The most recent wave of protests took place in over 3,000 locations on March 28 this year. The focus was on military action in Iran, anti-immigration enforcement, and pro-illegal immigration. (See https://www.nokings.org/resource-library) Significantly, the coordination efforts of the widespread and sizable protests received little critical news coverage.

No Kings across the land is all about politics and not policy. The effort forms a direct stand against Trump’s administration, his supporters, and the silly notion that he is a threat to Democracy. The real motivation? Hate Trump!

This column could easily have been titled “Grist for Ridicule”, the grist being the No Kings protests. Ridicule would be a way to deal with liberal-progressive change agents who would force their aberrant views on the rest of us. Laugh at them. Laughter becomes the best medicine in more ways than one. Laughter is neither prohibited nor classified as hate speech.

Ridicule uses humor along with satire to trash an opponent. It is one thing to laugh with a person. It is quite another matter to laugh at them. To laugh at a person, movement, or ideology is the kiss of death. Ridicule portrays individuals, movements, philosophies, and ideologies as the ridiculous and farcical pantomimes that they are.

Liberals have little sense of humor when it comes to their pet issues. That makes ridicule even more effective. They simply cannot and will not tolerate criticism much less ridicule. Liberals go berserk when anyone mocks, ridicules, or satirizes their cherished treasures. And we know their cherished treasures: climate change, animal rights, DEI, government giveaways, and much more.

That said, the Left should know better than anyone else the effects of ridicule and satire. One of their own codified the use of ridicule. Saul Alinksy's “Rules for Radicals” encouraged the use of ridicule against one's opponents. Rule #5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

Focus becomes difficult when the point of the No Kings marchers is that we should not have a king. But the US does not have a king. Give credit where credit is due. No King protestors are successful at making people laugh at them.

Many folks showed up for the No Kings demonstrations. Most of them were old white people who could not explain why they’re protesting. In several cases, organizers bused senior citizens out of assisted living facilities and memory care homes. TV footage showed a No Kings protest in North Carolina almost entirely composed of old white liberals. Are the organizers nuts? How did these senior citizens get so brainwashed?

In Minnesota, event organizers did not have much to say. So, they attacked fossil fuels, billionaires, and the Iran conflict. They urged protesters to support universal healthcare, wealth taxes, a higher minimum wage, and rent freezes. Adding to the silliness, the libs at the No Kings rally in Minnesota sang "none of us are free until all of us are free" with zero sense of irony that they're allowed to do all this nonsense with zero government interference or consequence.

No Kings has been exposed as well organized and well-funded by big donors and organizations displaying professionally made signs, marching bands, and matching political costumes. No Kings demonstrations give no sign of spontaneity. They don't even look real!

Behind the eye candy of patriotic pro-Democracy protests exists a coordinated network of tax-exempt nonprofits 501(c)(3), labor unions 501 (c)(4), political action committees 501(c)(5), and for-profit protest consultants. Of note are included the activist Party for Socialism and Liberation, Democratic Socialists of America, and Students for a Democratic Society.

Think twice about the double standard of the No Kings protests. It was the progressive Democrats who refused to hold a presidential primary but instead coronated Kamala Harris without a single vote. They were the ones who sued to keep Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. off the 2024 ballot in several states. Likewise, it was the liberals who tried to also remove Trump from the 2024 state ballots after not winning against him using illegal lawfare schemes. If there was a modern-day monarchy in America there would only be one political party you could point out. The Democrats.

No Kings became an international event when a massive crowd of people gathered in London in support of the American left’s No Kings protest. England, who literally has a King, protested America who does not. You cannot make this stuff up.

Continuing our story, No Kings activists dressed up in costumes. Some dressed up in inflatable frog costumes and danced in protest of Trump and his administration. I am not sure that this reinforced their point. Nonetheless, this silliness is entertaining to see just how freakish and ghoulish Trump’s opposition can be. And it will only get worse.

So goes the street theater of the No Kings circus.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

Culture - tradition and pop culture will eventually emerge as the most powerful influence on political life.  I know too many conservative thinkers who believe that only “serious” approaches are worth their time.  I know a lot of them who never read a novel and pay little or no attention at all to music, classical or contemporary.  But in the end, it will always be the story of a nation that is always going to be the common culture that will determine the outcome.  It is always a mistake to ignore or downplay it.

For two decades and more, serious people like Mark Steyn and Mark Krikorian have cautioned us against unbridled, reckless immigration policies in the West.  Steyn has outlined for us the demographic time bomb that we are planting in our homelands.  Krikorian has reported the catastrophic economic and social effects of massive immigration - both legal and illegal.  Yet our governments and, let’s face it, lots of our  people in the media, in academia, have not only ignored their warnings, they have demonized them.  Now it is unacceptable for a normal, common sense-driven person to question immigration or migrants in any context.  

Tommy Robinson has tried to show us the dangers - he has lived through hell in order to deliver the truth about this.  In his country, whether in metropolitan areas or villages across England, young girls have been attacked, groomed, raped, murdered . . . and in at least one documented case, rendered into kebobs.  Where do we draw the line here?  Tommy Robinson has been imprisoned for pointing out these truths.  IMPRISONED FOR IT.  Not for perpetrating these crimes, but for reporting on them and describing them and cautioning us to safeguard our children.  For that.  Mark Steyn was drummed out of the corps on GBNews (which was supposed to counter the BBC, the government media organ).  People who have shared, liked or tweeted comments contrary to the government’s position have been arrested.  Elderly ladies have had their doors kicked in before dawn and been hauled away.  In Ireland tenants have been evicted from their homes and replaced by migrants - at government expense.  In France cars are burning, while in Canada and the Netherlands churches are burning.  Synagogues are under attack and so are Jews on campuses and on the streets.  King Charles III eschewed an Easter message in favor of a devout Eid message - and he is officially termed “Defender of the Faith” (and the “faith” here is Christianity).  The last straw is a call from these immigrants to ban dogs.  That might be the tipping point.  

So, with a lot of grumbling and ire growing in the native population - namely, among the English - what was the government’s response?  Surely not listening or discussing.  Certainly not a debate.  Instead, the brains of the UK government came up with a cartoon campaign.  Charlie, an English under-achiever is sore because an Indian immigrant girl beat him out of a job because she’s just smarter and less of a loser than Charlie.  Trouble makers tell Charlie he was dumped on because of “DEI”.  The Indian girl got the  job he wanted because he’s English and she’s , well, an Indian girl.  So he goes to chat with his friend Amelia about this.  Ameilia is a “bad girl”.  She has purple hair.  She wears leather zip-up jackets, she wears combat boots.  She’s a terrible non-conformist and hate monger.  At least that’s what the government says.  

Ameilia tells him to stop kow-towing.  He’s English.  He should love England and English culture.  He should not feel guilty about being English.  And he’s not inferior to people who have come to “conquer” England by the rubber boat-full.  In other words, she is supposed to elicit boo’s and hisses from the mindless masses of English dupes.  This ought to put them in their place.  

But a funny thing happened.   This cartoon drama blew up in the government’s face.  It turns out that Amelia and her message were enormously popular with the people who were supposed to find her embarrassing and hateful..  Instead of being a focal point of public disgust and disparagement, she turns out to be a genuine heroine.  She is today’s Joan of Arc, showing the people of Britain the way back home - back to the England they once called home..  

Someone latched onto Amelia, seeing the potential in her character, observing the positive  effect she has been having on the average English native.  Someone thought, “Why not re-create Amelia as a meme to deliver the very message the government fears?”  and proceeded to create A-! Presentations of Amelia praising the England we used to know, evoking symbols like things anyone can remember fondly - fish and chips and a pint in the pub, tea and crumpets in the afternoon, flower gardens, pork sausage, bulldogs and fashion, James Bond, Paddington Bear, Wallace and Grommet.  The catchy songs proliferate, Amelia the center of this revolution.  

Amelia has been cloned in numerous countries - Italy, Ireland,  France, Spain, Germany, Canada and the US.  In all of them, the message is, “It’s time to say goodbye.  Go home where you belong, feel the sun on your shoulders, smell the spices in the marketplace.  Let us have our country back”.  It is a gentle, kind, way of saying “We’ve had it with you.  It’s just not working out.”  It’s like a gentle break-up of a relationship that just can’t continue.    The message is “Your tickets are on the table.  It’s been swell.  Goodbye.  We won’t miss each other.”

And this is a powerful message.  Because this fool-hardy immigration policy, this casting all to the wind to throw open the doors to people who do not like us or our culture does not work in the end.  Co-existence with those who hate us and disrespect us cannot work unless we are to disappear ourselves.  And who wants that?  

It could be that Amelia, appearing just as this fact is becoming obvious to more and more people in the West - despite the rejection of their own people by Western nations’ governments and the EU - might spur the needed changes.  We have seen the rise of alternative political parties in England - Reform, a proprietary, weak-tea rejection of the Conservative Party, UKIP (UK Independent Party), Advance UK (led by Ben Habib and endorsed by Tommy Robinson) and now Restore Britain.  It would be a very good thing if the “Amelia effect” could power a peaceful return of unwelcome foreigners to their homelands in the East and Africa, the “remigration” we are now hearing more about.  

Something needs to happen.  The people of Britain (and elsewhere throughout the West) are called upon to sympathize with and support the underprivileged people from the ends of the earth while at the same time, right outside their front door, right in the schoolyards, their daughters are being attacked.  Can you imagine the impact on the morale of the young men of England?  The people of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and other Western European countries have been repressed, demoralized, shamed for being “Western” or for having their own cultures.  They are referred to as “colonialist”, which is truly projection, inasmuch as the colonizing is taking place by migrants in the West.  If it is wrong to “colonize” the third world, how is it not wrong to colonize the West?

It is fascinating that all of this invasion has been cast as “diversity”, when it is literally obliterating the many meaningful cultures of Europe and the West.  Diversity has nothing whatsoever to do with migration.  It is, in fact, quite the opposite.  Just take a look at a few of the Amelia (and Maria) memes which celebrate the cultures of their respective homelands and invite the strangers to go back and celebrate their own.  These AI girls look like real diversity to me.  

If this turns the tide it will be in the form of changes in parties and governments in those nations which still have a semblance of government by the people.  It might result in repatriation of people who simply cannot assimilate, people who are demanding that their host nations conform to THEIR customs and cultures - customs and cultures which cannot live parallel to the host nations’.  This would be the  best development in government policy in 20 years.

Amelia conjures the happy memories of simple things loved by her people, dogs, sausages, music, fashion, afternoon tea, literature, history, folk heroes and fish and chips with a pint.  Perhaps there are English kids who are too young to even remember some of this.  To them it is an open window.  To their elders it might well re-connect them with a healthy sense of pride and worth which their government has tried to kick and stamp out of them.  The Amelia phenomenon rejects the inferiority complex that has been institutionalized for so long.  Amelia’s anger seems to be reserved for this government, those she sees as traitors, more than against immigrants.  And this seems totally appropriate.   

In the end, it is the narrative that will guide nations - the stories - Beowulf, Paddington, King Arthur, James Bond.  This is why culture is so important.  People need their culture to put things in proper order.  Perhaps conservatives have been losing ground because they focus on abstract principles rather than the embodiment of the principles.  We have Ayn Rand’s “Howard Roarke”, Huckleberry Finn, baseball, Johnnie Appleseed, popcorn,  Stephen Foster, the Wild West, ”Yankee Doodle Dandy”,  Lassie and John Phillip Sousa.  Our stories and songs hold a huge nation of many varied people and colorful history together.  England has Admiral Nelson, Winston Churchill, King Arthur, Sherlock Holms and Shakespeare.  France has wine from Bordeaux, Renoir, Victor Hugo, Debussy and Collette.  Spain has Cervantes, Goya, guitars, flamenco and castanets.  Italy has Rossini, chianti, lasagna, gondoliers, the de Medicis, the Sistine Chapel, the fountain of Trevi and Dante.  I could go on.  The cultures and beauty of Europe are not to be abandoned in a frenzy of some kind of misplaced guilt because more than a hundred years ago some fools decided it was a good idea to try to settle in Africa or Asia.    Policies of mass immigration in order to “transform” these cultures will not make history “right”.  The best thing we can do is to encourage every people to take pride in their own culture.  

Right now we are engaged in a great struggle to survive culturally (and perhaps literally).  We are denied permission to live our own culture, to take pride in our own history.  We have the absolute right to these things.  As Paul Sorum once said, and said again and again by Ron De Santis, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”  They are right.  It doesn’t.  And it doesn’t have to be ugly or violent.  It can just be simply, “goodbye”.  That is what happens when things go way too far.  

When guests come into our home and tell us to get rid of the dog it’s time to say goodbye.

            --Set up a multitude of hospitals from the Middle Ages onward.

            --Founded many universities also dating from the Middle Ages.

            --Fostered literacy and education across cultures; includes translating world’s languages.

            --Developed the economic basis for free-enterprise.

            --Gave the world the foundation of representative government and civil liberties.

            --Started the struggle against slavery.

            --Laid the foundation of modern science.

            --Established charities and benevolent organizations.

            --Laid the groundwork for higher standards of justice.

            --Provided a sense of value of human life especially for the elderly, infirm, and unborn.

            --Inspired some of the world’s greatest works of art, music, and literature.

This heritage followed the impact of the Gospel by those who believed in, lived by, and sacrificed for it. Today, whether from naiveté, historical illiteracy, or the voiding of traditions, western culture sadly became separated from a knowledge of its own roots -- including Easter. Faced with the growing reproach of Christ, Easter becomes even more significant.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ becomes more than a word describing an event. He was not resurrected to institute a social welfare system or set up a university of well doing. Scripture makes clear that God through Christ came to restore fellowship with mankind. A recounting of several verses from the New Testament points to a mystery revealed within believers every day if they will accept Christ for who He said He was.

John 14:20 “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”

II Corinthians 4:6-11 “For God… hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, … Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.”

II Corinthians 13:5 “…Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you…?”

Galatians 1:15-16 “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:”

Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Colossians 1:26-28 “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach,… teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus;”

These verses illustrate the point. There are many, many more.

A wayward and rebellious people could be restored to fellowship with their God if they replaced the kingdom of Self with the kingdom of God in their hearts. Sin and the sin nature in rebellion against God, of “doing one’s own thing,” could be expunged and replaced by Christ’s nature. All sense of placing oneself first above God would be displaced.

And Jesus said, “…The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21-22) Paul’s definition: “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Romans 14:17) If allowed, Christ may rule in that kingdom. In this way God the Father may be glorified by each believer through His indwelling Son made manifest day by day. The resurrection of Jesus Christ signifies more than just going to Heaven in the sky in the sweet bye-and-bye. That is true, of course. But it starts now!

There is no substitute for Christ living His own life through believers. We are meant to function as dead men -- dead with Christ. He is meant to be the Resurrection and the Life within us. We can try to love better, pray harder, and read our Bible more, but these efforts are hopeless without the Life of Christ filling us. It is only the Divine Nature that pleases God. We are at odds with God if we are trying to live up to biblical standards without Christ. He is not just our helper and healer. Sooner or later, we realize that we are not the central focus of God’s plan. Christ is. God’s desires rest with Christ His Son as the True Vine, and we are His intimately joined branches. If this is good news to you, then you will discover a fulfilling way of relating to God.

No one should take offense. May the reality of the indwelling Christ be genuine this Easter in the life of all believers.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

The reticence and foot-dragging by Democrats opposing the bill comes as no surprise. Let’s review the bidding.

No definition of “citizen” exists in the US Constitution. Furthermore, no stipulation occurs that only US citizens can vote. In view of the millions of foreigners who entered the US illegally during the Biden administration, the time has come to decide on parameters for citizenship and voter eligibility.

In a country of 340 million people dispersed in over 50 states there are a lot of different ways to vote. Access to power comes by way of the ballot box. Politics is a power game and since power is allotted via the ballot box, there are bound to be different ways to gain power through voter fraud.

A good statistical probability of vote fraud exists in America. According to federal statistics, there are at least 11 million crimes reported every year. This includes homicides, robberies, auto theft, muggings, kidnappings, forgeries, embezzlements, arsons, rapes, assaults, and more. These are just reported crimes.

Every activity in America, commercial and non-commercial, is plagued with crime. Businesses have departments in their organizations devoted to combatting crime. Warehouses have security cameras. Stores add anti-theft devices to merchandise. Banks lock up currency in safes. Shoplifters steal products from grocery stores and tools from hardware stores.

Federal, state, and local governments keep policemen and sheriffs; prosecutors and judges; and courtrooms and prisons to process the multitude of criminals committing crimes.

So, what are people really saying, when they claim that there is no voter fraud? Again, eleven million crimes are reported each year committed by people risking prison time for offenses ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. How could anyone assert that voter fraud would be exempted from criminal activity? Read on.

If we were a society in which there was no shoplifting or burglaries or other types of crime, then we might have reason to believe that voter fraud was not a problem. However, if people are willing to steal cars, loot stores, or rob banks then they would be willing to forge ballots, vote more than once, or stuff a ballot box to gain access to more government cash than any store or bank ever had.

The ways to steal votes are as varied as there are states and cities. Here are a few ways. City poll workers load voting machines before the polls open. Busloads of patronage workers drive around the city casting ballots under assumed names. Poll workers bribe voters to fill out their ballots with the precinct captain’s tacit approval. Green-card holders or illegals are brought to the polls to vote having been automatically registered by the motor-voter program. There are nursing homes with senile, comatose, or heavily medicated patients who could never cast a ballot. Their nurses or nursing home managers do it for them.

Governments across the US have budgets with tens of trillions of dollars to spend. There are people willing to cheat to get their hands on some of those dollars. Then consider this. Between September 2023 and September 2024, at least 66 elections in the U.S. were decided by fewer than ten votes. A percent here, a percent there – it doesn’t take a lot of voter fraud to have an influence.

Cut across all demographic groups -- conservatives, independents, liberals – and according to recent polling, support for the SAVE America Act was reported at 80%. If adopted, this law would require proof of citizenship to register, proper identification to vote, and a valid address to exercise the privilege. This requirement would not stop voter fraud, but it would go a long way to curtailing it. It may not guarantee perfectly clean elections, but it would make them cleaner than they are now.

In the end, the goal is to preserve our republic and to ensure that the people in charge are truly the people the public want to be in charge. That should not be difficult to understand.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

In recent decades, “Climate Alarmists” and “Class Envy Marxists” seemed to have overtaken “End-of-times” Religious Fundamentalists in our ongoing Fear-Mongering Olympics.

The attempted destruction of the US fossil fuel industry that began with the blocking of oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and was continued with the cancellation of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline within the United States (after the Canadian portion had been all but finished) represented two major examples of severe setbacks to United States Energy Independence.

Capitalists vs Islamic Terrorists

Despite the attempted destruction of our fossil fuel industry, along with the economic prosperity such industry created, we appeared to have stopped the nonsense, largely due to changes in national leadership. Then came the culmination of a 47-year war waged against the civilized world by Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism (Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, et al) … the June 22, 2025 obliteration (Operation Midnight Hammer) of the nuclear threat of Iran’s terrorist clerics and their proxies.

Capitalists vs Consumers

Operation Midnight Hammer did not result in even a modicum of change in the intent of Iran’s Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists. Their obsession with martyrdom condemns their movement. Operation Epic Fury has been implemented to PREVENT the delivery of Iranian nuclear-tipped ballistic missile(s) from vaporizing one or more Western cities, now or ever.

What we should NOT have expected was the resulting rise of fossil fuel prices in our Energy Self-Sufficient nation. These abrupt fossil fuel price increases are not a result of Operation Epic Fury. They are a result of monopolistic power held by the oil and gas industry in the United States.

It takes a considerable amount of time for interruptions in our crude oil supply to affect gasoline and diesel fuel prices at the pumps… likely about two to six months depending on the finished product. Furthermore, with only about 1% of our crude oil coming from the middle east, we should expect those price increases to be very modest.

Capitalists vs Democratic Socialists -Part II

Do not place the blame for higher fossil fuel prices on anyone or any event other than our own capitalist greed. Such greed has been abundantly evident in our marketplaces ever since COVID-19 turned everything upside down. The solution to monopolistic activity in the marketplace is to avoid the purchase of the items being over-priced. No efforts of Marxists and Climate Alarmists to promote electric vehicles and discourage fossil fuel production could have been as successful as the recent gouging performed on consumers at fossil fuel stations throughout our country.

The Fossil Fuel Industry must immediately call for a return to sanity by its network of gasoline and diesel fuel stations if it wishes to remain the fuel choice of voters. To do otherwise would represent self-assisted industry suicide.

Why has the fossil fuel industry delivered the voters to Bernie Sanders?

Love = Work + Courage

Mark Steyn has an interesting take on the current war in Iran.  He says it may be Trump’s “Suez” moment, referring to the events of 1956, where then President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the British/French Suez Canal.  It was the moment in time when the powers of Britain and France were revealed as “secondary” only and left just the two “super powers” of the United States and the Soviet Union.  Steyn’s point was that he thinks Iran is to the United States what the Suez crisis was to Britain - in other words, he anticipates that the US will be humiliated and lose status as a super power because Iran will be a disaster.

Now, we understand Steyn’s position here.  He figures history is going to repeat itself and the US will be dragged through another no-win war, such as the fiasco of Viet Nam.  Or the idiotic adventures of George Bush in Iraq or Afghanistan, where we came out of it with a lot of egg on our face.  But there are variables that need to be taken into consideration.  Not the least of these was the deliberate decision by Lyndon Johnson to slowly continue a losing war which was enriching his friends the longer it lasted.  And a lot of us had no idea why we were even in Iraq.  

Our modern history with Iran could be summed up as follows: a) good relations during the period of the Shah (prior to 1979);  b) Jimmy Carter subsequently undoing our stable relationship and cementing a tyranny of ayatollahs - desperately extremist Islamists who chanted “Death to America” - which situation brought about the downfall of the one-term Carter administration and some dramatic rescuing of Americans stuck there when the Shah’s government fell; c) the Shah ending up in the US undergoing treatment for fatal cancer.  The conditions in Iran deteriorated suddenly and steadily under the Ayatollah Khomeini.  The strictest form of Islam was imposed on the Iranian people.  Those people had, to a large extent, been  deceived as to the intention of the Islamists who ousted the Shah.  

Since the takeover, the Iranian economy failed.  Iranian leadership invested everything in military weaponry and terrorist funding around the world.  Iran has posed a serious and continuous threat both from inside that country and throughout the world by means of various “fatwahs”, like the one against Salman Rushdie for publishing The Satanic Verses, which embarrassed Islam.  They were the chief support of Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorists.  They have been found to be infiltrating the US by various means.  Of course, Obama was famous for sending them pallets of cash to use in some of this terrorism, and unfroze Iranian assets.

So, why is the current unrest in Iran so very different?  There have been, after all, several uprisings against the reigning mullahs.  And how is this war different from the other endless conflicts we’ve found ourselves mired in?

First of all, we need to look at the actual threat now posed by the very existence of this regime of Islamist extremists in Tehran.  Iran has nuclear weapons - lots of them (or they did before this war started) and they were allegedly (and almost certainly) aimed at major US cities.  So what, you say?  Russia and China do, too.  Well, neither Russia nor China is being run by people who are eager to unite with 72 virgins on the other side of the rainbow.  They are not leading choruses of “death to America”.  The leadership of Iran for the past 47 years has no interest in the future of Iran, nor in their children or grandchildren, nor in their own longevity.  They are mad with holy war.  They are most certainly a threat to us.  Vietnam was not.  Iraq was not.  Afghanistan was not.  

Secondly, the people of Iran are not at all sympathetic to their erstwhile Islamist government.  Throughout the past decades there have been attempts to overthrow this regime but every time the government - the IRGC - have put them down with terror and brute force.  Now there is a different climate.   Iranians have, in fact, been defying the worst the government can dream up for them - torture, death, mass killing.  This government has mowed down tens of thousands of unarmed civilians in the streets.  They have shoved injured people into body bags and left them unlabeled and demanded that their families pay for the bullets that killed or almost killed them.  Can YOU imagine being put into a body bag and left for dead?  And plenty of them WERE dead.  Many, many thousands, the government unprovoked except for a few signs and unarmed men, women and children standing up in the streets.  And they have not been going home (until, at least, the US has told them to in order not to drop bombs on them) - they have remained steadfast in their resolve, and in their streets, in the face of this brutality.  They have since been cheering for the demise of one after another of their evil leaders at the hands of Israel or others.  The religious affiliations of Iranians are not Islamic.  The rule of Islam and Sharia have been imposed on them by force.  The punishments for minor infractions of their draconian laws do not bear the light of day.  Women have died for having worn their hijabs incorrectly.  It has been a literal hell on earth since 1979.  So - a force to destabilize the middle and near east and spread terrorism throughout the world while brutally abusing their own people.

Thirdly, unlike in most of these conflicts, the people of Iran are uniting behind one public leader - the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the face of Iran for these people.  This means that we are not looking at some kind of swirling chaos there that will end up with some kind of communist rising to the top or reinstatement of the same old bunch of Islamists under new titles.  Our history has shown that the Shahs have been leaders we can live with and form worthwhile alliances with.  And unlike some of our other misadventures, the people of Iran do have an ancient identity and culture that is in no way a part of Islam.  They have moral resources in this regard.

There is also a very strong Israeli component here, with some very good intelligence and capability.  The Iranian people are welcoming them.  The people of Iran are also calling for intervention of anti-Islamist western help.  It is an important factor to note that Saudi Arabia and other middle east nations have been alienated from Iran and are opposing the Iranian Islamic regime now.  When we consider the progress Trump made in his first term toward helping to foster peace among Arab nations and Israel this is not to be overlooked.

These are reasons - most of them in America’s self-interest, which they ought to be, after all - why the involvement in Iran is at least arguably vastly different in character and context from some of these other conflicts.  We have no crystal ball, of course, but there is reason to believe that this nightmare of Iranian ayatollahs could not be finally ended, to everyone’s benefit.  I do not want to see war.  I am probably like most Americans who give it serious thought.  I am sick to death of endless wars.  But what has been the source of this continuous state of war?  To a great extent, Iran has been.  And what if we do not take advantage of the state of mind of the Iranian people right now to remove a clear threat to American security and hopefully put an end to the random terrorism in our own country as well as others, perpetrated by these insane mullahs?

I think Steyn is wrong in the bigger picture here, although he has brought up some excellent points and some worthwhile history to ponder.  But in the end, I disagree with his assessment of the Iranian situation.  This could all go horribly wrong, however, if Trump does not play this perfectly.  

Books offer more than entertainment and information. The written word imparts understanding for the reader. I knew a man who engaged his books in “conversation.” After “conversing” with a book he not only knew the author’s point of view, but he could explain the subject and why the author wrote what he did. The book imparted enlightenment and understanding.

Book lovers are in a world of their own. Bibliophiles, the technical term for these gentle, bookish folks, have unbridled affection and unquenchable thirst for the printed word. The history of books reveals some startling accounts of bizarre behavior shown by book lovers on the fringe. Some book lovers have found their affection addictive. As with other areas of human behavior, bibliophilia has its dark side. What happens when the desire to obtain, own, store, and read books goes awry?

Biblioclepts, for example, are people who steal books. They assemble their collections by stealing books. Such an incident came to light in 1990 in Ottumwa, Iowa when the FBI arrested Stephen Blumberg. He had assembled a collection of books worth $20 million and stored them in a house he bought for that purpose in 1972. Over the years he stole valuable items from 268 libraries.

Biblioclasts destroy books. These people harbor an uncontrollable urge to destroy books with various motives in mind. Intolerance breeds this behavior, especially among those of differing political and religious persuasions. Biblioclasts may have other motives as well. Some collectors destroy rare books just to make the remaining stock scarce and more valuable. But other reasons may govern. Charles Darwin cut large books in half to make working with them easier. Thomas Jefferson cut and pasted selected parts from the New Testament to create a bible to his liking.

Bibliotaphs are those who love their books so much they bury them. Bibliotaphs are so intent on protecting their volumes they prepare special underground rooms to store their collections. This behavior is not nearly so strange when compared to bibliotaphs who want to be buried with their books. Eugene Field listed twenty-four books to be buried with him.

Bibliophagi, undoubtedly the most bizarre among book lovers, are people who virtually eat the printed word. This conduct most often occurs under duress, usually when forced upon an author whose writing offended certain authorities. For example, one Scandinavian, when given the choice between being beheaded and eating his offensive manuscript, chose the manuscript boiled in a broth. Or Philip Oldenburger had to eat some of his satire while being flogged. The flogging continued until he finished the last morsel. Seventeenth century writer Theodore Reinking was offered his freedom from prison only if he ate an entire book of his writing. He did this with the help of a special sauce.

Most book lovers, of course, display no such deviant conduct. A more acceptable and less eccentric behavior involves book collecting. Rarity is a big factor in book collecting as is the condition of the books themselves. Autographed and inscribed copies increase the value of a volume. Books written by famous authors containing errors are highly prized.

Inherent in book collecting dwells the danger of passionate extremes. Those afflicted with the uncontrollable urge to buy and store books are called bibliomaniacs or bibliomanes. While bibliophiles love books for what is inside them, bibliomanes love books for their looks or just the sheer desire to possess them. Bibliophiles gather books, like friends, to be enjoyed. Bibliomanes gather books as treasures to be protected like museum pieces.

For bibliomanes, quantity counts. This group may be divided into two subcategories: Those who read what they collect and those who do not.

Richard Heber, a nineteenth century English bibliomane gathered his 200,000 to 300,000 volumes into eight houses. Amazingly, Heber read all his books!

For others, reading what they collect is irrelevant. In an earlier century, Count d’Estrees gathered 52,000 volumes into his library, none of which he ever read.

One of the most notorious bibliomanes was the eighteenth-century French lawyer, Boulard. He amassed 600,000 to 800,000 volumes stashed away in six different houses. He never knew what he had. Within hours of adding a new book to his collection the book was lost forever. Boulard did not know what books he owned, much less where specific titles were found. It took five years to auction his holdings.

Two volumes provide a complete discussion of bibliophilism. One is “Biblioholism” by Tom Raabe and the other is “A Gentle Madness” by Nicholas A. Basbanes.

In the face of the enormous challenge from technology and electronic devices, books are often held at bay like aliens from another world. Families gather around the TV for an evening of non-interaction. Books collect dust as individuals peck away distractedly on their devices.

However, if people have ideas to share and there are readers who seek understanding, there will always be books.

Where books are found so, too, are literary addictions.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

A person should not judge a book by its cover, but one certainly can come to an opinion by judging the author and publisher. Some authors are true scholars. Some publishers will not print junk.

Any discussion of Islam must revolve around “The Koran” or “The Quran”. I have two editions.

  -- Ahamed, Dr./professor, Syed Vickar. (trans.) “The Quran: English Translation of the Message.” Lombard, IL: The Book of Signs Foundation, 2006.

  -- Dawood, N. J. (trans.) “The Koran.” London, England: Penguin Classics, 2014.

More about the Koran below. Begin with a few observations by authors you might know. Writer John Derbyshire: “wrist-slittingly boring.” Historian Edward Gibbon: an “endless incoherent rhapsody of fable and precept.” Essayist Thomas Carlyle: “as toilsome reading as I ever undertook; a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite.”

I have several volumes by Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, a website produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, United States Central Command, and other intelligence and military groups. His books have been published by Regnery Publishing (Washington, DC). Spencer lives in a secure, undisclosed location in the United States.

  -- “The Politically Incorrect Guide to ISLAM (and the Crusades).” 2005. The Muslim persecution of Christians has continued for 13 centuries – and still goes on. “The basis of the Islamic attitude towards unbelievers is the law of war; they must be either converted or subjugated or killed.”

  -- “The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran.” 2009. Critics of Islamic supremacy are accused of taking quotes from the Koran out of context. Oddly, much of the Koran has no context to begin with. As Spencer states, “…there is little or no narrative unity…The text moves from topic to topic with scant regard for…continuity. Many verses appear as abstract maxims…without regard to any particular situation.” The Koran has plagiarized portions of the Old Testament. Furthermore, the Koran must only be read in Arabic. Since most of the world’s population does not read Arabic, only an Imam trained in the language may interpret the scripture. What he says stands.

  -- “The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran.” 2016. Or what may be left of Iran. Spencer’s book became seriously outdated with the advent of the US “Epic Fury”. But it still serves as a good history.

  -- “The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies).” 2017. Aggressive Muslims and appeasers mounted a campaign against our constitutional rights. Islamic teachings make criticism of Islam punishable by death. Blasphemy laws in Muslim countries are used as a pretext for arresting and lynching Christians. European “hate speech” laws are used to prosecute and harass critics of Islam.

  -- “The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion.” 2019. Spence details Muhammad’s development from preacher to political and military leader who expanded his rule by force of arms, promising his warriors luridly physical delights in Paradise if they were killed in his cause. He also discusses Muhammad’s convenient “revelations”; his own licentiousness; his joy in brutal murders of enemies; and his marching orders to convert non-Muslims to Islam – or force them to live as inferiors under Islamic rule.

Here are references by authors other than Robert Spencer.

  -- Kilpatrick, William. “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad (Brought to You by the Religion of Um, Peace).” Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2016. Espouse truths from Kilpatrick’s book and you will not likely be invited to your church’s interfaith outreach program.

  -- Bostom, MD, Andrew G. (ed.) “The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims.” Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005. This extensive compilation includes Muslim theological juridical texts, eyewitness accounts by Muslim and non-Muslim chroniclers, and essays by scholars analyzing militaristic jihad and the ruling conditions imposed upon the non-Muslim peoples conquered.

  -- Bostom, MD, Andrew G. “Sharia versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism.” Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012. Boston urges the public and media to take heed of the incompatibility of sharia with modern, Western-derived concepts of universal human rights.

Unfortunately, space does not allow lengthier discussion. A collection of travelogues, however, offers an interesting history of the interface between the West and Islam. Books such as Marco Polo’s “Travels” is interesting but sometimes farfetched. In 1981 V.S. Naipaul wrote “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey”. He takes the reader into four countries (Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia) and their process of “Islamization”. Bernard Lewis writes prolifically on Middle Eastern topics. One of his better-known works is “What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response,” 2002. These books will satisfy the curious mind.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

The world’s loveliest publisher, Fran Griffin, who has put up with me longer and more heroically than anyone outside my immediate family, made it one of the happiest days of my life by throwing the mother of all birthday parties. I was so overwhelmed that when I blew out the candles I couldn’t think of anything to wish for. I had it all. Thank you, Fran! And the food! Thank you, Sue Neff!

Among the gifts I received was a medallion of St. Thomas More, made just for me by the man I regard as the greatest sculptor of our time, Reed Armstrong, whom I hadn’t seen for years.

Seeing dear old friends again was only one of the surprises; so was meeting a dear new relative, my six-month-old great-granddaughter, Christina. Needless to say, she was beautiful, and we seemed to hit it off very well.

Two of my children and five of my seven grandchildren came too. Among the latter I must mention Elizabeth, now pushing ten. She is a mysterious dark little beauty, whom I feel I must already talk to like a grown woman. The quiet maturity of her speech makes me feel I should be listening instead of speaking. In her tender patience, she is like a second mother to her six brothers.

These were just the high points. By the time I got the last stunning gift, the complete works of Mozart on 172 compact discs, it was just the cherry on the whipped cream on the banana split, as I told some of our newsletter subscribers.

As far as I’m concerned, old age is off to a flying start. Bring it on, I say! 

Naturally, since the party I’ve reflected on aging and the approaching end of my career, at least in its present form. At this point I expected to be fairly settled, but things are still up in the air. This is also my 20th year writing for The Wanderer, another source of much joy, but, as I am reliably informed, nothing lasts forever. I only hope to continue for a while, as I try to peddle my new novel and stay afloat. At my age you have to think about little things like health insurance, which I always had when I hardly needed it.

In these 20 years American conservatism has changed remarkably. In 1986 I had no inkling of what lay ahead. The Cold War was winding up peacefully and happily, thanks to Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, and I assumed we could turn to the long-deferred business of restoring limited, constitutional government.

At long last, political life could get back to normal. It seemed a modest enough hope, but yearning for “normality” soon came to seem as utopian as “building socialism.” When Reagan retired, the elder Bush found reasons for war on Panama and Iraq — with the full support of conservatives who should have known better.

Then came the Clinton years, then another Bush, who made his father seem like Millard Fillmore.
(And of course I mean that as a compliment to the old man. Don’t make Millard Fillmore jokes around me unless you’re prepared for a heated argument.)

One of the baneful side effects of the Cold War was to make “peace” sound like a left-wing cause and to identify conservatism with war. But warlike habits proved hard to break, and with the Soviet enemy gone, conservatives found new enemies who didn’t threaten the United States at all.

The real threat, I firmly believed, was unconstitutional government, which always thrives on war. Our real enemies were not in Baghdad, but in Washington. Alas, this idea, which Thomas Jefferson would have understood at once, was hard to sell to conservatives. To them, even the Polish Pope, whom they had once rightly hailed as Communism’s deadliest foe, seemed suspiciously like a “peacenik.” 

 And so, over these 20 years, I have gradually broken my ties with the conservative movement and rediscovered an older conservatism of peace. Today’s conservatives, adopting the lingo of yesterday’s liberals, curse that tradition as “isolationism,” and I have even found myself accused of being a liberal! A new experience for me. But some people don’t know what else to call someone who opposes a war. It hardly seems to matter what the war is about. People who used to damn Big Government up and down forget all their ancient reservations about it whenever Big Government makes Big War.This is odd on its face. By its very nature, war is the opposite of conservative. It destroys.

I got one of the shocks of my life in 1981 when I visited Berlin and walked among some of the preserved buildings, where German civilians had once lived, that had been hit by American bombers. I didn’t become a “peacenik” on the spot, but it gave me a strange new feeling about my country — not exactly shame, but not pride, either. Just a terrible regret to think of the innocent people who had died where I was standing. In some obscure way I felt responsible. Not guilty, but responsible, in the sense that I must try to prevent such things from happening again, insofar as I could have any influence at all. In that terrible past I began to find my future. I was 35 then, which seems very young now.

The shock was quiet; I didn’t feel like talking about it, didn’t even know what to say about it, and felt no desire to recriminate. Blaming wouldn’t help anyone; our duty now was healing old wounds and preventing a recurrence. Even if fighting that war was a duty, how can anyone celebrate it without feeling pity for the millions who died in it?

 “O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!”

If I can excite even a little horror of war in my fellow conservatives, I will feel that my long career has not been entirely wasted. To this day, I find it impossible to look back on World War II with pride or pleasure, let alone admiration for the men who wanted it. I do venerate the two great Popes, Pius XI and Pius XII, who saw it coming and pled for peace. They are the true war heroes. Blessed are the peaceniks.

***

Copyright © 2026 by The Wanderer newspaper (which published this article on March 16. 2006) and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation. Permission is granted to link to this article if credit is given to The Wanderer and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation.

The root of this mental illness can perhaps be best explained in a hypothetical example. As a married couple’s daughter is contemplating leave home for college at age 19, her mother abruptly decides she no longer loves her father and wants an open marriage. But why?

The root causes began prior to the couple ever meeting.

1. The mother was date raped by a male college student. The matter was exacerbated by the reaction of the police department to her appearance at the station the following day. They claimed that their hands were tied by the reluctance of prosecutors to entertain such cases. She never sought professional help to deal with the rape.
2. The mother had also been engaged to a soldier who was subsequently killed in war. She gave the engagement ring to his mother at the soldier’s funeral.
3. The father experienced an illness at age seven that placed him in a wheelchair for almost two years. He remembered his father caring for him in public by carrying him to Sunday school during the healing process.
4. The father, after the illness, was often verbally abused by his own father during his teenage years. This resulted in a love/hate relationship with his own father that caused the father to first develop stomach issues and then a serious, if uncommon, phobia, the fear of falling.
5. The father sought help from the mental health profession which, at the time, focused about 95% on prescription drugs and perhaps 5% on psychotherapy.

After the daughter’s two mentally damaged parents were married, they lived comfortably for almost two decades. They had a relatively happy marriage for two main reasons. First, the prescription drugs the father took reduced his sex drive to almost nil. As time went by the mother had become less comfortable with sex due to her past negative experiences.

Near the end of their marriage, the mother, who did not work outside the home, became increasingly depressed and subconsciously associated her father with the date rapist. At the same time, the mother fell in love with almost every man she encountered for any length of time; those men she associated with the soldier. The soldier and her had saved themselves for marriage, so the men she developed emotional relationships with were surrogates for her lost soldier… until they expressed any desire to take the relationship to a sexually physical level.

Lessons Learned

Those who become “caretakers” of the mentally ill often eventually come to resent the predicament, taking it out on the cared for.

The mental repercussions of rape, when not dealt with and treated immediately thereafter, can present many years, even decades, after the crime. Depression and even self-loathing (was it MY fault?) are a couple of the delayed manifestations.

When circumstances in one’s life result in self-loathing, one can mentally beat up on one’s self for only so long before our brain refers the loathing to another or others, usually to the “person(s) closest to” the one affected. To avoid self-loathing, the negative feelings toward the “person closest” can ramp up over time.

What does this have to do with President Trump?

For people who have trouble maintaining any permanent of even semi-permanent relationship, the “person closest” can be the person they feel that their life is most closely tied to. That “person closest” may be either a family member or even a public figure they are exposed to almost daily.

About two thirds of the people in our country (Democrats and Independents) are being taught by Democrat politicians to hate Trump! Those that cannot maintain healthy personal relationships with anyone, even family, are perhaps the most likely to experience “Trump Derangement Syndrome” or TDS.

What can we do for these people with TDS?

We must do what we do for anyone consumed with hatred. We must do the Christian thing. We must first express our unconditional love for them in any reasonable way we can. Then we must do what we are called upon to do for everyone in our lives… we must help them find Jesus Christ and experience the love He has for all His children on earth. Those who are unresponsive to such love we can only pray for.

Love = Work + Courage