The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Insight: “Although the legal and ethical definitions of right are the antithesis of each other, most writers use them as synonyms. They confuse power with goodness, and mistake law for justice.” —Charles T. Sprading (1871-1959)

Upright: “You might wonder why it’s important to care about yourself. Here’s why: If you don’t care about yourself and don’t respect yourself, then you will settle for bad treatment from others. You will play the role of a victim; you will assume that their bad treatment of you reflects your worth. That’s not true. Their behavior reflects their weakness. A person’s bad treatment of others reflects their own insecurities and weaknesses. People who are strong are generous and helpful; only the weak are controlling and manipulative. The weak look for those who are even weaker but move along when they run into those who are strong. Do not take up the role of a victim because you will continually run across those who want to keep you in that same role.” —Jackie Gingrich Cushman

Re: The Left I: “Can anybody point me to that one time in history where the side that was demanding censorship, segregation, propaganda, radical education, papers to move freely in society, plus government forces going door to door to demand compliance were the good guys?” —Candace Owens

Re: The Left II: “What happened to turn the party of Harry Truman, JFK and even Bill Clinton into a woke neo-Maoist movement? Globalization created a new multibillion-dollar consumer market for American media, universities, law firms, insurance groups, investment houses, sports leagues and entertainment outlets, not to mention the internet and social media. In contrast, work with hands was passe, the supposed stuff of deplorables and clingers — and so better outsourced and offshored. Traditional Democrats were seen increasingly as namby-pamby naifs who rotated power with establishment Republicans. Now with money and institutions in its hip pocket, and cool popular culture on its side, the left would not just damn American institutions but infect them — alter their DNA and reengineer them into revolutionary agencies. So here we are with a near one-party system of a weaponized fused media, popular culture and the administrative state — confident that all Americans will soon agree to love Big Sibling.” —Victor Davis Hanson

Observations: “Earlier this month, Chicago Public Schools announced that it would be making free condoms available in schools, beginning with children in the fifth grade. … It’s time for some brutal honesty. This isn’t about the ‘health’ or ‘safety’ of the children. If it were, the adults would be up in arms at the mere prospect of elementary school children or middle schoolers having sex and would be doing everything in their power to prevent it. But sex is the only destructive behavior that the grown-ups just can’t bring themselves to discourage outright.” —Laura Hollis

For the record I: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi … took the unprecedented step of rejecting two of the Republican members appointed to the [January 6] committee — conservative stalwarts Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. … Remember, Pelosi refused to remove Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee even after it was revealed that he had been compromised by a Chinese spy. But Banks and Jordan are beyond the pale. … By the way, if Pelosi wants to investigate something, she might consider investigating last year’s riots. Two-thirds of Americans support such an investigation. That’s a lot more than the 52% who support a congressional investigation of January 6th.” —Gary Bauer

For the record II: “It may comfort the diehard left to imagine that Washington is at the root of the island’s distress, but there is a reason why those throngs of brave Cubans in the streets last week were chanting ‘Down with the dictatorship!’ and not ‘Down with the embargo!’ They know that their agony is caused by the ruthless despots who for more than six decades have stopped at nothing to keep them in chains.” —Jeff Jacoby

Good question: “As for literacy, how does it help if all Cubans can read if all they’re allowed to read is communist propaganda?” —Cal Thomas

Non compos mentis: “I don’t any take great pleasure … in clashing with the senator. I have a great deal of respect for the institution of the Senate of the United States. But [Rand Paul] was completely out of line. He totally distorted reality. And he made some inflammatory and, I believe, slanderous remarks about lying under oath, which is completely nonsense. I mean, and some of the things he says are so distorted and out of tune with reality, I had to call him on that. I didn’t enjoy it, but I had to do that because he was completely out of line. Totally inappropriate.” —Dr. Anthony Fauci

And last… “I do think that [Dr. Anthony Fauci has] been giving us shades of the truth from the very beginning, but I also think that he is predictable as an elitist. People on the Left believe they know better than you and they think that the common man’s too stupid to make their own decisions, so these decisions need to be made by their betters. And I truly think that he believes that he knows better. … He calculates what the people need to hear and he tells them that regardless of whether it’s true.” —Senator Rand Paul