The Patriot Post® · Wednesday Short Cuts

Insight: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

Upright: “Here are two rules of life: 1. The less you feel entitled to, the more gratitude you will feel for whatever you get and the happier you will be. 2. The more you feel entitled to, the less happy you will be.” —PragerU

Re: The Left: “How did the green doomsday lobby get it so wrong? It turns out that mankind does not act like Norwegian field mice. We have reason; we have minds; we respond to changes in the world around us. The left loves to look at short-term trends and erroneously extrapolate them out for 20, 50 and 100 years. They predicted, as [Paul] Ehrlich did, that we would run out of food, oil, gas, farmland, drinking water and clean air. Instead, thanks to human ingenuity and free markets, we have more food, oil, water and clean air than ever before in the history of the planet. As the climate changes in one direction or another, which it certainly will continue to do, humans will react through innovation and technology and changes in the way we live and work. What is certain is that if we have to rely on government and the United Nations, we truly are doomed. Politicians will make the same tragic mistakes they made in response to the false population bomb.” —Stephen Moore

Observations: “One easy way for the media to build trust with a larger readership is to dial down their arrogant belief that they know everything, especially regarding highly important matters on which we were woefully underinformed.” —Tim Graham

Friendly fire: “In 2015, I was a founder of Black Lives Matter in St. Paul. I believed the organization stood for exactly what the name implies — black lives do matter. However, after a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families, and they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis. That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers’ union. I was an insider in Black Lives Matter and I learned the ugly truth — the moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for black children. I resigned from Black Lives Matter after a year and a half.” —Rashad Turner

For the record: “I’m not separating our country, OK? I don’t know what you [media] don’t understand about this. You ask the same question every day. It’s wrong." —Senator Joe Manchin regarding nuking the filibuster ("It’s not journalism; it’s activism. They’re lobbying him.” —Guy Benson)

Demagogue: “Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world.” —Joe Biden, whose bulk-mail balloting fraud is, indeed, the greatest threat to democracy at home.

Non compos mentis: “As Texas @GOP votes to end democracy and education there, it’s time to take power away from such Failed States. These are bullies. Bullies stop only when THEY are hurt more than they CAN hurt. The Anti-Democracy Party must be hurt so badly that it can never recover.” —Keith Olbermann (“Keith is right. Texas is a failed, terrible state. That’s why so many people are leaving there and moving to California.” —Allie Beth Stuckey )

And last… “Every piece of evidence suggests the Wuhan virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Communist China owes the world answers.” —Mike Pompeo