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This is an article I first posted in May of 2020.  With all that has happened since then, it’s time for an update:

Among the things I so enjoy about producing this scruffy little blog is the informed and civil discourse of readers that take the time to comment, not only on my wretched scribblings, but on the comments of other readers.  At SMM, we expect, and almost universally receive, civil, intelligent and interesting discourse.  I don’t imagine for a second I know everything or am incapable of error.  As I’ve aged, the lesson that continues to mercilessly pound me is how very much I don’t know and will never know.  When I make mistakes—readers are sufficiently kind to point them out—I always do my best to make corrections.  However, finding one’s own errors is difficult business, which is more or less the topic of this little missive.

I always taught my students to put some time between a final draft and publication.  This is so because when we try to proofread something we’ve just finished, our brains play with us.  We don’t see what we actually wrote, we see what we think we wrote, what we intended to write.  My favorite illustration of this is a student who misspelled his name in the header of a paper.  I dutifully marked it in red, and when I handed it back, he demanded to know why I marked his name.

“You misspelled it,” I replied as I continued to hand out papers.

“I did not misspell my own name!” he indignantly replied.

I paused, and with a slight grin, said: “Take a look.”

His expression changed from anger to amazement as he muttered: “I misspelled my own name…” to the general merriment of the rest of the class, which gave me yet another opportunity to explain the importance of putting time between completing something and proofreading it.  I routinely proofread my work at least three times prior to posting it, putting time between each reading, but even that doesn’t guarantee I’ll find every error.

But the primary issue of this article is that of pronoun use and generalities.

Regular reader Doug, in responding to Tara Reade And Joe Biden: Rules Are For The Little People observed:

“Them,” unless you’d like to claim membership?

Ha.. yeah, Mike.. the old ‘us’ and ‘they’ of it all. If the ‘us’ is normal does that not mean the ‘they’ are either abnormal.. or.. dare I say this, some level of deplorable?

And what happens to the us.. that’s not the ‘us’, nor a member of the ‘they’? I am feeling a bit displaced.. and alone. Wait.. can I be a member of the ‘those’?

Since that original article, we have become, if anything, even more separated.  With the newest Cuban attempt at attaining freedom, we’ve seen American leftists outraged at their display—any display–of the American flag.  We’ve also seen the self-imagined elite virtually silent on the issue, silent because they support the Cuban Communists, not the Cuban deplorables hungering for freedom.  American college students are confused; they can’t imagine why Cubans fighting with their lives for liberty might be displaying American flags.  The New York Times, writing on the Cubans, noted that the very concept of liberty is anti-government, and the Harris/Biden/Whoever Administration—Joe Biden, Temporary President—has been extraordinarily slow at criticizing the murderous Cuban Communist government—all communist governments are murderous—finally issuing a weak statement indeed.  All the while his press flack, Red Jen Psaki, pretended the Cuban people were revolting because of a lack of Covid vaccinations.  And of course, the left blames Cuba’s problems on America, just as all loyal communists do.

And of course, it doesn’t end there.  A great many leftists have pronounced the flag as inherently racist and divisive.  One Olympian, a trans something or other BMX riding alternate, has sworn to burn the American flag should they find them–it?—self on a medal platform, and a Black female hammer thrower, in qualifying for the Olympics, turned her back on the flag and national anthem.  The NFL has not only proclaimed itself gay, but has announced it will henceforth play the “Black National Anthem” at all of its games, and the list goes on and on…

Doug was referring to terminology I have adopted as a generalization, a shorthand for more complex issues.  One must always write for readers new to the site, while not repeatedly over-explaining for regular readers.  Some acronyms—FBI, CIA, ASAP, etc.–are so common as to be immediately understood.  Others require a bit of explanation, whether spelling them out when they’re first used in an article, or perhaps the context in which they’re used makes them apparent.  It’s generally accepted to spell out a title/name when it’s first used in a work, using the acronym thereafter.

While the casual reader might think my general political philosophy conservative, I’m actually a constitutionalist.  That alone might be confusing.  I have thrice taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  I’m no longer a police officer, nor am I any longer in the military, but having been active duty, I’m in the inactive reserve, though I’m far outside the age for call up in anything but the most dire national emergency one can imagine.  Sadly, circa 2021, it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to conceive of such things.  I took those oaths seriously, and particularly as a police officer, my daily activities were governed by the Bill of Rights.

Therefore, I judge the law and political philosophies and policies on their adherence—or lack thereof–to the Constitution.  I vote for politicians based primarily on who seems likely to do the least damage to the Constitution.  By this, I’m sure you can infer that I believe all politicians will do some damage to the Constitution, and that’s pretty much the case, though I was pleasantly surprised by Donald Trump.

All politicians are our hired hands; nothing more.  I don’t see any of them as a Messiah (see: Obama, Barack: The One) or any kind of savior—that’s a leftist specialty.  I believe all politicians must be viewed with at least some degree of skepticism, and the media must be viewed with virtually nothing but skepticism.  The media doesn’t always lie, but when they do, it’s virtually always to the benefit of the Left, and to the detriment of Normal Americans.

I don’t automatically identify all Republicans and like-minded thinkers as “us,” nor do I automatically identify Democrats and like-minded thinkers as “them.”  What do we call the Left these days?  They used to self-identify as Liberals, until too much of the public caught on and began to think that a dirty word.  They latched onto “Progressive,” because who can be against progress?  They’re big on trying to define the terms of any debate, demanding their lunatic premises be accepted at the risk of being called “racist,” or “white supremacist,” or “transphobic,” ad nauseum.  But again, too many Americans have come to realize the kind of “progress” they espouse will turn us into Venezuela, and they don’t think eating zoo animals for mere survival to be the kind of bold, new future into which they want to march.

On the Right, most Republicans are content to be called Republicans. After all, that was the party of Abraham Lincoln, and one can’t do much better than that.  Leftists have tried to confuse the issue by claiming  Democrats were not the party of segregation, racism and slavery—it was all Lincoln’s fault, you see.  However, in constantly trying to define the terms of every debate, Leftists have coined a number of terms that have stuck, primarily due to their reflexive use in the media, which is actually the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.  There are Neo-Conservatives, which means Nazis, racists, white supremacists, LGBTQWERTYphobes, women haters, Muslim haters, and haters of everything in general.  There are Republicans, which means Nazis, racists, white supremacists, LGBTQWERTYphobes, women haters, Muslim haters, and haters of everything in general.

Useful Idiot

There are Never Trumpers, which means Nazis, racists, white supremacists, LGBTQWERTYphobes, women haters, Muslim haters, and haters of everything in general, but also, and most importantly, useful idiots, though Leftists don’t normally say that sort of thing about Never Trumpers like Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney until they’re no longer useful.  They always think they’re idiots (enter “Liz Cheney” in the SMM homepage search bar to find my writings on the soon to be ex-representative from Wyoming).

There are Deplorables, which is pretty much everyone that does not believe and praise everything the Left does, says and thinks, and the list goes on and on and evolves as necessary for temporary political advantage.

The Democrat side is somewhat less complicated.  They’re progressives, to be sure.  Liberals, never in the classical sense.  But circa July, 2021, the Democrat Party is nothing like the Democrat Party of 30, 20, or even 10 years ago.  The 2020 Party platform was far closer to the pseudo constitutions of Communist dictatorships than to the US Constitution.  They threw God off the platform years ago.  While many members of the Democrat Party have always had socialist leanings, until recent years, they were careful to keep them under wraps, at least until they seized power and could act on them, as they are currently doing with a vengeance.

Communists too have always been welcome, but until recently, had to keep an even lower profile.  The number of Democrats taking an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution without blatantly lying has continued to shrink until they are now a minority in the Democrat Party, and a constantly shrinking minority at that.  In fact, Socialists and Communists are aggressively pushing Marxism through such vehicles as The 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, the DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA and the rest of the federal government.  They are now the heart and sole of what once was the Democrat Party.

I have therefore taken to calling Americans that support the Constitution, that do not see it as an obstacle to their political policies, but rather a limitation on the powers of government and an affirmation of the rights of The People, “Normal Americans.”  These are the people that believe in American Constitutionalism and the rule of law.  They believe in small government, limited by the letter of the Constitution, which can be read and easily understood by the average citizen.  If my 16 year-old students could understand the British English of the late 1500s, contemporary American adults can surely understand the American version of the late 1700s.

Normal Americans are the Americans who know that if we don’t take care of America and Americans first, we not only won’t be able to take care of others, but eventually, not even ourselves. They believe in national sovereignty—a nation without borders, that can’t control who immigrates, isn’t a nation at all–and know money is a finite resource. They are compassionate, kind and generous people, and they spend their own money, not the tax dollars of others, to help those in need.  They want mostly to be left alone, and they expect politicians to understand, always, they are the hired hands of the people who have an even greater obligation to obey the law than anyone else.  We hire them to set an example.  At the very least, they ought to obey the law like anyone else, rather than ignoring it or exempting themselves from having to follow it.

Why not “Republican Americans,” as in Americans that support the republican form of government guaranteed by the Constitution?  Wouldn’t that be more accurate?  Yes, but more confusing.  Leftists continue to do their best to call America a “democracy,” and want to rule that way.  They do because in a democracy, there is the tyranny of the majority.  The barest majority may deprive the minority of their rights, liberty, their very lives.  In our Constitutional Republic, the tyranny of the majority is proscribed.  No majority may deprive the minority of their fundamental liberties.  Too many Americans think us a Democracy.  Besides, “Republican Americans” would imply membership in the Republic Party exclusively, so “Normal Americans” it is.

I have taken to calling those that follow leftist philosophy “D/S/Cs,” for Democrats, Socialists and Communists.  As I noted, the majority of that Party would fit within the generally understood limits of socialism and communism, while an increasingly smaller portion of the remainder are something traditional Democrats, people that actually love America and Americans rather than seeking to fundamentally transform–or destroy–both, might recognize.  American Communists have become, in the last few years, ever more brazen about their goals.  In using this acronym, I’m being truly diverse and inclusive, which they ought to appreciate.  If a given Leftist isn’t a socialist, or at least doesn’t want to be identified as one, they can embrace the “D,” which leaves the “S” and “C” for the remainder—the majority.

When I write: “Normal Americans think,” I’m sure most readers know I’m generalizing.  Not only would it be ridiculous to try to include all of the gradations of political thought within that general term in a single article, it would be tedious, make my prose unreadable—even more than usual—and would not clarify anything.  We can all understand what the term generally encompasses, and further understand it’s necessary to eliminate unnecessary verbiage that would not, in most circumstances, add anything to understanding.

In the same way, when I write: “D/S/Cs think,” readers can come to the same understandings.  Terms like “Flyover Country,” while intended to be derogatory by those that coined it, do generally describe a common way of living and thinking, and an easily understood, general set of political beliefs.  In the same way are the terms “Left Coast,” or “the Coasts,” generally understood.

In the use of pronouns, antecedents are important.  They’re the proper nouns that tell us to who or what the following pronoun refers.  If we say, “Bob went to the beach and he had a great time,” “Bob” is the antecedent that allows us to know who “he” is.  Done properly, the pronoun is specific, referring to one person or one group.

Providing generally descriptive and useful names for political groups and philosophies is a bit more difficult, but I trust, gentle readers, you now know to who and what I’m referring when I refer to “Normal Americans” and “D/S/Cs.”  Membership need not be defined by political party affiliation, though sadly these days, it usually is.