Left: Repeal Roe v. Wade, Brown vs. Board of Education!

Senator Lee defends the concept of a republic over “pure” democracy, left goes crazy.

Here’s a nice summary of the differences between the two:

Key Takeaways: Republic vs. Democracy

• Republics and democracies both provide a political system in which citizens are represented by elected officials who are sworn to protect their interests.

• In a pure democracy, laws are made directly by the voting majority leaving the rights of the minority largely unprotected.

• In a republic, laws are made by representatives chosen the people and must comply with a constitution that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority.

• The United States, while basically a republic, is best described as a “representative democracy.”  

• In a republic, an official set of fundamental laws, like the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, prohibits the government from limiting or taking away certain “inalienable” rights of the people, even if that government was freely chosen by a majority of the people. In a pure democracy, the voting majority has almost limitless power over the minority. 

Desperate, hysterical weighed in immediately. Sample:

Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education are just two instances where our constitution was held to overrule laws passed by the majority of voters, abortion and “seperate but equal” laws. You can add, but the ignorant left won’t, gay rights, gay marriage, and dozens of of other laws passed by majorities overruled on constitutional grounds. Pure democracy — mob rule — doesn’t protect minorities and, from my lips to God’s ear, the Lefties will one day find themselves missing that protection.

Pending in Rock Ridge

19 Witherell Drive, $4.450 million. Started at $5.795 in 2017, and sold, pre-renovation, in 2012 for $5 million, so probably a $500,000 + loss here, but a sale’s a sale.

Once moribund, the $5-million plus market is vibrant once again

Here are four contracts posted in the just the past two days:

8 Boulder Brook

8 Boulder Brook Road, new construction, $6.495

21 Vineyard lane

21 Vineyard Lane, $7.975 million, 2005 construction

31 Rock Ridge

31 Rock Ridge, $9.5 million, built in 1903

50 Lafrentz

50 Lafrentz, $7.750 million. No house, but 25 acres and a barn. With the exception of Lafrantz, this all sold fairly quickly. Lafrentz has been for sale since 2010, when then-listing agent Tamar Lurie listed it at $22.5. Ah, that’s our Tamar!

Pity

COVID porn

Trump refuses to participate in 2nd debate after the format is changed to a “virtual” town hall format.

I don’t blame him: are there no plexiglass shields? Masks? If they don’t work, why are people using them?

This is all of one piece: Democrats and their press allies are determined to make Kung Flu the sole issue of this election — they’re succeeding admirably.

Well, this may discourage early adopters

[Some} COVID vaccine guinea pigs report an awful, painful reaction.

Some participants for leading COVID-19 vaccine trials have reported experiencing grueling side effects after receiving the shot such as high fever, body aches, headaches and exhaustion.

Five participants — three in Moderna’s study and two in Pfizer’s late-stage trials — said the uncomfortable side effects usually went away within a day, but some were surprised by how severe they were, CNBC reported.

“If this proves to work, people are going to have to toughen up,” one of the Moderna participants, a North Carolina woman in her 50s who declined to be identified, told the outlet.

“The first dose is no big deal. And then the second dose will definitely put you down for the day for sure. … You will need to take a day off after the second dose.”

Of course, this being COVID porn, you have to look to the underlying report to find that the trials involve “tens of thousands” of volunteers, but, being COVID porn, it’s the adverse reactions that will grab the headlines. And to be fair, I have no intention to use any COVID vaccine, for many reasons, until a few-million people have gone in line ahead of me.

Larger ticket sales

136 Parsonage

Joe Barbieri’s listing at 136 Parsonage Road, originally listed at $8.295 in 2017 and currently asking $5.495, is pending.

487 Stanwich

And, on a roll, Joe’s listing at 487 Stanwich Road, $4.850, is also pending.

11 Deer Lane

Not to be outdone, Krissy Blake’s 11 Deer Lane, $4.750 million, will close shortly.

I don’t have anything much to say about any of these properties, but I mention them to provide a sense of what’s selling.

Land contract on the Belle Haven Peninsula

One Pear Lane, 0.72 acres, has been asking $2.99 for a long time, and has finally found a buyer. I’m not sure why this parcel lingered because, while $2.9 may have been a tad overly-aggressive, comparable sales would support something in the $2.75ish range. Good land, great location; I’ll guess that the COVID crowd has been looking for something to move into immediately, not a building project, so it was overlooked.

If you don't like abortion, don't have one; if you don't want to risk China Flu, stay home

The first is the facile response of those who like abortion (such as Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, who encouraged its use to reduce the number of negroes, imbeciles and the children of the criminally-inclined) to those who oppose abortions: individual choice should rule (side-stepping the question of whether a 9-month fetus should have a say in the matter). But the same crowd is now calling for the reimposition of a complete economic shutdown on both a national (Joe Biden) and local (CA Governor Newsom, NYC de Blasio) scale. They’ll finish off the last of the small businesses, impoverish families, and condemn millions to isolation and depression. What happened to their concern for individual freedom?

I’m of an age, and have certain health conditions that place me in the at-risk catagory for this disease. I could stay locked up at home, ordering in food, eschewing local retailers in favor of Amazon, and be perfectly safe, but I prefer a robust economy, food available on grocery store shelves, enjoyable dinners out at restaurants, and the company of my friends, and I’d like to be part of that world. But regardless of my choice: shelter in place, or go on with life, do I have the right to insist that the rest of the world stop for my benefit? Why?

Do you remember when a two-week shutdown was imposed to “flatten the curve”, so that hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed with COVID patients? The crisis never hit (U.S. Hope left NYC Harbor, the Javit’s Center hospital was never used, and, just as a for instance, the entire state of Maine currently has 17 COVID- hopspitalized patients, none in ICU). The flu is here, perhaps to stay, but certainly not to remain in its intial, more dangerous form: viruses mutate, and don’t last if they kill too many of their hosts.

(Related). A few months after this panic started, I read an article about one of our recent pandemics, 2008, I think. The then-current administration (could have been Bush, maybe Obama, does’t matter) was horrified to learn we had no established plan to deal with a pandemic, so the CDC was tasked with coming up with one, which it did: national shutdown, tracking, quarantines, etc. It was put on the shelf when that particular panic fizzled out, but it’s been there, ready to use, for the past 12 years years, and Whoo Hu Flu provided just the trigger to try it out, so they did. Boys and their toys.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

H. L. Mencken

Available on Amazon; maybe I should market a COVID version

Anarchy, state and utopia

Or anarchy, anyway. From the NYT:

On the last Sunday in May, Jeremy Lee Quinn, a furloughed photographer in Santa Monica, Calif., was snapping photos of suburban moms kneeling at a Black Lives Matter protest when a friend alerted him to a more dramatic subject: looting at a shoe store about a mile away.

He arrived to find young people pouring out of the store, shoeboxes under their arms. But there was something odd about the scene. A group of men, dressed entirely in black, milled around nearby, like supervisors. One wore a creepy rubber Halloween mask.

The next day, Mr. Quinn took pictures of another store being looted. Again, he noticed something strange. A white man, clad in black, had broken the window with a crowbar, but walked away without taking a thing.

Mr. Quinn began studying footage of looting from around the country and saw the same black outfits and, in some cases, the same masks. He decided to go to a protest dressed like that himself, to figure out what was really going on. He expected to find white supremacists who wanted to help re-elect President Trump by stoking fear of Black people. What he discovered instead were true believers in “insurrectionary anarchism.”

Mr. Quinn discovered a thorny truth about the mayhem that unfolded in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. It wasn’t mayhem at all.

While talking heads on television routinely described it as a spontaneous eruption of anger at racial injustice, it was strategically planned, facilitated and advertised on social media by anarchists who believed that their actions advanced the cause of racial justice. In some cities, they were a fringe element, quickly expelled by peaceful organizers. But in Washington, Portland and Seattle they have attracted a “cultlike energy,” Mr. Quinn told me.

Don’t take just Mr. Quinn’s word for it. Take the word of the anarchists themselves, who lay out the strategy in Crimethinc, an anarchist publication: Black-clad figures break windows, set fires, vandalize police cars, then melt back into the crowd of peaceful protesters. When the police respond by brutalizing innocent demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and rough arrests, the public’s disdain for law enforcement grows. It’s Asymmetric Warfare 101.

And they’re white; once again, the blacks are being played for fools. it’s an interesting article, one I’m astonished to find in the NYT — I’ll look on the breadlines next week for the poor editor who approved its publication.

Why doesn't this make me feel safer?

SEALS go gender-neuter

The US Navy SEALs have changed their creed statement to become gender-neutral and have eliminated terms such as “brotherhood,” according to a report.

“Naval Special Warfare continues to deliberately develop a culture of tactical and ethical excellence that reflects the nation we represent, and that draws upon the talents of the all-volunteer force who meet the standards of qualification as a SEAL or SWCC,” Navy Special Warfare spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Stroup told American Military News.

Great.