor. (Real geniuses, these guys.)

But the thing that stands out most for me is the element of surprise.

Here's more on Henderson and Dawkins:

Hours after his release from the hospital, Henderson, who talked about the pain he feels in his buttock and hip, said the plan was to “barge in, get the money and leave.” He said “he never expected anyone to be armed.”

And I'd say the video bears that out.

Obama the Exotic

Why are the left so fixated on the idea that President Obama is being discriminated against on the basis of his skin color, his exotic name, and his putative Muslim religion?

I'd like to submit that it's because they are obsessed with those things themselves. There's something appealing and romantic there, and there's the added bonus that you can hide behind the charge of "prejudice" whenever the object of your fascination is criticized.

To be more precise about it, there's a hyper-vigilance for any hint of negative bias - but no awareness of the possibility of positive bias. The leftists will not admit to being enthralled, smitten, infatuated with those very same characteristics.

Obviously, that is itself prejudice, but they'll never admit it. To acknowledge positive bias toward "marginal" or "minority" groups would call into question the basic assumption of entitlement liberalism - the assumption that white Christian prejudice is so universal that it can only be countered by a compensatory bias.

It is obviously true that there still exists in America today, an element of the old, pernicious white racism and Christian supremacism. But I think it's also true that these things are in decline, and that there are other forms of discrimination that the leftists aren't so fond of talking about.

To acknowledge that at some times, in some places, there might be a positive benefit to NOT being white or Christian would endanger the system. So, for example, Elizabeth Warren's Cherokee ancestry may not be questioned.

But back to Obama. Where did people get the idea that Obama was born in Kenya?

Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. ...

Whether or not Obama personally wrote or edited the text of his bio in the 36-page pamphlet, he allowed the words to represent him.

Now, where do people get the idea that Obama is a Muslim?

Did gun control cause the Holocaust?

Obviously not, but a disarmed population was a necessary, though not sufficient, condition. The shoah happened when armed Germans murdered unarmed Jews. That should not be a controversial observation.

Adam Chandler at Tablet brings his formidable moral, intellectual, and rhetorical gifts to bear on the subject. (Oh, I don't want to spoil it for you - go read the post in all its brilliance. It speaks for itself.) One commenter wants to know:

So his reference to the Holocause was bad why? Because you like gun control? Because the Jews were disarmed and he mentioned it? Would it have been ok if he was Jewish?

And I agree. And there's also this:

As a Jew, I think all Jews (male and female) should learn to shoot. I certainly do NOT think that Jews armed with hand held weapons would have prevented the Holocaust. But it would have raised the price of taking Jewish lives. More importantly, it would have served as a reminder for the generations to come that taking the life of someone bent on killing you is a good thing. Finally, it would remind us all of the skill and courage of many young men and women today who learn to shoot so that they can use their skills to protect us and our liberal democracies. They deserve not our pity and condescension, but our respect and admiration.

Fathers' Day Roundup

Well, I don't know about you, but I celebrated Flag Day by wearing my American Flag T-shirt (yes, made in the USA, it says so on the label!) to the office. It's been a holiday since 1777, which is pretty impressive. The Washington Post fills us in on lots more details.

Congress officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as the nation’s flag on June 14, 1777. The next day, Ross married her second husband, Joseph Ashburn. Her first husband, John Ross, had died during the Revolutionary War, as did Ashburn a few years later. Her third marriage, to John Claypoole, lasted 34 years.

I don't want to spoil the fun, so go to the link for the rest. The historicity of the Betsy Ross story may be dubious, but it's a great story anyway.

June 14 is also the birthday of the United States Army.

Fathers' Day nightmare, in two words: Lindsay Lohan. But hey, the paramedics were cute. #SabesQueTomasteDemasiado ...

As for my own little girl (she's four, going on 14), I'm helping her and her mom take a trip to earthquake-stricken Disneyland.

In case you were wondering, "Rock of Ages" bombed.

But back to Fathers' Day. If you want to know a little about my Dad, Ken McLintock, you can read his writing at Urban Renewal and his World War II memoir at Pacific Memories.

Anyway, on to the blogroll. Ace has advice on how to defeat a mama grizzly. Moe Lane goes down to Georgia, and I don't mean Tbilisi, with some infamous company. And via Richard Jeffey Newman at Alas, our friend Betsy Ross comes to the aid of those who want to fly their true colors proudly.