Last August Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt asked a grand jury to return murder or assault charges against a strip club bouncer who shot and killed one man and wounded another after one of them fired on him. The grand jury declined (per Oregon law they did not issue a “true bill”), finding Jascha Manny had acted in self defense.
But things haven’t ended there because, as the local free weekly Willamette Week reported at the time, there is a “noteworthy element of the case: Manny is white. Ross is Black…” The paper provided no further context (beyond the disparate capitalization; still, even readers of the woke WW trolled the rag by mockingly asking for elaboration in the comments).
Now leaked documents reveal the district attorney filed charges after the ADL’s “Center on Extremism” brought him open source intelligence passed along from Rose City Antifa, anarchist architects of the 2020 George Floyd riots, exposing Jascha Manny’s involvement with white nationalist activism in Seattle, where he came to the attention of local antifa after organizing a counter-protest in support of the police in 2015. With eyewitness and video evidence showing no crime, the DA tried to convince one had been committed based on Manny’s political beliefs, as evidenced by the chat logs provided to him by antifa by way of the ADL and presented to the unimpressed grand jury.
Manny and his employer Mary’s Club are being sued by the wounded man and Portland’s radical progressive community is still lobbying for criminal charges.
The grand jury accepted Manny’s account that he confronted Lauren Abbott Jr and another man as they harassed homeless people on the street, shining a bright light in their eyes. The eventual deceased Abbott fell, was pushed down or “body slammed” depending on who you believe (the last being the characterization of the surviving shooting victim presently suing Manny and Mary’s; video is inconclusive, but doesn’t suggest a full-on “body slam”); 19 year-old Lauren Abbott got up shooting and Manny returned fire.
The Oregonian
The only mentions of violence appearing in Manny’s alleged Stormfornt.org chat logs, as “Pariah1” are to discourage it. In the supposedly damning record the ACLU provided Manny and his small group of pro-police demonstrators are the only victims of violence–attacked and sent running by a much larger group of the same black-bloc anarchists trying to get their law enforcement allies to send him to prison now.
During the proceedings, prosecutors centered their argument for criminal charges on prejudicial information secretly provided to them by the ADL’s “Center on Extremism,” which asserted that Manny had pro-white political beliefs.
On November 15 Abbott’s surviving friend and lawsuit plaintiff Kolby Ross held a press conference calling for hate crime charges.
Manny was arrested at the scene;. Uncredited photo
On May 21st, 2015, Olympia police officer Ryan Donald shot two brothers, black and unarmed, while responding to an alleged shoplifting incident. Both survived, but the younger brother is now paralyzed from the waist down. As outcry over the shooting began to grow, protesters organized several demonstrations against police brutality. Meanwhile, a small contingent of counter-demonstrators started showing up at various events around Olympia to support the police. They were a mix of various unorganized right-wing racists that were part of the same loose social group, who may have become politically active due to Jascha Manny’s encouragement. (Manny first came to our attention as a white power activist due to his participation in several actions with the American Freedom Party.)
As Jascha Manny’s enthusiasm and confidence grew, he posted on the online racist forum Stormfront (under the moniker of “1pariah”) calling for a white supremacist police solidarity march to be held on May 30th. Meanwhile, word spread among anti-racists of Manny’s plans. A rally against the dual forces of white supremacy–neo-Nazis and police–was planned for the same night. The anti-racist protestors were a mix of people from the Black Lives Matter movement, black-bloc, various antifa and allies, with hundreds in attendance. Only ten or so neo-Nazi boneheads showed up. This is a situation typical of explicit white supremacist public actions–a paltry amount of fascists met by throngs of opposition–and demonstrates Manny’s tactical inexperience as an organizer.
As the rival groups met, Jascha Manny and his “crew” assaulted an older protester and fighting broke out. The neo-Nazis were quickly routed from the area, fleeing golf clubs, chairs, bricks, bottles, and even a fire extinguisher. Running for their lives, they made it to their vehicles, but not before having their windows smashed as they fled the city.
I fear these people are looking to the Biden Department of Justice for help.
Tina Kotek will be Oregon’s next governor and is an immediate contender for most radically left-wing governor in America. As Democratic Speaker of the Oregon House she led the legislative campaign that followed antifa’s 2020 siege of Portland like an occupying army follows an invasion, passing a host of progressive police reforms in the shock and awe of the moment. Kotek allied with BLM rioters against Portland police while the fight was still on, writing to Mayor Wheeler to denounce the use of tear gas to disperse a crowd attacking a police station:
What needed to be protected last night? An empty office building? Was this need more important than the health of neighbors, of children in a neighborhood, of people returning home from work? The declaration of an ‘unlawful assembly’ did not seem warranted. The declaration of a ‘riot’ was an abuse of the statute. Therefore, the ensuing actions by the PPB were unlawful.
The police union chief wrote back that there were in fact people in the building. Tina persisted, and as police and rioters were still meeting nightly on the streets of downtown Portland Kotek led the passage of a law limiting their use of tear gas and other riot control measures.
Despite the public mood turning back toward law and order, she edged out Republican Christine Drazan in a race that would not have been close but for the presence of a liberal Democrat spoiler. Nike founder Phil Knight was her most prominent opponent, donating millions to her two opponents citing crime as his motivation.
Kotek has vowed to focus on homelessness, which will mean “bold land use reform” repealing zoning laws limiting duplexes, apartments, low income housing and the like in more suburban neighborhoods. Real estate developers will thrive and a good deal of money will be transferred through various programs to “the BIPOC community” as they share in any boom.
Voters passed a gun control measure requiring state police background checks to purchase and permits expiring every five years to own a gun, and limiting sale of magazines to ten rounds. Some county sheriffs have saidthey won’t enforce it. The law will face legal challenges.
Illegals will not vote in elections after legal voters shot down a Multnomah County charter amendment that would have allowed it. The law might have not made it past legal challenges; a similar rule by New York Mayor Eric Adams was overturned. A few municipalities in other parts of the country seem to be getting away with it though.
Free at last! Slavery is officially illegal in Oregon after voters approved Measure 112 removing language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude from the state constitution. The language is in the original section establishing Oregon as a free state outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude except for as criminal punishment. Oregon outlawed the migration of Blacks! into Oregon along with their importation as slaves in its original constitution and at least one proponent approved of the rule as a means of keeping out undesirables. Despite the anarchist refrain that this demonstrates the Deep Roots of White Supremacy here, there are two recorded instances of the law being enforced before becoming a dead letter due to a lack of support–and probably due to the low level of Black! in-migration. Now opponents of White Supremacy can point to the fact the measure didn’t get anywhere near the North Korean levels of support it demanded (I voted no, as I imagine many did, to oppose the excess and mentality behind the gesture–one gesture deserves another):
Oregon voters approved a change to the state’s constitution, stripping language that for more than a century has allowed for slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. As of Thursday morning, 55% of voters were backing Measure 112, unofficial results show.
And for many, that’s disturbingly close.
“Removing language referencing slavery from the Oregon Constitution is a good thing and is long over due,” said Rep. Travis Nelson, D-Portland, who won election Tuesday as state’s first Black, openly LGBTQIA+ lawmaker.
Yet, more than 686,000 Oregonians, or about 45% who voted on the measure, opted to keep slavery and involuntary servitude a lawful punishment for people convicted of crimes.
“It’s a big number,” Nelson said. “That’s troubling to me.”
Oregon passed a law in 1994 requiring prisoners to work 40 hours a week to pay for their incarceration along with Measure 11, establishing mandatory minimum sentences. Progressive legislators led by our next governor failed to repeal Measure 11 in 2020. Apparently the work policy remains in place (convicts can meet twenty hours of the requirement attending classes). Naturally police abolitionists call this slavery; I can’t find what the convicts are paid. Currently for some programs the Oregon Department of Corrections pays prisoners in Oregon the federal minimum wage with time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week. The slavery-language measure will have no effect on policy but is still tied in with the issue of prison labor by the left.
Vague and unfunded Measure 111 amending the Oregon Constitution to declare health care “a fundamental right” and requiring the state provide it to the poor and disabled is narrowly behind at the moment [update: the measure has passed]. Oregon already offers a healthcare plan for low income residents.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Greater Idaho movement has made headway after two Eastern Oregon counties voted to move the state lines for Oregon conservatives who want to live in Idaho, which is a red state.
The Greater Idaho movement reports that 11 of the 15 Oregon counties that would be moved to Idaho have voted in support of adjusting the state lines.
Oregon Democrats will not have a veto-proof majority but will likely retain the “trifecta” of majorities in both houses of the legislature and the governorship. The state will remain on its course.
The mayor’s resolution calls for moving the homeless to at least three designated campsites — with the first opening within 18 months of securing funding.
He didn’t specify when the funding would be confirmed or how much the measure would cost.
Under the plan, the camping sites would initially be able to serve up to 125 people and provide access to services such as food, hygiene, litter collection and treatment for mental health and substance abuse.
The city council is taking public testimony right now:
The city stopped clearing campers from the streets almost entirely in May of 2020 per CDC Covid guidelines that recommended leaving them where they are and providing them with sanitation:
If individual housing options are not available, allow people who are living unsheltered or in encampments to remain where they are.
Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.
Encourage people staying in encampments to set up their tents/sleeping quarters with at least 12 feet x 12 feet of space per individual.
If an encampment is not able to provide sufficient space for each person, allow people to remain where they are but help decompress the encampment by linking those at increased risk for severe illness to individual rooms or safe shelter.
Work together with other community organizations and offices to improve sanitation in encampments.
Ensure nearby restroom facilities have functional water taps, are stocked with hand hygiene materials (soap, drying materials) and bath tissue, and remain open to people experiencing homelessness 24 hours per day.
If toilets or handwashing facilities are not available nearby, assist with providing access to portable latrines with handwashing facilities for encampments of more than 10 people. These facilities should be equipped with hand sanitizer (containing at least 60% alcohol).
Don’t tell them about the alcohol content in the hand sanitizer!
Political opposition and the rising tide of homeless have made the city’s efforts to re-establish a ban ineffective, and the situation downtown continues to deteriorate. Activists have been opposing the sweeps since long before the law was suspended for Covid. When the George Floyd riots led to the radical takeover of city politics and ensuing new levels of indulgence for violent protest and the police retreat generally, antifa and allies began physically opposing sweeps with some success.
“Stop the Sweeps” besieges City Hall, Portland 2014
The bill was written in the spirit of the Martin v. Boise ruling, a 2018 U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that bans governments from criminalizing living in public spaces if the local government is not providing enough shelter beds for each homeless person. That ruling applies to other Western states, including Oregon—but cities have argued that their current practices don’t conflict with the ruling…
And on Thursday, after the bill passed, Kotek told WW, “My hope is that local governments that have not yet reckoned with the Boise decision will take the opportunity to engage in a transparent, public process to update their ordinances, find ways to expand their shelter capacity, and make the rules clear for all.”
But it’s unlikely the bill will prevent sweeps of Portland homeless camps come July 2023, when cities are required to have codified their policies and ordinances in compliance with the bill.
The city is arguing that it’s already in compliance with the Martin v. Boise ruling. And while Kotek may wish for cities to comply with a larger moral framework underlying the court ruling, that’s not what her bill mandates…
So the most likely outcome is that Portland can still sweep homeless camps from public property so long as it doesn’t arrest or fine the people living there.
The city has the right to tell vagrants to “move along” and keep out of certain areas, as cops have been doing forever, it would seem even under the law But Portland’s homeless population is too large and its homeless caretaker industry too strong for that. In the going-on three years since relaxing the sweeps antifa and allies have successfully opposed a few high-profile sweeps. The siege of “the Red House on Mississippi in late 2020 began as a homeless sweep: police attempted to clear out a foreclosed home that had become a homeless camp, antifa headquarters and nightly party terrorizing the neighborhood when they were chased off by protesters who established an autonomous zone for a time. Antifa still sells the victory as an eviction defense.
So Ted Wheeler needs to offer something to his left to take back the streets; he’s going big with a comprehensive plan to both house the homeless and build new affordable housing. Developer interests no doubt like the sound of his “moonshot” proposal to add 20,000 new affordable housing units by 2033.
Wheeler’s asked the next governor, Democrat Tina Kotek or Republican Christine Drazan, to declare a state of emergency. Drazan has agreed.
He has lined up the city council except for radical leader Jo Ann Hardesty, who is acquiescing if not supporting and will likely be voted out in November. There is no funding yet and the mayor offered no funding estimates.
Wheeler’s plan has the potential to introduce his large camps without solving the problem of homelessness on the streets, as the radicals take over the administration of the camps and still successfully oppose the “criminalization” of street camping.
Ted might want to be careful about attaching his name to this program. Shanty towns sprang up during the Great Depression and were soon dubbed “Hoovervilles” after Republican President Herbert Hoover.
Depression-era Hooverville, Library of Congress
Portland had its share and Seattle had one that lasted ten years before “succumbing to prosperity” in 1941.
Shanty village along Willamette River, Ross Island Bridge in the background, Portland Oregon, Vintage News
[correction: Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan is pro-life, not choice as written in the original draft; forgive the error]
Chances are oh so slightly better than not that November 8 Oregon will elect its first Republican governor since 1982. Republican Christine Drazan currently holds a small lead in polls over Democrat Tina Kotek. The choice is stark between hardcore progressive Kotek and Drazan, who is pro-life, against vaccine mandates and anti gun control. Despite voter dissatisfaction with Democrats and their policies on crime and homelessness Drazan’s victory is still only possible due to a spoiler in the race.
Kotek was the Oregon House’s longest serving speaker until stepping down to run for governor. She doesn’t inspire warm feelings even from fellow Democrats, despite, or maybe because of, a reputation for effectiveness and having held down the seat unopposed through four election cycles. You probably have to bruise a lot of shins doing that.
Tina is vying to be the first openly lesbian governor in America, following the (presumably) first openly bisexual governor, retiring Kate Brown. In her horn-rimmed glasses, sport coats with wide collars and Rachel Maddow haircut she presents as something between androgyne and Chris Hayes, that is to say just barely to the masculine side.
In 2020 Black! Representative Janelle Bynum made a play for the speakership based on her being Black! and all, then ran a lazy and inept campaign as if to prove it. The more radical Kotek retained the speakership and then took advantage of the summer’s BLM riots to pass a slew of police reforms.
Kotek should probably be grateful Democrats didn’t get everything they wanted as the public mood has turned against those reforms–for which there was never any genuine enthusiasm outside the legislature and activist-anarchist complex. Homelessness and crime are the most cited citizen concerns now.
So what should have been a stroll for Kotek is more like a walk down a darkened Old Town sidewalk, trying not to step in shit.
As a non-Jewish white–lapsed Catholic, now Episcopalian (and Kotek looks every bit the modern Episcopalian minister)–she has only her out-of-fashion lesbianism keeping her out of the Coalition of the Fringes’ lowest tier, Straight White Woman (in the Coalition the less fringe the identity the lower the rank, and they’ve finally figured out white woman isn’t fringe at all).
Our Long Nightmare of Competent Male Leadership is Still Over
Whatever happens to Kotek, one “red wave” won’t be enough to wash away Portland’s progressive sand castles. But we are experiencing a red tide of sorts as three women contend for the governor’s office in a diverse field where lesbians, straight moms and the post-menopausal are all represented.
Betsy Johnson is the independent candidate, a retired Democratic representative recruited by the old liberal establishment to run as an independent. She lags the field and remains as a spoiler against Kotek. Nike founder Phil Knight gave her 3.75 million dollars and then, after she faded in the polls, donated another million to the Republican Drazan. In all likelihood Johnson agreed to stay in the race and drain votes from Kotek at the behest of Knight, whose issue is crime and has declared himself devoutly “anti Tina”.
Sitting governor Kate Brown is one of the least popular governors in the country and term-limiting out. She was selected in 2015 to replace the deposed John Kitzhaber, a popular Democrat with a reputation for competence who served two terms, retired and then returned to serve one and a half more before being run out of office after his long, longtime fiancee and acting First Lady was exposed using his office to peddle influence for her environmental non-profit and other tacky things.
She’s a story all her own, a charming working class adventuress with a seedy backstory who brought down what might become Oregon’s last competent governorship.
She was born in August 1967 in Seattle, the first person in her dirt-poor family born outside Oklahoma or Arkansas. Her mother had left her first husband for his younger brother, Orville Johnson, Hayes’ father…
Hayes has described her late teens and early 20s as “my lost years,” but her string of poor decisions carried into and after her Evergreen experience. She was 29 when she accepted $5,000 to marry Abraham B. Abraham, an Ethiopian man hoping to stay in the United States, and 30 when she and a boyfriend bought property in rural Okanogan County, Washington, hoping to set up a pot farm.
Hayes has portrayed herself as the unwitting and often unwilling victim. Of her marriage to Abraham: She was broke, desperate for cash to pay school expenses and, “associating with the wrong people.” Of the pot farm: A domineering and dangerous partner bullied her into the deal.
Those accounts differ from how those who know Hayes today describe her, and they run counter to the memories of people who encountered her then. Hayes has never been accused of being a shrinking violet, but rather a hurricane-force personality.
“The leader was her,” said Patrick Siemion, who brokered the 1997 real-estate deal for Hayes and her then-boyfriend, Karl Topinka. “She did all the talking, all the negotiating.”
The outline of this saga resembles many a “me too” takedown, where an old fashioned sex scandal real or contrived is used to oust a man who is then replaced, for progress, with a woman. Kitzhaber still probably doesn’t know what hit him. There’s no fool like an old fool–especially where women are concerned.
State Ballot Initiatives: Guns and Slaves
Measure 114requires a permit from the Oregon State Police to purchase handguns, establishes a database of gun owners and limits the sale or manufacture of magazines to ten rounds. It appears headed for victory. The ballot summary:
Oregon law currently allows persons over age 18 to acquire firearms (federal law requires age 21 for some handgun purchases), seller/ transferor must request a criminal background check. Measure requires permit from local law enforcement to acquire firearm; person must pay fee, submit photo ID, fingerprints, complete approved safety training, pass criminal background check, not be prohibited from possessing firearms; officer may deny permit to person believed danger to self or others. Permit issued within 30 days, valid 5 years. Permit denials appealable. Must present permit, pass background check to acquire firearm. State Police creates/ maintains permit/ firearm database. Magazines over 10 rounds, or readily modifiable to exceed 10 rounds, prohibited; exception for current owners /inheritors. Exceptions for law enforcement, armed forces. Criminal penalties. Other provisions.
The measure made the ballot by petition introduced by “interfaith group” Lift Every Voice Oregon, now leading the predictable suspects in the Yes campaign. In donations they’re out-raising the No camp by about 7 to 1.
Ballotpedia on how measures make the ballot through petition:
In Oregon, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated state statute for the ballot is equal to 6 percent of the votes cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election.
…[T]he signatures of at least 1,000 electors are required to trigger a review by state officials, a period of public commentary, and the drafting of a ballot title…
Moreover, Oregon is one of several states that require a certain number of signatures to accompany an initiative petition application. The signatures of at least 1,000 electors are required to trigger a review by state officials, a period of public commentary, and the drafting of a ballot title. Prior to gathering these initial 1,000 signatures, petitioners must submit the text of the measure, a form disclosing their planned use of paid circulators, and a form designating up to three chief petitioners. The 1,000 preliminary signatures count toward the final total required.
The measure made the ballot with just over 112, 000 signatures.
Measure 112 Removes language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude from the state constitution. The language is in the original section establishing Oregon as a free state, outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude except for as criminal punishment.
Section 34. Slavery or involuntary servitude. There shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in the State, otherwise than as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
The section was eventually amended to prohibit the in-migration of Blacks! entirely, and that history is positively cherished by the radical left now. The original prohibition of slavery was motivated in large part by economic protectionism.
White emigrants who came to present-day Oregon during the 1840s and 1850s generally opposed slavery, but many also opposed living alongside African Americans. Many were nonslaveholding farmers from Missouri and other border states who had struggled to compete against those who owned slaves. To avoid a similar competitive situation in Oregon, they favored excluding Blacks entirely, although a small number did settle in region. A few immigrants brought slaves to Oregon during this time, taking advantage of the lack of enforcement of Oregon’s anti-slavery laws.
Oregon’s small white population had voted on July 5, 1843, to prohibit slavery by incorporating into Oregon’s 1843 Organic laws a provision of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” The law was amended, however, on June 26, 1844, by the provisional government’s new legislative council, headed by Missouri immigrant Peter Burnett. As amended, the law prohibited slavery, gave slaveholders a time limit to “remove” their slaves “out of the country,” and freed slaves if their owners refused to remove them.
The effect was to legalize slavery in Oregon for three years. Moreover, once freed, a former slave could not stay in Oregon—a male would have to leave after two years, a female after three. Any free Black who refused to leave would be subject to lashing, a provision that was known as “Peter Burnett’s lash law.” Burnett, who later became the first U.S. governor of California, gave this explanation for his support for the law: “The object is to keep clear of that most troublesome class of population [Blacks]. We are in a new world, under the most favorable circumstances and we wish to avoid most of those evils that have so much afflicted the United States and other countries.”
Oregon was the only such free state with exclusionary laws–it had three–which don’t appear to have been much enforced.
The second exclusion law was enacted by the Territorial Legislature on September 21, 1849. This law specified that “it shall not be lawful for any negro or mulatto to enter into, or reside” in Oregon, with exceptions made for those who were already in the territory. The law targeted African American seamen who might be tempted to jump ship. The preamble to the law addressed a concern that African Americans might “intermix with Indians, instilling into their minds feelings of hostility toward the white race.” The law was rescinded in 1854.
At least one person was expelled under the law. Jacob Vanderpool, reportedly a sailor from the West Indies, arrived in Oregon in 1850 and was arrested and expelled from the territory. Exclusion orders were issued against at least three other Blacks during this period, but they received enough support from whites that they were allowed to stay…
The [exclusionary] clause was never enforced, although several attempts were made in the legislature to pass an enforcement law. The 1865 legislature rejected a proposal for a county-by-county census of Blacks that would have authorized the county sheriffs to deport Blacks. A Senate committee killed the last attempt at legislative enforcement in 1866. The clause was rendered moot by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, although it was not repealed by voters until 1926. Other racist language in the state constitution was removed in 2002.
Although the exclusion laws were not generally enforced, they had their intended effect of discouraging Black settlers. The 1860 census for Oregon, for example, reported 128 African Americans in a total population of 52,465. In 2013, only 2 percent of the Oregon population was Black
Alas, this history is crack to the anarchists dismantling the state who never tire of citing it as proof of Oregon’s irredeemable racism; they doth protest way, way too much.
Measure 111amends the Oregon Constitution to declare health care “a fundamental right” and require the state provide it to the poor and disabled. Oregon already offers a healthcare plan for low income residents. The measure would enshrine the right and its funding against other essential services in the Constitution. The potential cost is not considered.
Multnomah County Ballot Initiatives: Pronouns, Disenfranchisement by Wetback
Measure 26 31: Should charter require county to extend the right to vote, including to noncitizens, to the fullest extent allowed by law?
Summary:
State law provides that county residents who are United States citizens 18 years of age or older are eligible to register to vote. Registered voters can vote in local, state, and federal elections, with limited exceptions (for example, under state law a person sentenced to a term of incarceration for a felony is not eligible to vote during the term of incarceration). Current county charter does not address voter registration or qualifications for elections for county officers and on county measures.
This charter amendment recommended by the Charter Review Committee requires the county to extend the right to vote, including to noncitizens, to the fullest extent allowed by law. This amendment would apply to the right to vote in elections for county officers (chair, commissioner, sheriff, and auditor) and on county measures (initiatives, referenda, and referrals of county ordinances or charter amendments).This amendment would not immediately change existing voting rights in county elections, but directs the county to take action to extend the right to vote as allowed by law.
(a)It shall be unlawful for any alien to vote in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, unless—
(1) the election is held partly for some other purpose;
(2) aliens are authorized to vote for such other purpose under a State constitution or statute or a local ordinance; and
(3) voting for such other purpose is conducted independently of voting for a candidate for such Federal offices, in such a manner that an alien has the opportunity to vote for such other purpose, but not an opportunity to vote for a candidate for any one or more of such Federal offices.
The county can allow illegals to vote in local and state elections but it can’t allow them to vote for national office. Unless they plan a special limited local ballot for illegals, which they don’t, this is illegal.
Measure 26 30: Should county charter be amended to replace gender binary pronouns (including he, she, his, and her) with gender neutral terms?
Ballot summary:
The existing county charter uses gender binary pronouns including he, she, his, and her, throughout the document in sections 4.10 (Qualifications), 4.20 (Terms Of Office; Successive Terms; Running For Office in Midterm), 4.40 (Vacancies – Causes), 6.10 (Chair Of The Board), 6.50 (Sheriff), and 7.20 (Civil Service Commission). In addition, existing charter section 7.40(4) provides that references to the masculine gender in that chapter of the charter refer to the masculine, feminine, neuter, or applicable noun.
This charter amendment would replace gender binary pronouns throughout the charter with gender neutral terms appropriate to the context. For example, use of the pronouns “he or she” in section 6.50 to refer to the sheriff would be replaced with the term “the sheriff.”This amendment also would remove existing charter section 7.40(4) because that section would no longer be necessary after removal of all references to gender.
Put on the ballot by recommendation of the Charter Review Committee
City of Portland Initiative: A Rank Choice
26 228Should Administrator manage city government, 12-member Council (three from each district) make laws, voters elect officials using ranked choice process?
Summary:
The first would make changes to Portland’s city government structure. The measure would provide a City Administrator, supervised by the mayor, to manage daily operations, including hiring, firing, and supervising bureau directors. The mayor would no longer be a member of the City Council, but can introduce laws and break tie votes on non-emergency ordinances. Salaries of elected officials’ salaries would be decided by an Independent Salary Commission.
The second would expand the City Council to twelve members. The city would be divided into four geographic districts created by the Independent District Commission with three councilors representing each district. The district boundary lines would be adjusted every decade beginning in 2030 based on census population data.
The third would establish ranked-choice voting that would allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Primary elections would be eliminated. The process for tallying ballots would depend on the office. For Mayor and Auditor, if no candidate receives over 50% of the votes in the first round, the candidate receiving fewest votes would be eliminated, and that candidate’s votes are transferred to each voter’s next-highest ranked candidate. The process would continue until a candidate exceeds a 50% majority. For City Council, candidates win when they exceed a threshold set by the number of available positions. Ballots would be counted in rounds. Any candidate exceeding the threshold would be elected, and that candidate’s votes above the threshold would be proportionally transferred to other candidates based on voter preference. The candidate receiving the fewest votes in each round would be eliminated, and that candidate’s votes would be transferred to other candidates based on voters’ preferences. The process would continue for as many rounds as necessary until all positions are filled.
Referred to the ballot by the Portland Charter Review Commission.
Portland’s commission form of government–the last or one of the last such in the US–where four commissioners are elected city-wide and the mayor sits on the council–is hated by all as dysfunctional and ineffective. Ranked choice voting and the expansion of the city council will favor the Coalition and is supported by progressives.
Like Kotek in Salem, Hardesty’s success effecting anti-police laws leaves her closely identified with the decay in public order voters are poised to reject. I don’t expect this to be the last we see of the wraith-like Hardesty, who promised “to end white Portland” upon her election and went to it with boundless resentment. I hate to think what she will be like after losing.
A man is in custody after being shot and modestly injured Friday night by a Portland Police officer downtown after allegedly chasing people on the street with a knife. The area around the convenience store at 12th and Jefferson is one of our cursed little corners, due in part to a nearby subsidized apartment building housing people with substance abuse issues, which means a good portion have serious mental health issues, and a church around the corner that serves a regular feed for the homeless.
I used to cross through this place regularly at night, and I’ve never found it to be dangerous, just seedy–but like everywhere the threat is different for different people. People paying exorbitant rent to live here wend through the riff raff to and from the store indifferent. But for a dope-sick homeless person or someone similarly weak the place might be very hell.
SW 12th Ave and Jefferson last year; the building houses people with substance abuse issues; two non-residents set up on the sidewalk in front and for three days spent their time high or nodding off amidst the growing mound of garbage accumulating about them; the last I saw a pair of nice social workers were very gently starting the extraction
For a long time the store had a continual homeless presence on the sidewalk outside, small but hardcore. At its worst they did business through a small hatch cut into a fortified wooden door: you addressed the clerk and he went and fetched your goods. But the homeless contingent there has been gone for a few months now and the spot is a little cleaned up.
Twitter chatter suggested antifa might descend on the shooting scene, so I went to check it out. All I found were four or five young, frail antifa types of indeterminate gender congregating on the corner while a fat female clown honked a horn at the cops from behind the crime-scene tape.
At the same time President Biden was speaking across the Willamette River and was expected at the Hilton downtown later that night. Several blocks around the hotel were cordoned off with barrier tape manned by cops, traffic barricades at the intersections and what looked like a big dump truck in the middle of Broadway. A tent where cars pass through to undergo a bomb search was raised in front of the Apple store–itself a high-security setup for two years now, since the 2020 BLM riots that helped land Brandon in office; the store looks like a prison entrance with customers routed through high steel fencing held down by concrete traffic barriers.
I waited for a time in Pioneer Courthouse Square with a few dozen people, scattered about, who may or may not have been waiting like me to get a look at the corpus potus. Two demonstrators with a flag demanding gas money from “Brandon” waited for a while before giving up. They had been outside of the president’s event somewhere on the east side and reported few people there and no anti-Biden protesters. The inane and durable banter of a nearby group of Mexican girls finally sent me into retreat.
The stupid flee when no man pursueth
Yahoos in nearby Vancouver Washington are still discovering a new state law that means police won’t chase if they flee a traffic stop. The news report below is a little deceptive in saying the suspect ran because he “thought” the police would not pursue. The suspect knew they would not. He was only arrested because he crashed near enough the non-pursuing sheriff’s deputy to be picked up at the accident. Fox 12 seems to be encouraging you to get the wrong impression. Unforgivably the news report doesn’t even mention Washington’s House Bill 1024, now law, limiting police chases, despite the fact the Clark County Sheriff has been very vocal in his opposition to this and other Racial Reckoning laws and any statement given to media will stress that.
Readers get a clue at least in that part of the Sheriff’s statement included in the story, saying the non-pursuit was per law, when they would normally say per policy.
Whether the law truly prohibited a chase is debatable. But Fox 12 isn’t even going there and I’m not sure it isn’t just due to the generally awful and incomplete nature of short news items now. But I expect controversy to follow when, say, a failure to pursue results in a gory crash, and many of the same people behind the law denounce police inaction.
For the time being police will still show up when you splatter, of course, and abolitionists haven’t yet figured out how to keep them from arresting you afterward–I expect they’re working to ban cops from hospitals and crash scenes eventually. The Washington law might intend that, with a provision requiring police to leave a scene where no crime is obviously imminent.
In this case the not-too-bright driver didn’t think his correct realization through, however: rather than simply go on his merry way he went ahead with the high speed chase, solo. And still his reasoning was sound: the deputy stood down as he blew another red light. The only thing failing the driver was his skill.
CLARK COUNTY, Wash. – Deputies arrested a man after leading them on a chase on Friday night because he thought he would not be stopped, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
CCSO said just before 9 p.m. Friday, a deputy saw a black SUV run a red light at Northeast St. Johns Rd. and Northeast 88th Street and attempted to stop it. The driver sped away and ran another red light. Pursuant to laws, the deputy stopped his pursuit of the SUV.
Those flashing code lights are a suggestion now. The rationalization behind no-pursuit policies is that high-speed chases are dangerous; but the goal is really to limit police interactions with Blacks! and thereby arrests and convictions. Doing away with police pursuits is another of many crude bludgeons in that effort. If enough people stop cooperating with traffic stops the practice will become a thing of the past in Washington state, and I’m certain police abolitionists anticipate and approve.
Like Washington, Oregon passed a slew of police reform bills following the orchestrated BLM rioting of 2020; the various states blessed with a blue hue all put up the same host of “reforms”: bail reform, banning police chases, repealing qualified immunity, etc. They got about half of what they wanted. Many of course are now rolling those back, even Washington state–just a little:
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Thursday rolling back part of the state’s sweeping police reform legislation from last year after law enforcement and key Democratic lawmakers agreed the original bill went too far.
The measure, House Bill 2037, makes clear police can use force to stop people from fleeing temporary investigative detentions, known as Terry stops. Officers said restrictions passed by lawmakers in 2021 had left them unable to do so, meaning potential suspects could simply leave.
Under the bill, police still must use reasonable care, including appropriate de-escalation techniques, and they may not use force during Terry stops when the people being detained are compliant. Inslee said it “upholds the principle of police accountability, de-escalation and the protection of individual liberties.”
Following 2020’s widespread protests for police accountability in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Washington lawmakers passed an array of reforms covering everything from the background checks officers undergo before they’re hired to the circumstances under which they can be decertified.
Any law enforcement agency is likely to stand down more than such a law requires, and are squeezed between a law that limits their action but not their accountability and the public demand for order. They’re barred mostly from making traffic stops but still held responsible for the consequences–say if the driver here had killed somebody.
They didn’t manage to ban chases in Oregon and Portland Police still pursue fleeing suspects, but under considerable restrictions. I’m not sure about our Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department; a few weeks ago KOIN News, in a similarly vague account, reported deputies did not pursue a fleeing criminal suspect into a community college without explaining why. Emails to KOIN news and MCSD seeking to confirm if this was a no-pursuit policy decision went unanswered, and I couldn’t find the Sheriff’s policy online.
There was an old joke among Southern California traffic cops, told whenever a fast motorcyclist got away: never mind, we’ll get him at the fatality. Of course it was also common for police to admonish speeding motorcyclists by complaining they, cops and EMTs, were the ones to scrape you off the pavement (but they actually don’t–who is the poor bastard who has to do that?). They won’t get to whinge like that any more in Washington state if abolitionists get their way. They will have to shut up and do it. Sleep in the pod. Eat the bugs. Scrape the pavement, Pig.
I’m curious at what point would police have intervened had the driver not disabled his vehicle in the mayhem:.
Seconds later, the deputy saw a cloud of dust caused by a crash on NE St. Johns Rd. near the I-205 overpass. Deputies learned the driver of the SUV had tried to go between two other cars and hit a pickup truck. It sheered the driver’s side wheels off the SUV, while the pickup went through a median, across the road and hit and broke a utility pole. There were no injuries reported.
Deputies arrested the driver of the SUV, identified as 26-year-old Kostyantyn Kray of Vancouver. A passenger in the SUV said they heard police were defunded, short-staffed and would not pursue vehicles which attempted to run from traffic stops. The passenger said Kray wanted to see for himself if this was true.
Kray was taken to a hospital before being booked into the Clark County jail for a felony charge of attempting to elude a police vehicle.
NE St. Johns Rd. was closed for over an hour due to the amount of debris in the road, to allow for tows and for maintenance on the damaged utility pole.
“…no injuries reported.” Success!
The Washington law requires police to get permission from a supervisor before initiating a pursuit and to let anyone go who isn’t an immediate dangerous threat. So criminal suspects are calling 911 on cops. Honk Honk:
(NewsNation) — A new law in Washington state that places restrictions on police pursuits has resulted in suspects calling 911 to prevent officers from chasing them.
In one call released by the Redmond Police Department, a man admits he is driving on a suspend license, but tells the operator when she asks him if he can pull over: “No … he’s not going to get me.”
House Bill 1054 requires that officers receive permission from a supervisor to initiate a chase. Proponents of the legislation, including its sponsor state Rep. Jesse Johnson, said it would improve public safety by reducing the number of deaths caused by police pursuits, among other things.
But police departments have pushed back, saying the measure hampers their ability to catch criminals. According to the Washington State Patrol, officers have logged nearly 2,500 incidents of drivers failing to stop for a state trooper trying to pull them over.
And now, suspects themselves are reporting police. In another call aired on “The Jason Rantz Show,” a man who was suspected of holding a woman hostage sped off with the alleged victim inside the car. He told a 911 operator “I was sleeping in my car” and to tell the police “it’s an illegal pursuit.”
I may try that sometime.
Vaporized
PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) – A brand new business called the House of Vape off of Southeast Powell Boulevard was scheduled for their grand opening Friday, but instead they were burglarized.
Sami Hales, who owns the shop, said he lost roughly $100,000 in products and damages. However, it’s nothing new.
“I’m getting used to it to be honest with you,” Hales said. “At least once a month I’m getting a phone call.”
He has been burglarized a dozen times between his 19 locations, but the thieves are getting more and more sophisticated. This time, a white truck crashed through the side of the business and three individuals started taking products.
“They’re doing it so professionally,” Hales said. “I swear when I saw this footage, I thought I was watching “Mission Impossible.” It doesn’t matter what I do for security, they still rob me.”
The first round of thieves were in and out in less than two minutes, but more trickled in afterward.
“It was an open buffet,” he said.
In the footage, the thieves were pillaging the shelves by swooping their arms from side to side and filling garbage cans full of product.
“So you can imagine how much they stole,” Hales said. “They hurt me bad.”
Hales said he feels like theft and crime are crushing his dreams of continuing to build his business and feel safe in the community he loves.
“I’m an immigrant,” he said. “I’ve lived in this wonderful, wonderful city for 22 years. I cannot go walk after 1 a.m. I’m a big guy, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just getting worse and worse.”
He blames it on who he calls “evil people.”
“I’m sorry to call them evil,” Hales said apologetically. “But they are evil because they’re hurting everybody.”
He managed to catch the license plate and is hopeful they’ll be caught. All the while, he remains optimistic about the city he calls home.
“Portland, Oregon is going to go back to what it used to be,” Hales said. “Safe and good.”
Hales said tobacco shops aren’t allowed to have product insurance, so he’s out quite a bit of dough. But he’s thankful for all the help he has received in the last 48 hours or so. Some people from the community even helped him to rebuild his wall.
On that thin premise here’s a fat clip:
“What the fuck they expect from us? We gotta vape, don’t we?”
Black! people hit their kids. Everyone knows this. I drove a taxi for a short stint a long time ago. Once I drove a big Black! momma with two small boys, like mom thickset with little toad-like heads, showing all the promise of, soon, a pair of vigorous bruisers. One of the boys wouldn’t cooperate as she tried buckling him in; almost immediately she started pummeling him with hard, close-fisted blows, which he took like a champ. I don’t remember him crying.
“scyuze me.” She breathed the words heavily, winded. “You gotta do that sometimes.”
I don’t know what I said but it was intended to convey I Do Not Judge.
The Daily Mail is reporting on a retired NBA player they say put his young son in the hospital with a punch landed in New York’s La Guardia airport Monday night. The child’s “stepmom” (she’s a rider) is defending him against–it should be called Karenism, the intrusion of white values on Black! people:
Ex-NBA star Ben Gordon did not hit his son but was targeted by a ‘kiosk Karen’ at the airport after reprimanding the child, his ex-girlfriend and the boy’s stepmom has claimed.
The former Chicago Bulls shooting guard was arrested for allegedly hitting his son Elijah, 11, while they were in LaGuardia airport waiting for a Chicago-bound flight on Monday night.
Gordon, 39, shares his son with his ex-fiancé Sascha Smith, 32, and the 11-year-old was rushed to Long Island Jewish Hospital with his aunt.
He also has a younger son, Lux, with Ashley Banks who has defended the athlete and claims he was doing ‘push ups’ with Elijah before being approached by airline staff.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘He’s just misunderstood. He’s a great father. He gives them the world.
‘Maybe his son wasn’t listening, and he reprimanded him…”
Mr. Bonin, a West Los Angeles liberal, as the council’s “fourth Black member” and joked with Ms. Martinez that Mr. Bonin carried his adopted son, who is Black, as if the toddler were a designer handbag. Ms. Martinez complained that on a parade float on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Mr. Bonin had failed to control his son and said that the child’s antics had nearly tipped the float over.
“They’re raising him like a little white kid,” Ms. Martinez said on the recording.
“I was like, this kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner, and then I’ll bring him back.”
It’s not clear her methods would be any worse than those of a gay white man with a Black! people fetish. Black! values for Black! people–without segregation–is the unspoken, mostly unrecognized goal of “civil rights” now, and the circle that will not be squared (or named) is our groping attempt to maintain some semblance of order while we indulge Black! values.
Segregation looks like an elegant solution to this problem, compared to where we are now.
2022 continues the high plateau in crime rates following 2020’s BLM riots and subsequent raft of new laws directed at police and criminal prosecutions. Progressive Oregon politicians followed the shock and awe of the riots like invading troops following a bombing campaign, achieving a host of long-time legislative goals. Mercifully they did not get all they wanted.
Bail reform passed (allowing “individualized assessments based on objective criteria”, which sounds like a contradiction in terms and probably just means high discretion for woke district attorneys–it sounds like college recruiters using “holistic” methods to accept dull Blacks!).
Democratic Party androgyne and candidate for governor Tina Kotek voted for it and it immediately began producing little travesties. It’s hard to predict how much this might hurt her in the campaign. Business interests, old liberals (some remain) and regular people (again, some remain) are chafing over all the reimagining of public safety openly and money is pouring in to defeat the abolitionists’ leader, Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, in November.
But genuine free speech doesn’t exist here. Needless to say any public demonstration defending police or opposing progressive “reforms” (or suburban moms opposing drag queen story hour) will be met with violence; small businesses are threatened for adopting a neutral attitude. “Don’t talk to cops” now extends to any dialogue with police. A cafe that’s long held a “coffee with a cop” function, where citizens could have a sort of “ask me anything” with a live cop, was recently vandalized for the impertinence. Bad police are good politics for the anarchist left, and the last thing they want is better communication and understanding between civilian and police.
Meanwhile the hierarchy of grievance of social justice is dynamic, never settled and stable. Subtle changes in narrative focus change things on the ground to an extent hidden in all the media obfuscation. For instance the focus on keeping Black! men out of prison at all costs means many more dead women, many more rapes, many more beatings. Violence against women is one of those costs.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The Portland Police Bureau said they are conducting an internal investigation after a man accused of a deadly Old Town stabbing was released from jail the day before the murder, after police say he reportedly assaulted a woman earlier that week.
Now, Portland Police are looking into whether the initial assault investigation went far enough.
On Wednesday, Sept. 28, Portland Police arrested 20-year-old Kalil Ford for beating up a woman. Police charged and booked him with assault in the fourth degree.
However, fourth-degree assault is a misdemeanor and the Multnomah County Court requires a felony charge (i.e. assault in the second degree) to hold someone in jail past their first court appearance.
Court records show Judge Rebecca Lease released Ford on Sept. 29, the day after the assault.
The new bail rules aren’t the problem here. Police are charging less often and for lesser crimes, anticipating the leniency of District Attorney Mike Schmidt’s office, especially if the name is something like “Kalil”. The state is also in the midst of a public defender shortage, and the District Attorney is meanwhile spending money to spring convicts via his Justice Integrity Unit.
I suspect a strategy used by police before would be to overcharge–say, if the assault indeed wasn’t bad enough to warrant a felony second degree assault charge and bail (and assuming bail reform would not have come into play and effected his release anyway–and I don’t see how it wouldn’t have) police, recognizing his danger to the public (or, yes, just being bastards) might have charged him with the felony to hold him in lieu of the bail he cannot afford, until he can be tried and sentenced of, or more likely pleas to, the lesser charge.
Meanwhile we continue to have little eruptions of violence the media and cops like to package, as Aristotle would approve, in dramas limited to one circuit of the sun: four homicides in a 24-hour stretch recently
PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – The city of Portland has seen four murders in a 24-hour period.
This includes two deadly stabbings downtown, one near West Burnside and Northwest Third, and 12 hours later, another near Northwest Broadway and Northwest Couch. On Friday morning, a person was shot and killed near the 200th block of Southeast 148th Avenue, and 23 hours later, another person was shot near Northeast 162nd Avenue and Northeast Sandy Boulevard.
Northwest Portland seems to continue the gentrification that preceded the Racial Reckoning at the same time the neighborhood declines. But Northwest is also home to longtime ground zero for the destitute, Old Town, site of the first two homicides listed above, which was always going to be a hard nut to crack.
Police have made arrests in connection with the first three of the four murders, according to the Portland Police Bureau.
Police Sgt. Kevin Allen said the PPB feel the same impact that the community feels.
“A lot of people died violent deaths in a very short period of time,” Allen said. “That’s what we signed on for, but we’re all human beings too and when we have this much going on and this much terrible things happening – it affects us as well. While we do this for a living, it’s still hard. It’s still difficult.”
Three years ago, the Portland homicide rate was 25-30 homicides a year.
“We are now at 72 homicides this year to date and counting,” Allen said.
Allen said he doesn’t believe there is any connection between the four deaths.
“As far as we can tell, it’s just a tragic coincidence that they all happened in such a short period of time,” Allen said.
Police are still looking for anyone from the community with information about the deadly shooting off Sandy Boulevard to come forward, something Allen said was vital to the arrests made on the previous three.
So people are still talking to the cops. That’s good. Last year Portland achieved a new record annual homicides at 90. We are on track to beat that this year.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The Portland Police Bureau says they responded to “several significant calls” in less than 24 hours — including a homicide investigation, a shooting, an alarm call, a pedestrian crash and a stabbing.MultCo murder suspect arrested after release from jail day prior
Just after 6:30 p.m. Thursday, officers responded to what was initially thought to be a possible burglary at a home along Northeast Siskiyou Street. On the scene, PPB said officers determined that a man was intoxicated, in a mental health crisis and threatening others in the neighborhood.
PPB said as officers were talking to the man, he picked up a shotgun. As officers sought cover, the man went into the home.
The man surrendered peacefully after officers used “de-escalation and communications skills,” authorities said. No injuries were reported in the incident.
Officials said evidence suggests birdshot was fired on the scene.
Jo Ann Hardesty’s signature project is Portland Street Response, teams of unarmed social workers and EMTs with which she imagines replacing police city-wide. A recent case of a mentally ill man waving a replica gun and being shot dead by police sparked a renewed push for expanding the project, despite the fact even the abolitionists aren’t yet suggesting Street Response respond to reports of man-with-a-gun. But the case of the drunken would-be duck hunter above is presumably something to which proponents expect PSR to routinely respond–the gun wasn’t in play when the call was made.
Several hours afterward at about 2 a.m. on Friday, police reportedly found a man dead at the intersection of Southwest 4th Avenue and Southwest Washington Street. A homicide investigation ensued.
While police have not identified the victim, they said this marks the 64th shooting death in 2022.
Just over 30 minutes later at 2:35 a.m., officers were dispatched to a reported shooting at a lounge on Southeast 92nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard. PPB said they learned that a group of five people won money from the lounge’s lottery machines and as the group left, a suspect approached the group with a gun and demanded the winnings — resulting in a struggle.
According to officials, four of the people in the group sustained non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. The other group member sustained an elbow injury unrelated to gunfire.
Officials noted that no immediate arrests were made.
No “immediate arrests were made” doesn’t necessarily mean a suspect escaped.
“…per policy, officers did not pursue the suspect”:
Hours later, just before 5:30 a.m., PPB said officers responded to an alarm call at a cannabis business on Northeast Alberta Street.
Authorities said at least one suspect drove away in a reportedly stolen car and eluded officers who tried to stop him. PPB said per policy, officers did not pursue the suspect.
However, officers did detain one 14-year-old suspect who was still in the area.
The other day I posted about a recent Michael Anton essay broaching the increasingly relevant, always fraught question of revolution, in our age of hostile government. Forgive me quoting myself:
Anton makes his most important point here:
It’s that they [“conservatives”] believe—against the Founders, and against all experience of history—that once implemented, it can never be lost. They defend every perversion, distortion, corruption, and topsy-turvy reinterpretation of that system as if it were the system itself.
The original system of republican government was hollowed out and replaced–slowly and then quickly as they say–so that eventually this thing that resembles our original system of government only in that it wears its skin, can invoke before a benighted people the founders’ vision as they put down any attempt to effect it.
It may be that revolution simply isn’t possible for more reasons than repression.
He’s right about historicism blinding the respectable to the fact the original American nation is already history. Not only due to ideological and cultural changes, but due to demographic change, which is irreversible. A country can be reclaimed from bad ideology; demographics are irreversible, destiny, as the man said. There is no American nation at present.
Pat Buchanan’s latest touches on the subject as well, and in his typical model he gives a little history.
Asked, “What is an American?” many would answer, “An American is a citizen of the United States.”
Yet, at the First Continental Congress in 1774, 15 years before the U.S. became a nation of 13 states, Patrick Henry rose to proclaim that, “British oppression has effaced the boundaries of the several colonies; the distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.”
If American identity is genuinely lost it’s beyond me precisely where it ended, or began. On one hand American national cohesion had to dilute along with the growth of the country in population, diversity and complexity. But during the same period modern communications began dissolving regional, religious and ethnic diversity among the genuine nation, that is to say whites, creating the single American identity we boomers grew up on. In hindsight we see the identity was too shallow to last, that there was too little investment required of the individual. We could take the identity and its many benefits for granted. Now it takes us for granted.
Maybe we were never grounded firmly. Starting out those thirteen colonies were hardly a unified whole, with competing interests between distinct social models that would lead to the Civil War, and the US now is arguably culturally more homogenous by a degenerate mile than we’ve ever been. But there is no unity of national identity, even within the white American population.
Long before the US crossed the imperial Rubicon in the Philippines it was an empire. The Indian nations swallowed up by the expanding conquest of North America were too weak technologically and thus too completely erased to contribute to that empire anything but the romantic tale of their struggle and defeat–told by us. Had the US swept across the continent picking off small Greek style city states rich in culture, that legacy would remain in appropriated culture, arts and technology. Their influence on the culture of the conquerer would thus be evident. That the Indians built virtually nothing and left scant cultural legacy means they don’t count, historically.
If you know me I hope you understand I make no moral statement or judgement; I am genuinely detached from the moral question here. But the point is the winning of the West was the creation of an empire.
But this empire, liberated from national identity, is now turned inside out, and it creates and grows alien national colonies within the national boundaries in large part to circumvent that original national identity.
Buchanan makes the point:
France was France all through the Bourbon dynasty, the Revolution of 1789, the creation of the First Republic, the Reign of Terror, Napoleon’s First Empire and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy — all the way to the creation of the Fifth Republic by President Charles de Gaulle.
In short, our country came to be before our republic came to be, and long before what we today call “our democracy” came to be. A country is different from, and more than, the political system that it adopts.
Yes. But is it France now?
And if it can be argued the France of the Bourbons and Revolution endures somehow, for how much longer?
Post-WWII liberal convention frets democracy can’t survive nationalism. But the real question is; can a nation survive democracy?
untethered 