In two recent articles, I argued that John McCain is deserving of none of the accolades that have been heaped upon him since he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He is neither a good man nor a good public servant.

Why, some have asked me, attack McCain now, at this time when he is this sick?

My reasons are simple.

First, I recall having been told by my late father that his late father, my grandfather who died when I was but nine years of age, used to have a saying:

If you’re no good while you’re alive, then you’re no good when you’re dead.

McCain is not yet deceased, it is true, but the sentiment embodied in my grandfather’s pearl of wisdom applies here as well: If McCain was deserving of criticism while he was healthy, then he is no less deserving of it now that he is sick. And there is no limit to the criticism to which McCain has long been entitled.

Time to buy old US gold coins

Second, McCain is not just any person. He isn’t even just any old politician. He is a lifelong career politician, a man who just nine years ago almost became the President of the United States and whose recognition around the world rivals that of any other world famous figure.

Third, my criticism of McCain, among the most visible—and audible—public figures alive today, is a direct response to the avalanche of praise that greeted the news of his diagnosis.

Finally, most importantly, it is precisely because of his fame that I felt the urgency to reveal the real McCain.

On this last point, more elaboration is needed.

It is a moral imperative for liberty-lovers and patriots to resist any and every attempt on the part of the purveyors of Fake News and D.C. politicians to canonize McCain. It isn’t just that the commendatory remarks now being made about him are gross lies. More significant is the fact that, ultimately, these congratulatory judgments of McCain are self-congratulatory judgments.

In other words, this matter transcends McCain, for his is the face of the whole Government-Academia-Media-Entertainment (GAME) complex, or what I call, simply, “the Regime.”

In praising McCain, his fellow Regimists—his fellow GAMErs—praise themselves.

And in doing the latter, they further legitimize their shared ideology, a neoconservative/neoliberal dogma that provides the cover for the incalculable suffering they’ve caused here and throughout the world.

Anyone who is in any doubt as to the reality of the Regime to which I refer; anyone who thinks that I am being hyperbolic in claiming that, at the end of the day, the “conservative” Republican and “liberal” Democrat parties constitute but a single, unitary hegemon that has deceived Americans into thinking that these parties actually represent “values” that “fundamentally” differ from one another—any such person need only take the following quiz. The answers will be given at the end (no cheating!).

(1)Who among the following took America off of the Gold Standard so as to empower the Federal Reserve’s ability to print paper money and, thus, consolidate further the potentially limitless power of the federal government over the lives of American citizens?

a. Lyndon Johnson

b. Jimmy Carter

c. Bill Clinton

d. Richard Nixon

(2)Under whose presidency did race-based preferential treatment policies, i.e. “Affirmative Action,” become the law of the land?

a. Lyndon Johnson

b. Jimmy Carter

c. Bill Clinton

d. Richard Nixon

(3)Which of the following American presidents made Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday?

a. Jimmy Carter

b. Bill Clinton

c. Barack Obama

d. Ronald Reagan

(4) Who among the following was indispensable in passing into law the “Therapeutic Abortion Act,” which led to an astronomical increase in abortions?

a. Hillary Clinton

b. Barack Obama

c. Nancy Pelosi

d. Ronald Reagan

(5) Who among the following was indispensable to the end of amnestying three million illegal aliens?

a. Hillary Clinton

b. Ted Kennedy

c. Barack Obama

d. Ronald Reagan

(6)Who among the following was indispensable to the end of deporting three million illegal aliens?

a. Tom Tancredo

b. Jeff Sessions

c. Donald Trump

d. Barack Obama

(7) Who among the following gave Californians the largest tax increase in their state’s history while serving in office there?

a. Diane Feinstein

b. Maxine Waters

c. Nancy Pelosi

d. Ronald Reagan

(8) Who, upon remarking that “this level of gun violence must be stopped,” called for “a uniform standard of [gun-control] across the country?”

a. Gabriel “Gabby” Giffords

b. Barack Obama

c. Bernie Sanders

d. Ronald Reagan

(9) Who among the following said that there’s “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons” (emphasis added)?

a. Barack Obama

b. Bill Clinton

c. Hillary Clinton

d. Ronald Reagan

(10)Who among the following waxed indignant over tax “loopholes” for millionaires and insisted that the latter didn’t pay their “fair share?”

a. Barack Obama

b. Hillary Clinton

c. Ronald Reagan

d. all of the above

(11)Which President among the following enjoys the distinction of being at war in more places and over a longer period of time than any other in American history?

a. Richard Nixon

b. Ronald Reagan

c. George W. Bush

d. Barack Obama

(12) Which President had a defense spending budget that was larger in both absolute and relative numbers than that of any president in all of American history?

a. Ronald Reagan

b. George H.W. Bush

c. George W. Bush

d. Barack Obama

(13)Which President, at 100,000 during his tenure, dropped more bomb strikes on foreign, mostly Islamic countries, than any other?

a. Ronald Reagan

b. George H.W. Bush

c. George W. Bush

d. Barack Obama

(14)Who among the following was the first President ever to approve of federal funding for stem cell research on aborted human embryos?

a. Jimmy Carter

b. Bill Clinton

c. Barack Obama

d. George W. Bush

(15) Which of the following Presidents raised taxes eleven times during his tenure?

a. Jimmy Carter

b. Bill Clinton

c. Barack Obama

d. Ronald Reagan

(16) Which of the following Presidents raised payroll taxes in order to subsidize Social Security and government-run healthcare, i.e. Medicare?

a. Jimmy Carter

b. Bill Clinton

c. Barack Obama

d. Ronald Reagan

(17) Which of the following Presidents did the leftist magazine Mother Jones commend three years ago for growing and centralizing further the federal government?

a. Jimmy Carter

b. Bill Clinton

c. Barack Obama

d. Ronald Reagan

(18) Which presidents, in 1994, endorsed a federal ban on “assault rifles?”

a. Jimmy Carter

b. Gerald Ford

c. Ronald Reagan

d. all of the above

(19) Which President is responsible for making possible Medicare Part D, the largest expansion of Medicare—i.e. socialized healthcare—in its history?

a. Jimmy Carter

b. Bill Clinton

c. Barack Obama

d. George W. Bush

(20) Who among the following has favored “comprehensive immigration reform,” i.e. who has favored granting, in effect, amnesty to as many illegal aliens as are in the country?

a. Ted Kennedy

b. Ronald Reagan

c. Barack Obama

d. John McCain

e. George W. Bush f. all of the above

f. all of the above

If you chose “D” for questions 1-19, and “F” for question 20, then you can go to the head of the class!

This quiz could have continued endlessly in this same vein. Hopefully, what questions have been presented are sufficient to impress upon the reader the truth that there is indeed a one-party Regime, GAME, whose factions are governed by essentially one and the same ideology and indebted to one and the same set of moneyed and Deep State interests.

Since McCain is the quintessential Regimist or GAMEr, those of us who recognize the Regime for the threat to liberty that it is have an obligation to insure that McCain isn’t exculpated from owning his record, a record that is as long as it is disastrous.

The Best of Jack Kerwick