“All it requires is the ability to open your fucking eyes and be honest about what you see.” And it also requires people like you who can frame and explain things in ways that help people open their fucking eyes. Thank you.
On the broad point of the nature of the law: the correct response to a conservative insisting that we have to be Nazis to irregular migrants because they're "illegal immigrants" and we have to "enforce the law" is to say "Okay! Let's change the law so that all migration to the United States [or wherever] is lawful, and then we'll reduce 'illegal immigration' to zero overnight!" (this is also the correct policy).
But more academically this idea is one of the more infuriatingly facile ones in the pantheon of conservative "thought", because the law does not exist simply to execute itself. The purpose of laws is to *achieve* something, and the only justification for enforcing a law is to make that result happen. We don't criminalise murder so that people can be arrested and put on trial for murder; we do it to stop murder happening and punish it when it does happen. Immigration law, likewise, does not exist so that immigration law can be enforced; it's a means to an end, and we can only evaluate it in respect of its ends (intended or actual, both of which are terrible).
You already said that though - you gave people a chance at reform with amnesty in 2007, and they rejected it. In 2016, they once again had a choice, and once again chose less immigration and Trump. And then in 2024, even more people chose Trump and less immigration.
"We are all criminals." Thank you for pointing out what should be obvious to everyone—that the point of deploying "storm troopers" (the real and the cosplayers) is to make everyone a criminal at any time for whatever reason (first for your skin color, then for your lack of housing, … eventually for your political views).
And thank you. I had that figured out at 14, right at the moment I figured out the catholic church was bullshit and then had the utter teenage idiocy to say so publicly. Have since discovered that all my poor, queer, trans and jack-mormon friends figured out the same thing (what insurers call "inherent vice") even earlier. Veterans (and only some) a bit later. I think not understanding this might be a good definition of what the woke call "privilege".
The real crimes and conspiracies are taking place on K Street, luxury yachts, golf courses, and in corporate board rooms. Not only overlooked and unpunished as far as crime goes, but celebrated as "creating value." A multiply convicted "white collar" criminal (but maybe child rape is a blue collar crime? - Not sure) has been "elected" once again, and "real crime" is whatever he says it is.
Keep speaking resistance, Hamilton! Repeat and repeat; your words just become more invigorating and creative each time you write.
My immigrant ancestors came to this country and formed unions, which lent strength and a vibrant sense of community to our family. Our dearest family friend fled Ireland with a price on his head during the Black and Tan Rebellion. He became an international union representative in this country, using his words and example of resistance to inspire.
Surely all these law enforcement officers in the streets hurt businesses, right? Not just local business, but the fast food, coffee, and donut empires as well. I can't imagine their sales are better or even steady with the inevitable decline in foot traffic the policing dictates.
Should we also be stoking the flames of those corporate overlords and boards to lead the charge at clearing the streets of these malcontent and bored surveillers? Isn't all of this supposed to be for the profit of the white-owned mega-corps? There have to be angles like this that will make top level Republicans see Stephen Miller as the enemy to their own selfish success.
Good piece, but respectfully you seem to still be suggesting that people seek the grace of the politicians who are bought and paid for by the parasitic financiers. To take an example from a century ago, the Scandinavians in Minnesota and North Dakota were routinely oppressed and cheated by the Anglo financiers and their paid-for politicians The Scandinavians didn't respond by marching with signs, but likewise they didn't respond by just raising a ruckus and engaging in disobedience etc. Instead, they said "the hell with this, there are more of us than there are of you.". Organized by the Nonpartisan League, which spawned the Farmer-Labor organization in Minnesota, they set aside their differences, put forward their own grassroots candidates, put them through the primaries in the dominant parties, and took power. After they took power in North Dakota the establishment in Minnesota tried to thwart them by changing the law to require the Farmer-Laborites to act as a political party, but by then they had the organizational strength to win that way, too, and again they took power. In North Dakota the parasitic financiers across America, scared to death, sent huge piles of money and squadrons of organizers to figure out how to sow dissension and schisms (based on false issues and distractions) to break the movement, which ultimately worked. In Minnesota they ultimately lost energy and got co-opted and absorbed into the DFL party. But it worked. We have that power if we bother to use it and if we can get our act together to set aside the fake issues promoted by the financiers. I have written more on this elsewhere. https://laboristmovement.substack.com/p/getting-there-laborist-organizing My point here is that mere protest, even direct action protest, still cedes power to the financiers. It still asks their permission to exercise our rights, whether meekly or not. We need to do more. Real power is something you take. And we can take it without bloodshed or arrests. That is the gift of our revolutionary founders. We just need to get our acts together and do it.
First one's dead right, but I think the second one's just one of the MAGA factions: "Trump’s driving political instinct is to accumulate all power in his own hands. Those who are helping him do this want to use that power in service of a racist deportation campaign, a borderline neo-Nazi ethnic cleansing of America." I have a real hard time figuring out how much/far/into the racist agenda the techbros and oligarchs and other RW piglets are. Reading Bill Shirer again, looks to me like they'll just sit down and say "yes" to everything until the shitstorm blows over.
Lincoln garrisons Sumpter. Pretext? Probably. But it's not like they had to fire on it. In fact, one of the ironies of the South trying to hold onto to their slaves is that they resisted so much, they wound up radicalizing the Union into ending it altogether, which wasn't part of the original plan.
If the Dems want to go bananas while simultaneously turning their backs on normal wage earners, as they did in 1860, 1896, 1972, and 2024, that's fine and it is a free country. But in every one of those realignment elections the Dems also lost a constituency that they never got back, and in each one the whole electoral map was re-sorted.
First, get real. Texas is actually a blue state that's been gerrymandered to hell. Dems are not telling anybody to shoot ICE goons, they've just earned it from the residents of a state that's literally stuffed with weapons and used to taking direct action toward anybody they don't like. Second: Go read "River of Dark Dreams". The South had an economic hard-on for the North from WAY in front, supposedly for keeping them impoverished and backward, when it was their own reliance on single-crop agriculture and volatile foreign prices for cotton, sugar and tobacco that kept all their finances tied up in real estate and complicated loan structures, with nothing left over for infrastructure or manufacturing. Ignorant, backward and blaming everybody else for their own idiocy for 300 years now, exactly what you'd expect from the descendants of wastrel second sons of Anglo aristocrats and murderous Scots border warlords.
I used to play bridge and the one rule you have to know in bridge is "count the aces". If you miss an ace going down, you know nothing about the game you're in.
Okay, let's call them pretexts: they've been coming since the first day. You're right: some people swallow them, just as Trump says: "hook, line and sinker." But there's no serious attempt to make the pretext stick. Even if it's utter nonsense. A pretext is there to exculpate, but if you don't even try to make them stick, what or who are you going to exculpate? Meanwhile, aces are being played and you're not noticing them.
He could forget all the pretexts, and still do everything he's doing and more, and he doesn't give a tinker's toss because he knows that there is nothing that you can do. That's why he doesn't entertain himself by dreaming up pretexts. Instead he presents the most ludicrous reason for what he is doing that he can think of to present as the reason for what he's doing. If that's a pretext, then it is a pretext to throw a ball so a dog can fetch it back for you.
The bitterest pill yet to be even lapped at by America is this: every single president who preceded the 47th could have done exactly the same as he is doing, including the 47th, actually, in his previous iteration. And, still, no one would have been able to do anything about it. They produced a handbook on how to do what he's doing. They told you what he would do. They told you what they were telling him that he would need to do. I don't think anyone read it, to be honest. What was the point? No one has written a book telling you how to stop him doing what he's doing. And without that, Project 2025 was set in concrete from the Inauguration.
One final point: Gandhi actually got India off the British. Can you imagine? Gandhi got the British to piss off. And, what's more, you getting your country back from your president is in the same order of things. You are no Mickey Mouse country.
However, Gandhi succeeded for one reason that does not apply to you in the US: they had nothing to lose, and Gandhi himself was magnanimous enough to forsake anything that he had to lose. And men who have something to lose will never, ever, join in revolution for the chance at something better. Because you are too greedy. You'd sooner hide.
I suggested to my wife that we need to get some tactical gear, yellow-lens sunglasses and face masks to wear whenever we go out. Not only can we do whatever we want with impunity, but we will also present as "One of Us".
“All it requires is the ability to open your fucking eyes and be honest about what you see.” And it also requires people like you who can frame and explain things in ways that help people open their fucking eyes. Thank you.
Literally every word of this ⭐️
On the broad point of the nature of the law: the correct response to a conservative insisting that we have to be Nazis to irregular migrants because they're "illegal immigrants" and we have to "enforce the law" is to say "Okay! Let's change the law so that all migration to the United States [or wherever] is lawful, and then we'll reduce 'illegal immigration' to zero overnight!" (this is also the correct policy).
But more academically this idea is one of the more infuriatingly facile ones in the pantheon of conservative "thought", because the law does not exist simply to execute itself. The purpose of laws is to *achieve* something, and the only justification for enforcing a law is to make that result happen. We don't criminalise murder so that people can be arrested and put on trial for murder; we do it to stop murder happening and punish it when it does happen. Immigration law, likewise, does not exist so that immigration law can be enforced; it's a means to an end, and we can only evaluate it in respect of its ends (intended or actual, both of which are terrible).
You already said that though - you gave people a chance at reform with amnesty in 2007, and they rejected it. In 2016, they once again had a choice, and once again chose less immigration and Trump. And then in 2024, even more people chose Trump and less immigration.
Why not find another issue?
"We are all criminals." Thank you for pointing out what should be obvious to everyone—that the point of deploying "storm troopers" (the real and the cosplayers) is to make everyone a criminal at any time for whatever reason (first for your skin color, then for your lack of housing, … eventually for your political views).
And thank you. I had that figured out at 14, right at the moment I figured out the catholic church was bullshit and then had the utter teenage idiocy to say so publicly. Have since discovered that all my poor, queer, trans and jack-mormon friends figured out the same thing (what insurers call "inherent vice") even earlier. Veterans (and only some) a bit later. I think not understanding this might be a good definition of what the woke call "privilege".
The real crimes and conspiracies are taking place on K Street, luxury yachts, golf courses, and in corporate board rooms. Not only overlooked and unpunished as far as crime goes, but celebrated as "creating value." A multiply convicted "white collar" criminal (but maybe child rape is a blue collar crime? - Not sure) has been "elected" once again, and "real crime" is whatever he says it is.
Very well said
Well-said. Many people can't see what's in front of their faces so it's verynhelpful to explain the realities to them (without blame or rant.)
There is a lot that can be done.
The media are idiots. So stop watching them. All of them.
They report so ignorantly it is if they are complicit.
Cancel any TV package that pays to carry their channel.
I canceled Paramount Plus.
I canceled Direct TV.
Do not drink Coors beer.
Do not shop at Hobby Lobby.
Do not vacation in Florida or Texas.
Make this list bigger.
Every liberal should turn their 401k into cash. It is a bubble anyway.
If someone caves for money. Withhold yours.
50 million doing this. People notice.
Protests?
Nobody cares if it doesn't cost them $$$.
Protests are to show that it will cost $$$.
But protests alone? Does nothing.
Tesla sales are down.
Canada is not buying US goods.
Put on the pressure.
BIG OIL especially.
Liberal stay home days.
Millions cutting their gas purchases to only what is necessary.
Spend your $$ with supporters.
Cancel Culture? Sure is.
Keep speaking resistance, Hamilton! Repeat and repeat; your words just become more invigorating and creative each time you write.
My immigrant ancestors came to this country and formed unions, which lent strength and a vibrant sense of community to our family. Our dearest family friend fled Ireland with a price on his head during the Black and Tan Rebellion. He became an international union representative in this country, using his words and example of resistance to inspire.
Surely all these law enforcement officers in the streets hurt businesses, right? Not just local business, but the fast food, coffee, and donut empires as well. I can't imagine their sales are better or even steady with the inevitable decline in foot traffic the policing dictates.
Should we also be stoking the flames of those corporate overlords and boards to lead the charge at clearing the streets of these malcontent and bored surveillers? Isn't all of this supposed to be for the profit of the white-owned mega-corps? There have to be angles like this that will make top level Republicans see Stephen Miller as the enemy to their own selfish success.
Good piece, but respectfully you seem to still be suggesting that people seek the grace of the politicians who are bought and paid for by the parasitic financiers. To take an example from a century ago, the Scandinavians in Minnesota and North Dakota were routinely oppressed and cheated by the Anglo financiers and their paid-for politicians The Scandinavians didn't respond by marching with signs, but likewise they didn't respond by just raising a ruckus and engaging in disobedience etc. Instead, they said "the hell with this, there are more of us than there are of you.". Organized by the Nonpartisan League, which spawned the Farmer-Labor organization in Minnesota, they set aside their differences, put forward their own grassroots candidates, put them through the primaries in the dominant parties, and took power. After they took power in North Dakota the establishment in Minnesota tried to thwart them by changing the law to require the Farmer-Laborites to act as a political party, but by then they had the organizational strength to win that way, too, and again they took power. In North Dakota the parasitic financiers across America, scared to death, sent huge piles of money and squadrons of organizers to figure out how to sow dissension and schisms (based on false issues and distractions) to break the movement, which ultimately worked. In Minnesota they ultimately lost energy and got co-opted and absorbed into the DFL party. But it worked. We have that power if we bother to use it and if we can get our act together to set aside the fake issues promoted by the financiers. I have written more on this elsewhere. https://laboristmovement.substack.com/p/getting-there-laborist-organizing My point here is that mere protest, even direct action protest, still cedes power to the financiers. It still asks their permission to exercise our rights, whether meekly or not. We need to do more. Real power is something you take. And we can take it without bloodshed or arrests. That is the gift of our revolutionary founders. We just need to get our acts together and do it.
First one's dead right, but I think the second one's just one of the MAGA factions: "Trump’s driving political instinct is to accumulate all power in his own hands. Those who are helping him do this want to use that power in service of a racist deportation campaign, a borderline neo-Nazi ethnic cleansing of America." I have a real hard time figuring out how much/far/into the racist agenda the techbros and oligarchs and other RW piglets are. Reading Bill Shirer again, looks to me like they'll just sit down and say "yes" to everything until the shitstorm blows over.
Lincoln garrisons Sumpter. Pretext? Probably. But it's not like they had to fire on it. In fact, one of the ironies of the South trying to hold onto to their slaves is that they resisted so much, they wound up radicalizing the Union into ending it altogether, which wasn't part of the original plan.
If the Dems want to go bananas while simultaneously turning their backs on normal wage earners, as they did in 1860, 1896, 1972, and 2024, that's fine and it is a free country. But in every one of those realignment elections the Dems also lost a constituency that they never got back, and in each one the whole electoral map was re-sorted.
You don't have to do this. This is not a good look: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/us/ice-detention-facility-shooting-texas.html
First, get real. Texas is actually a blue state that's been gerrymandered to hell. Dems are not telling anybody to shoot ICE goons, they've just earned it from the residents of a state that's literally stuffed with weapons and used to taking direct action toward anybody they don't like. Second: Go read "River of Dark Dreams". The South had an economic hard-on for the North from WAY in front, supposedly for keeping them impoverished and backward, when it was their own reliance on single-crop agriculture and volatile foreign prices for cotton, sugar and tobacco that kept all their finances tied up in real estate and complicated loan structures, with nothing left over for infrastructure or manufacturing. Ignorant, backward and blaming everybody else for their own idiocy for 300 years now, exactly what you'd expect from the descendants of wastrel second sons of Anglo aristocrats and murderous Scots border warlords.
They're not pretexts. Nothing is a pretext.
I used to play bridge and the one rule you have to know in bridge is "count the aces". If you miss an ace going down, you know nothing about the game you're in.
Okay, let's call them pretexts: they've been coming since the first day. You're right: some people swallow them, just as Trump says: "hook, line and sinker." But there's no serious attempt to make the pretext stick. Even if it's utter nonsense. A pretext is there to exculpate, but if you don't even try to make them stick, what or who are you going to exculpate? Meanwhile, aces are being played and you're not noticing them.
He could forget all the pretexts, and still do everything he's doing and more, and he doesn't give a tinker's toss because he knows that there is nothing that you can do. That's why he doesn't entertain himself by dreaming up pretexts. Instead he presents the most ludicrous reason for what he is doing that he can think of to present as the reason for what he's doing. If that's a pretext, then it is a pretext to throw a ball so a dog can fetch it back for you.
The bitterest pill yet to be even lapped at by America is this: every single president who preceded the 47th could have done exactly the same as he is doing, including the 47th, actually, in his previous iteration. And, still, no one would have been able to do anything about it. They produced a handbook on how to do what he's doing. They told you what he would do. They told you what they were telling him that he would need to do. I don't think anyone read it, to be honest. What was the point? No one has written a book telling you how to stop him doing what he's doing. And without that, Project 2025 was set in concrete from the Inauguration.
One final point: Gandhi actually got India off the British. Can you imagine? Gandhi got the British to piss off. And, what's more, you getting your country back from your president is in the same order of things. You are no Mickey Mouse country.
However, Gandhi succeeded for one reason that does not apply to you in the US: they had nothing to lose, and Gandhi himself was magnanimous enough to forsake anything that he had to lose. And men who have something to lose will never, ever, join in revolution for the chance at something better. Because you are too greedy. You'd sooner hide.
I suggested to my wife that we need to get some tactical gear, yellow-lens sunglasses and face masks to wear whenever we go out. Not only can we do whatever we want with impunity, but we will also present as "One of Us".
I absolutely love your writing and if you transition off Substack I will support it in a flash.