Quotes of the week

“The left wants you to hate your country but worship your government, which is the exact opposite of the Founders’ intent.” – John Cardillo

There are too many people these days who hate our nation. Not surprisingly, they tend to be very angry people, blaming anyone and everyone but themselves for their shortcomings. By contrast, those of us who see much good in our nation are much happier, as we understand that success comes from within.

Many people, regardless of their perspective, fear they might be cancelled in some way should they post comments to a blog. If you feel so, simply comment under a “secret identity.” Super heroes have such. You can, too. And all perspectives are welcome here.

Any Soap Box material written by Buddy may be copied and forwarded to family and friends. Material from other sources is usually copyrighted but likely can be shared so long as it is not changed or abridged and the publisher is properly credited, including a link to their site.

Buddy’s Soap Box

And now patriotic Texas howdy from Buddy,

Now, listen up, wokies.

Slavery is history. It is over. It is done. The slave sellers, both black and white, are long dead. Likewise, slave owners, both black and white, are long dead. Since then, things have gotten better, steadily better when it comes to race relations. So, I make no apology for something I had nothing to do with or anything I’m doing now.

I’ve given all the tolerance I have to give. Your problems are your problems, not mine. You can still fix your problems. Other people can’t do it for you. Government sure can’t—it’s been trying for decades, billions of dollars spent. All for nothing. White liberal paternalism sure hasn’t done the trick. But it’s not too late for you to discover what does work.

I’m a very patient person, but I’m now way out of patience. And there are tens of millions of people just like me—folks of every color—who are sick of all your anti-American, anti-white, anti-Asian, anti-everything drivel. The American flag a symbol of racism and bigotry? All whites born racist? Math racist? Give me a break!

I’ve always cared about all lives, but now you try to force the notion on me and other citizens that certain lives matter more than others. Kiddo, we ALL matter, and matter just the same. But, instead of building healthy families and getting educated, you protest, riot, attack, burn and loot while the vast majority of us look on in disgust. Your so-called “movement” has become a radical out-of-control bunch of thugs, criminals and anarchists who are destroying our country.

Get a grip while you still can. Understand that you have equality of opportunity. Use it.

So says Buddy Saunders, speaking on The Soap Box of Free Speech!

Other Items of Interest

The Keystone Cops are back!  DOJ Retracts Claim It Seized ‘Fully Constructed’ Lego Set From Accused Capitol Rioter reports Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times.  The Department of Justice has retracted its claim that it seized a “fully constructed U.S. Capitol Lego set” from an accused Capitol rioter. In an memorandum asking a court to order Robert Morss be held pending trial, prosecutors claimed that law enforcement officials “recover[e]d a fully constructed U.S. Capitol Lego set” while arresting the defendant. But in a supplemental motion, authorities said they erred in conveying that claim. “Please note that after a review of the photographs from the search, there appears to have been a miscommunication and that statement appears to be inaccurate. The Lego set was in a box and not fully constructed at the time of the search, as pictured below,” they wrote.

80% of Americans support voter I.D. laws. The remaining 20% who oppose voter ID.can only be idiots or crooks or both.

Big tech is in the business of telling us what to think and to further that end, they seek to control what we know. To accomplish this, Google, for example, is working with a Chinese university. A great idea given that the Chinese are experts in such matters.

In a recent poll, 82% of Republicans and Democrats agree that big tech has the power to sway elections. Soap Box agrees.

Two item headlines from page A2 of the July 7^th Wall Street Journal.  The first, “Hundred People Shot on Holiday Weekend” (over the weekend in Chicago).  The second, just below the first, “Black Legislators Seek U.S. Probe of Police” (Louisiana black lawmakers).

There are always two sides to every issue. There is only one side when everyone wholly agrees, and such agreement is rarer than hen’s teeth. In fact, even the two sides are shaded by any number of slightly differing perspectives. In a free society where freedom of thought and expression is welcome and protected, all sides are presented, with everyone free to decide the truth for himself.

Understand, there is NO failure at the border. What is happening there is exactly what Biden and the Democrats want.  That people suffer and die in the process matters not a whit to them.

Gasoline prices up 40% thus far this year. Thank you, Bigly Guy Biden, thank you so much! Now watch Hunter’s pop blame the price hike on the oil industry. We have a doltish administration that is whimpering to OPEC to increase oil production. Dopes, we don’t need foreign oil. The great states of Texas, Oklahoma, and a few other of our fossil fuel states can supply all the oil we need to keep gasoline prices in line.

The woke crowd has a problem with lots of things, including our history.  With the energy of the Taliban demolishing Buddhist statues, statues marking our own history are coming down across this country. When done by a mob, it is wholly wrong. When done within the law, still wrongheaded but no crime. Just one question for the woke eradicators. What will replace the statues of those you find unworthy of honor and remembrance? What statues will you put up in their place?

Riddle me this. Twitter has banned President Donald Trump from their site. But guess who they welcome with wide open arms—Jew-and-white-hater Louis Farrakhan and the America-hating leaders of Iran. Even Russian hoaxers still have their accounts.

The left’s free speech standard is so one-sided that even a moron would notice, but the woke establishment—politicians, media, big tech, big business—don’t care because they imagine they have so much power that they can do anything they wish. But they are wrong. Not yet do they have that much power. And it is the good citizen’s job to see that they never get it.

Bigly Guy Biden does, once in a blue moon, do something right. He is right to withdraw our soldiers from Afghanistan. Twenty years is enough for even the dullest govocrat to learn a simple fact: No amount of force deployed by people who have no grasp of the power of a religion can defeat a fire ant religious movement, in this case Islam. Pull out now. Pull out a hundred years from now. In either case, fundamentalist Islam would fill the void in a matter of weeks. President Donald Trump understood. Biden is just following in Trump’s footsteps. Soap Box applauds both men for making the right decision!

Lori Lightfoot, the more-or-less mayor of Chicago, recently met Bigly Guy Biden on the tarmac at the city’s airport. Biden was there to discuss the Windy City’s infrastructure needs. And as any good mayor would, she had a list, a list too long to enumerate here, so we’ll just mention the need that most caught our attention. According to Lightfoot, what Chicago most needs is money to enlarge the cemeteries. In a city where black lives don’t matter, cemetery space goes at a premium.

This week’s Aesop’s Fable: The Ant and the Dove

An Ant went to the bank of a river to quench its thirst, and being carried away by the rush of the stream, was on the point of drowning.  A Dove, sitting on a tree overhanging the water, plucked

a leaf and let it fall into the stream close to her.  The Ant climbed onto it and floated in safety to the bank.  Shortly afterwards, a Bird-catcher came, stood under the tree, and laid his lime-twigs for the Dove, which sat in the branches.  The Ant, perceiving his design, stung him in the foot.  In pain, the Bird-catcher threw down the twigs, and the noise made the Dove take wing.

Moral of the story: One good turn deserves another.

Furthering the Moral via Soap Box: A lot of unwary White Doves and Black Birds have been snared by the woke Bird-Catcher. Happily, for the rest of us birds of many feathers, the Ant in many forms is stinging the woke toe.

Highly Recommended

The following are excellent resources for those of us (way more than 75 million strong) who want full and honest news reporting. We’ll be adding to this list as we go along. Those who prefer filtered news—only the news deemed safe for them to know—can stay with the legacy media, such as it is.

Need a free nonpartisan site that can make you a well-informed voter in elections at the local level as well as state and national? We recommend Ballotpedia.

Here’s a great way to join thousands—and eventually millions—of others who are letting their government representatives know their thoughts on pending legislation.  Heritage Action for America from the Heritage Foundation makes doing so super EASY! They do the research. They inform you. Then in almost the blink of an eye, you contact your federal or state representatives regarding pending legislation expressing your support or opposition.

Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) AARP is a shill for big government, AMAC isn’t.

Fox News and One America News (OAN) Cable channel

The Epoch Times print newspaper and web site/email updates

Dennis Prager  This man will help you find the mainstream conservative hiding inside you.

President Donald Trump’s Great America PAC is now up and running.  Give to this PAC or to individual candidates you know to be truly conservative. Money given to the Republican Party is money down a RINO hole. https://texasscorecard.com/state/legislative-priorities-tracker/

Texas Score Card https://texasscorecard.com/state/legislative-priorities-tracker/

Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute.

Project Veritas, Fun and informative hidden camera videos exposing the secret agendas of the left in their own words.

Columns worth reading

Each week under this heading, Soap Box will feature columns or intros to columns you can read in full elsewhere on the internet. Each of these columns pretty much express Soap Box’s views, else we’d not be sharing them with you.

GUEST COLUMN #1: Frederick Douglass’ Other Fourth of July Speech Is Particularly Timely in 2021 by Dean Nelson, writing for The Daily Signal. Mr. Nelson points out that “Self-satisfied, progressive whites enriching themselves off the spectacle of black suffering have been around at least since Douglass’ day.” Many, including Soap Box, share that view and hold in our own minds a much more positive view of black potential. Mr. Nelson’s column isn’t long, but it delivers insights of special value. Buddy hopes you have the time to read it!

GUEST COLUMN #2: Guest Column #2: Mercatus Center Announces the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange, Arlington, VA, June 30, 2021.  This program is just one of many already in place or in development, all designed to encourage free, thoughtful and honest civil discourse on issues that matter in any nation that hopes to survive and prosper. In such places, true liberalism, as opposed to woke fascism, has a place in discourse with conservatives.

GUEST COLUMN #1:Frederick Douglass’ Other Fourth of July Speech Is Particularly Timely in 2021

Dean Nelson  writing for The Daily Signal, July 02, 2021

Dean Nelson  is the executive director for Human Coalition Action, a pro-life organization committed to ending the culture of death, and the chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.

And now, his column…

This time of year, many Americans rightly draw attention to Frederick Douglass and his famous speech “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” delivered to white abolitionists in Rochester, New York, in 1852.

As I’ve written before, there is a great deal more to this speech—given years before the Civil War—than those who quote it often understand or remember. In fact, many reproductions of the speech completely omit the last section, which is far more hopeful about the possibilities for America than some of its fans might have you believe.

But even less known is another July Fourth speech Douglass delivered in 1875, a decade after the Civil War and slavery ended. In it, Douglas spoke once again about what Independence Day meant to black Americans, noting first our role in the founding and shaping of America.

“If, however, any man should ask me what colored people have to do with the Fourth of July, my answer is ready. Colored people have had something to do with almost everything of vital importance in this great country … We have been with [the white man] in times of peace and in times of war and at all times. We were with him in the hardest hours of the Revolutions of 1776.

Douglass confidently asserts the right of black Americans to share in the celebration of Independence Day because—from the very beginning—we have been part of every great struggle and achievement of our great nation.”

Douglass commends to his listeners the works of historian William C. Nell, who wrote “The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution” and “Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812,” urging blacks to take pride in our own American heroes and our unique place in the American story.

Today there is a vocal minority loudly insisting that blacks should reject America for its sins against our ancestors. Our role in America, it insists, has only been one of passive torment, and that’s all the future can possibly hold for us in its current state. And to be fair, I do have a handful of friends who decided to move “back” to Africa, and enjoy living there, albeit subsiding on their American jobs and paychecks.

But most of us either can’t leave or don’t really want to, so what, really, is our most productive path forward?

Just 10 years after slavery, Douglass was urging his fellow black Americans to stop looking backward and get on with the business of building the future.

Douglass never glosses over the evils of forced bondage, which he of course experienced firsthand during the first two decades of his life. But slavery did not define him. “We are no longer slaves,” he urged, “but freemen; no longer subjects, but citizens; and have a voice and a vote with all other citizens. A new condition has brought new duties.”

For Douglass, these new duties include becoming completely self-sufficient. He lamented that centuries of slavery had taught blacks to “respect white men and despise ourselves,” and he understood that self-reliance was essential to self-respect. “The colored race,” he declared, “is capable of living more than a life of dependence, and can think and speak for itself.”

Central to this self-reliance and self-respect was rejecting what today might be called white allyship: those whites that “are heels over head in love with the negro, and want to do him ever so much good.” Their “so-called benevolent societies,” Douglass insisted, “have helped a few, [but] they have injured many.”

It turns out that self-satisfied, progressive whites enriching themselves off the spectacle of black suffering have been around at least since Douglass’ day. These white allies, Douglass explains, “in order to obtain revenue to carry on what they call their work (including of course their salaries which they piously vote themselves by the thousand), they draw the most distressing picture of the black man’s character and condition.”

In short, Douglass called on blacks to reject white pity, white advocacy, and white charity. One can only imagine what he’d have to say about Robin DiAngelo.

Douglass’s call to black Americans to embrace this country as our own was not an exhortation to forget slavery or diminish its significance. Douglass himself endured family separation, hunger, and the lash, but he also traveled the world and believed that the best hope for black Americans was rise up in our own strength and demand respect from our former captors by demonstrating our capacity to run our own lives and build our own futures.

Douglass’ charge to blacks to reject the “allies” who would paint us forever as walking wounded, eternally struggling in the shadow of slavery, is particularly timely today

.

Racism still exists in America, as it exists in every other country in the world throughout human history, and reasonable people can disagree about the degree to which this affects the lives and prospects of blacks Americans. But surely it affects us less than it did when Douglass spoke, just 10 years after emancipation.

If he, who experienced slavery himself, could urge his fellow blacks to seize our ownership of the American story in 1875, shouldn’t we at least consider that course of action today?

Happy Independence Day.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

Guest Column #2: Mercatus Center Announces the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange

June 30, 2021

Arlington, VA—The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is pleased to announce a new initiative, the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange, focused on building pathways toward a free and peaceful society. Ben Klutsey, currently Director of Academic Outreach at Mercatus, will lead this new initiative.

“In recent years, illiberal ideologies such as authoritarianism, socialism, and nativism have gained traction around the world, while civic habits and practices such as open inquiry and civil debate have simultaneously diminished,” said Klutsey. “These trends make it difficult to maintain peaceful coexistence with others, particularly in the cases of deep ideological divides. Our goal with this program is to inspire a new generation of thinkers and doers who will make the building of a free, open, and pluralistic society a vision and adventure worth pursuing. We want to be the premier source for learning, demonstrating, and implementing ideas for an equal and diverse society.”

Through the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange, Mercatus is seeking to build a robust and diverse community of thinkers, writers, scholars, and do-ers working in the broad liberal tradition. This program will include visiting fellows, a new Pluralism Lab to foster conversation and civil discourse, and partnerships with centers and universities across the country.

Visiting Fellows

The program’s first cohort of visiting fellows features four scholars, who will each be focusing on a specific aspect of encouraging a liberal society. The initial Pluralism Visiting Fellows are:

• Shikha Dalmia, focusing on populist authoritarianism.
• Tevi Troy, focusing on historical lessons from previous challenges to liberalism that are relevant for our time.
• Henry Thomson, focusing on economic nationalism.
• Kevin Augustyn, focusing on liberalism and pluralism in religious thought.

Additional visiting fellows will be announced in the coming months.

Pluralism Lab

The Pluralism Lab will develop a series of conversations with academic researchers and public intellectuals on the core values and current challenges to a free, open, and equal society, as well as the tools for rejuvenating them. In addition to podcast conversations hosted by Klutsey, the Pluralism Lab will host forums and encourage experimentation to create new tools for improving civil discourse in everyday life.

Partnerships

The program will partner with other organizations and projects to undertake joint work, symposia, conferences, and salons to learn different perspectives about the current wave of illiberalism and leverage cross-institutional capabilities to identify and attempt solutions. One of the program’s first partnerships is with The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College. This partnership will bring students and scholars from diverse perspectives together to discuss current topics and ideas in public discourse that are sometimes difficult to engage. The goal is to foster open mindedness, mutual forbearance, and demonstrate how we can exchange ideas and coexist with our fellow citizens across deep divides.

More information about the program will be available in the coming weeks; sign up below for program updates. For a preview of the conversations to come from the Pluralist Lab, transcripts from Klutsey’s recent series on liberalism are available at Discourse, the Mercatus Center’s online journal of politics, economics, and culture. For media inquiries, please contact Matthew Boyer at 703-993-8094 or mboyer@mercatus.gmu.edu.