The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state.” —Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973)

Observations: “Please understand that when someone talks about ‘ending’ racism, their idea of racism ‘ending’ is always within the context of people who fit within certain ethnic and intersectional categories obtaining more worldly possessions and power. That’s what ‘ending racism’ looks like.” —Darrell B. Harrison

Political futures: “In the early 18th century, French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville traveled around the United States, trying to grasp the secret of the great success of the new, young country. In his classic book ‘Democracy in America,’ he observed as follows: ‘America is, however, still the place in the world where the Christian religion has most preserved genuine power over souls. … one cannot say that in the United States religion exerts an influence on laws or on the details of political opinions, but it directs mores, and it is in regulating the family that it works to regulate the state.’ We know quite well what the Democratic Party is about. The question is whether the Republican Party will provide the country a choice, championing the Christian values that de Tocqueville identified as the ‘secret sauce’ of America’s success.” —Star Parker

For the record I: “With voices on the right and left subjecting [Kamala] Harris to legitimate scrutiny on her avoidance of the [illegal immigration] crisis, the vice president is laughing off their questions — literally — in a stunning show of dismissiveness from someone who claims to be a leader. … It is no laughing matter when toddlers are filmed being dropped over walls or heartbreakingly crying out as smugglers abandon them. It is no laughing matter when evil drug cartels turn a massive profit from this crisis, or when men on the FBI terror watch list waltz into our country. It is no laughing matter when migrants, drawn by the promise of the Biden-Harris open borders agenda, drown in the Rio Grande.” —RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel

For the record II: “Right now, Customs and Border Protection agents are arresting nearly 6,000 illegal immigrants a day, the highest number in over two decades. Seizures of the deadly smuggled drug Fentanyl are spiking, with more fentanyl seized so far in 2021 than throughout all of 2020. The flood of migrants includes thousands of children with nowhere to go, preyed on by vicious cartels. Human rights groups estimate that a significant percentage of women who make the dangerous journey to our border are raped along the way. With a situation that disastrous, it makes sense that Harris is uncomfortably laughing and trying to change the subject. Approaching this crisis with appropriate solemnity would force Biden and Harris to grapple with the humanitarian devastation their failed policies have created.” —Ronna McDaniel

Revisionist history: “We’ve always said, ‘Keep an open mind and continue to look.’ So I think it’s a bit of a distortion to say that we deliberately suppressed [the Wuhan lab-leak theory].” —Dr. Anthony Fauci

Rigged game: “I’ll take your questions and, as usual, folks, they gave me a list of the people I’m gonna call on.” —Joe Biden ahead of his post-Vladimir Putin press conference in Geneva

The BIG Lie: “We’re seeing a coordinated attack on voting rights in this country. It’s Jim Crow in the 21st century, and it must end. Congress must enact legislation to make it easier for all eligible Americans to access the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred right to vote.” —Joe Biden

Non compos mentis: “We never thought we had to worry about domestic enemies. We never thought we had to worry about people who didn’t believe in our democracy. Sadly, what we’ve seen over the last four years, and particularly since our election in 2020, is that we have people within our own country who are doing Putin’s work … to sow distrust, to sow divisiveness, to give aid and comfort to those in our country who, for whatever reason, are being not only disruptive but very dangerous.” —Hillary Clinton

And last… “Where Leftist governance reigns, criminality thrives. And where criminality thrives, Americans flee.” —Ben Shapiro