Tag Archives: liberty

Culture, Economics, Education, Governance, Health Care, Politics 2020, Representation, Responsibility

ALL AHEAD: LEFT!

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Even government has to employ the Constitution...

There’s a new economics in town.  It’s based on virus avoidance.  A majority of Americans have bought some, if not all the virus-avoidance products suddenly for sale.  Some of those are advertised as something the wise, concerned, empathetic and news-trusting person definitely should  have: things like toilet paper and sanitizing wipes, for example, or things like people-avoidance, face masks and fear.  When sales dropped a little, politicians got up on their pedestals and decreed that most of these products were now mandatory, while others, for some arcane, authoritarian reasons, were forbidden.

The latest viral threat has exposed a host of new sales experts, male and female.  Unlike the multitude of regulations these same, new sales reps have instituted to protect buyers of everything from prescriptions to orange juice and canned soup, there are provided no guidelines whereby the hoped-for… no, required  buyers of the new virus-avoidance products these abrupt sellers are peddling, can fairly judge which are good and wholesome and which are not.  Yet, purchase and swallow we do, lest we miss out on the greatest shared sacrifice of all time – the first to bring our nation to its knees.

There is no choice between bitter or sweet, it’s virtually all bitter, and since we are the tough, always successful American people, we join in the sacrifice to show just how patriotic we truly are.  There are even new badges of courage, so to speak, like face masks and oddly walking so as to avoid others, not to overlook cowering at home as one of our greatest strengths.  The only side-effect of the lately prescribed purchase we all must buy, is a new, nearly universal distrust of everyone else should we be threatened by their presence.  Since the FDA- and CDC-approved products are so new, no one knows if the side-effects are long-lasting or even permanent.  Small additional price to pay.

Those who are skeptical of our national reaction to our newly purchased fears, are perceived as barely deserving of the right to buy food, even less the right to buy toilet paper.  This is a great unifying moment.  Obviously it does make sense to wear a face mask of some sort when entering a market or hardware store, although, in a perverse way, it also seems Prudent not to do so, as wearing one indicates acquiescence to the miasma of dictates, pronouncements and unconstitutional separation from “inalienable rights” that hundreds of thousands died for prior.

Nascent socialists love a good crisis like this viral one.  Now, what they have dreamed of since entering their first poli-sci lecture or law class, and subsequent entry into “government” itself, there is presented a chance to change the world, re-order disorganized society, and to clear the path through the jungle of liberty that those sufficiently wise can follow to a brighter future.  Those who cannot share the vision of an orderly nation will need just a little coaxing to walk arm-in-arm with the wise followers… ahhmm, except walking arm-in-arm will be disallowed to prevent a “second wave” of coronavirus.  And, no hand-shaking or sharing others’ spaces, now deemed to be a 3, 4 or 5-foot circle according to the Ministry Of Social Distancing.

Exposure of the best and worst of federal regulation is one of the blatant results of dealing with COVID-19.  Evidently there was some concern among intelligence operatives back in November of 2019, that the rapidly spreading, perhaps new contagion, bore watching in the off-chance that it would spread outside of China.  Initially their concern was focused on problems for U. S. assets in South Asia.  Still, it wasn’t actionable: there was little hard information and it was wholly a Chinese problem.  It was good that our arcane intelligence caught wind of the problem, but anything further depended on the honesty of the Chinese Communists.  Well.

At some time after the problem surfaced, perhaps the beginning of December, the Chinese not only hid their unique problem, but allowed millions of people to leave Wuhan before they realized they had to lock the city and region down if there was any hope of containing the spread of this new disease.  With disinformation as its prime public function, the Chinese Communist Party argued against travel restrictions and coerced the UN’s W.H.O. to repeat their lies for 3 or 4 weeks.  First “it doesn’t spread from human to human,” as Chinese trade and technical personnel spread across the world carrying the new “smallpox” to the indigenous tribes of America, Italy, England, Spain, Germany and Iran, among many others.  No infected blankets – human-to-human works better than expected!

No one seems to want to consider that COVID-19 has damaged the world’s economies, including ours, on purpose.  “Oh, no!  No country would ever do that.  The Chinese are wonderful people.  This was an embarrassing mistake that China feels terrible about.”  Indeed, China feels SO badly that it has striven continuously to blame the United States for the disease.  The trusted professionals at the W.H.O that China controls, have done their best to reinforce Chinese proficiency at handling the virus, in the face of unending disinformation about the extent of COVID-19 in China, the brutality employed to contain it and about the tens of thousands of deaths that have happened.  While the world suffers the constant spread of this new virus, China has miraculously experienced the end of the spread to the point of virtually no new cases and business is up and running and kids are back in school.  Okaaayyy.  Ignore the western news people who have been kicked out of the country, China is the model to follow.  Can you say, “disinformation?”

Relative only to the United States, it has cost only about $10 Trillion in denied business and market wealth to fight the virus… so far.  That’s assumed to be a lot of “money,” but it’s not.  It is a Hell of a lot of obligation far into the future.  There was no money to borrow from the Federal Reserve; the FED didn’t have $2.2 Trillion.  What it does have is the right to create lendable “money” out of thin air, and charge Americans interest for it.  It’s a nice business to be in.  Having received the imaginary air-money from the consortium of private banks we like to call the Federal Reserve, the Federal government, all legislatively legal-like, deposited bits of it into millions of business and personal bank accounts to help us all “fight” the novel coronavirus that China sent us.  China’s model for supposedly containing and defeating the COVID-19 coronavirus, is the model most “Western” countries – ostensible democracies and republics – adopted, rather than the Swedish model of good sense and personal responsibility, without national business shutdowns, that is working about as well as the Chinese model of repression is working for the rest of us.

Measuring the astronomical and ongoing costs our fascist lockdowns of businesses and individuals are imposing, one could speculate that we could have posted two nurses and a personal assistant at the side of every vulnerable elderly person and otherwise medically weak person at a cost of about one-twentieth of that $10 Trillion.  A private chef could have prepared gourmet meals for each thrice daily and fluffed their pillows on demand. The rest of us could have gone about our business, using care and best practices to minimize infection.  One could observe that those who have imposed the shutdowns and stay-at-home orders – all in contravention of our Constitution – are enjoying it a little too much.

As in all matters of great moment and of life-and-death, literally, we are witness to tawdry congressional machinations.  Without hesitation certain key congressional figures have attempted to insert completely unrelated issues into “emergency” economic legislation rushed through to save the economy.  What constitutes “emergency” legislation for those on the left, includes having voters vote up to 45 days “early” and to vote by mail to “maintain social distancing.”  These are election-stealing tactics.  The left: socialists, liberals and our beloved Democrats, never relax in their battle to unseat conservatism and the strengths of tradition.  Every defeat of their radical (anti-traditional) plans is never accepted, but is a key to how to bring a different tactic to bear in the next battle to unseat a specific tradition.  The famous instruction to leftists is “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” and “no” means simply, “later.”

Every aspect of traditional life – and belief – is naturally political to leftists in an environment of hateful anti-traditionalism.  COVID-19 is a political  matter on which sides must be taken and defined.  In some way the attack of this new scourge is not a common enemy all Americans should unite against.  No, it is an opportune moment to instill ever greater socialist plans and practices, virtually while people aren’t watching.  If a few dozens or hundreds of people die in the execution of socialist plans, that is a reasonable cost to install “equality” and to tear down the capitalist, unfair economics of the Constitution and of Christians.  China made the same calculation when the (perhaps) accidental release of COVID-19 presented an opportunity, as well.

As epidemiologists have grabbed the economy by the throat, the ostensible requirement of “social distancing” has extended to include everything from weddings to funerals, school classes and restaurants, most jobs and even walks in parks and on beaches, and, quite logically in the eyes of leftists and fascists, our new governors have prohibited Church services!  In a nation glued together by religious freedom and codified disestablishment, and built by believers in God, this is extraordinary.  This exposes the disdain that leftists hold for religious faith: religion is nothing more than social gathering and virtue-signaling such as the left understands all too well.  Amazingly, at the same time that Chinese Christians are risking imprisonment, if not their lives, to hold surreptitious prayer meetings, Americans, and more oddly, their pastors and priests, have acquiesced to the dictates of secular functionaries to avoid church services.  What if prayer works?

Secular leftists are laughing in their latte’s as they think they have proven the fallacy of religion.  Erstwhile Christians are congratulating themselves on being good rules-followers, not grasping the peril their meekness has placed them in.  Regardless of Constitutional guarantees, churches have shown that they will readily forego their faith and their rights when so directed by non-believers.  Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Nearly every religious tradition around the world includes some form of prayer in unison.  There is great effect from unified belief – it’s the strongest force on earth.  Are all churches agreeing that there is no one to hear their silly prayers?  Are Sunday services mere collection-plate convenience?  Good grief!  Prudence has seen prayer work in the physical world.  No pastor should fail to resist the attempt to squash this essential right – and duty.

Finally, it is hopeful that so many private efforts have sprung into being to supply medical equipment and help to other individuals.  Companies have changed course in matters of days to provide masks and ventilators and hand-sanitizer.  Remarkable organic chemists and biologists are testing, creating, and improving drug therapies and even potential vaccines to defeat COVID-19.  Americans, most especially those of us who have dealt with the risks of private life and economics, are generous, charitable people.  Even while unable to work and with their incomes limited or missing, Americans are being asked to donate and they do. 

The brunt of the multiple variations of shutdowns and lock-outs has been borne by private interests: individual workers and contractors, small and large businesses, and charities and non-profits to differing extents.  The pain has in no way impacted public employees economically.  Yes, first responders are working longer shifts – on overtime.  Teachers have had to learn (where union-willing) how to teach on-line.  Big public thinkers and planners have had to think and plan more than ever, but none has lost pay, benefits or pension.  Daily there are stories of private incidents of charity and outreach, some quite widespread as people contribute thanks to social media.  What Prudence has failed to observe are news reports of large-scale public-employee  charitable efforts, whether by bureaucrats or teachers or others, and maybe the reports have just been missed, somehow.  Are “we” all in this together or is it just “you,” the private, not yet socialized sector, who are all in this together?  God forbid.

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Governance, Politics 2018

As Ye Sow…

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The alligators are circling and the Democrats are circling at the same time. The former are circling the Trump administration and the presidency, itself; the latter are circling the cesspool drain of socialism. Both the alligators of the “deep,” or now referenced, “steady” state, and the Democrats/neo-Socialists use the same set of tactics: Fascism.

“Oh, no,” you might say, “Fascism is a tool of the far-right and of White supremacists (whoever they are), and the left tries to fight them off!” Well.

You, the alligators and the Democrat left are confused. Fascism is a tool of the left. You have been taught the opposite, but a simple reading of history instructs us that we need to properly define Left and Right, perhaps starting with a change of terms. The left has changed the meaning of words repeatedly, but again, let’s use the right terms for Left and Right. “Liberal,” after all, described the colonists who fought against the British crown – which was “right” and which “left?”

Let’s consider that one trend in history, indeed the most common trend by far, is toward tyrannical control of people and economies. The alternative, individual liberty and actual democracy, is rarer, and, in combination with republicanism, more so. These two large trends can, roughly, describe almost every organized nation, today, and even the United Nations organization. Here’s where the permanence of word definitions becomes crucial. For our discussion Prudence suggests that “Liberty” be the direction of one trend, the rarer one, and “Tyranny… no, too pejorative a term… Control” be the direction of the more common trend throughout history. Societies and nations are on either a path toward greater individual liberty or toward greater centralized control.

On the liberty path we mark events like the invention of democracy, attributed to the Greeks; the Roman Senate, Christianity – which is not to say the Catholic or any other church unequivocally – the Renaissance, the Magna Carta, the English parliament, the Reformation of Martin Luther, the U. S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and other key amendments, the Civil War, World War II and the breakup of the Soviet Union. An incomplete list, certainly, but milestones nonetheless.

The story of control has always been marked by stronger over weaker people, conquest, kings, caesars and czars. As economic freedom and rights to private property took hold, the rise of socialism, always lurking but strengthened by unchecked economic inequality, became widespread enough in the 1800’s to create the dominant political forces of the 1900’s, including fascism and its ugly brother, communism. The new colossus, America, was not and is not immune from their blandishments.

We cannot examine our current status and our future, without recognizing the organizing morals of religion, and the educational value of churches. For “western” civilization the chief organizing moral structure has been, first, Judaism and the Old Testament, and then Christianity and the New Testament. The result of the long sweep of the Old Testament was to usher in the New and the examples and teachings of Jesus, the Christ. It is not one path, it is two, the second of which proclaims an individual relationship with God, and individual responsibility, as well. No longer was the story of God’s chosen people told about groups, but about individuals. No longer was the possibility of ascension into Heaven reserved for a handful of prophets, but it was made the business of every person. It was no longer an arcane secret, but instead the path was described and illustrated by Jesus, himself: “Greater things than I have done you shall do because I go unto the Father.”

Okay, enough of that. Let’s at least agree that Jesus’ teaching was that every individual was responsible for his or her own salvation or refusal of salvation. The doors of heaven were open to every person not committed to or consumed by evil… and each of us is responsible for the path he or she chooses – not so different from the Old Testament lessons, but personalized. It is the fundament of the Constitution and the concept of liberty, itself, and at no time divorced from responsibility: “As ye sow, so shall (must) ye reap.”

We can’t sow lies and expect honesty and truth to spring forth, for example.
Does this background inform the present? Prudence suggests that it does. Which actors are motivated by the desire to control individuals and their economic circumstances? Are they not “Democrat Socialists?” How do they propose to exert control?
The methods and tools are a very long list, but here are the most obvious ways:

Universal health care, or “single payer” or “Medicare for all.”

Comprehensive gun control.

Lower education standards for American history.

Nationalized Welfare.

Aggravated racial tensions.

Paid “antifa” thugs.

Those should be enough to show the direction that the left is taking, none of which is strengthening for the United States.

At first it is hard to understand why Democrats of today would be so fired up about the short list of 6 tactics, above. It is because they are socialists and socialism is about control and little else. You can see from the lowered education tactic that socialism’s resistance to the American experiment in individual sovereignty is not new, and if it must take 3 or 5 or a hundred generations, liberty’s ugly plans must be thwarted. The only defense against socialism is an alert, educated, self-disciplined citizenry… one that shares basic moral codes.

We can’t deny that Judeo-Christianity has informed our entire legal code and common-law bases for organizing this amazingly successful (western) civilization. We need not delve into matters of faith to recognize the practicality and reinforcing values of our legal traditions. It is informative that lately all things Christian are derogated and mocked, attacked, in fact. At the same time government and education institutions remove themselves from moral guidance or enforcement and even punish expressions of Christian values.

In the streets and in current politics, resistance to laws and their enforcement – and to their enforcers – is rampant, and deadly. These are socialists and fascists who are tearing down our legal and moral codes. Socialism lives on rules that society needs our wonderful governors to enforce (fulfilling the control instinct) since non-elite people cannot be expected to do almost anything correctly without them. This includes raising of children, imbuing them with morals, teaching them how to strive and excel, instructing them on proper relationships with and respect for the opposite sex, economic responsibility for oneself and one’s family, preparing them for independence and enlightening them with patriotism. These are all responsibilities of a benign, socialist government, after all.

When the Founders assembled the Constitution from the greatest civil organizing philosophies of freedom, they initiated a unique challenge to the prevailing organizing principles of tyranny, monarchy and theocracy. No other nation had attempted the creation of a government based on the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. In the process, and following a bitter fight against arguably the most powerful empire in the world at that time, the “American Dream” was born. It is little understood today, but is defined by “E pluribus unum.” America – the United States – would be a nation where all kinds and origins of people can form a nation, live and work together under a regime of personal responsibility and shared morality, self-discipline and individual civic sovereignty. Remarkable, and the diametric opposite of socialist diffusion of responsibility – and morality.

Socialism is by origin and intent a system without spirituality. Every one of its tenets presumes that human-devised, rules-based micro-management will yield a better society than religious or faith-based moral structures have or ever will. Socialism, by definition, is antithetical to Constitutional republicanism, and this fact illustrates why socialists have been pressing socialist “solutions” to civic and economic problems in the U. S. since the post-Civil War era, an effort that gained strength with each World War, the Depression and the “Civil Rights” movements. The skids were greased by Lyndon Johnson, Ted Kennedy and “Watergate.”

Now we are faced with one of our two major political parties celebrating resistance to laws and to law enforcement, even as it cries for more regulation from a massive, unmanageable government. What sort of political future… what sort of governing future do its members foresee? Are they anticipating a society with better cohesiveness, or lower crime rates, perhaps? By what mechanisms shall order be assured after dozens, if not hundreds of crimes are deemed un-prosecutable? Even now attorneys general are fighting federal authorities in many jurisdictions; many candidates for those offices are campaigning on their willingness to overlook criminal prosecutions they don’t like. How, indeed, will order be ensured?

Disorder is far from the socialist model… control is its bedrock. These same who agitate and cry for legal disorder, swoon for ultra-left socialist candidates and for ‘antifa,’ itself. It is the grand disorder of freedom that they hate… the majesty of it left in the hands of a moral, independent people. We are socialism’s enemy and socialism is ours, if we have the mind to understand and the heart to defend, our Constitution.

We cannot sow socialism and expect freedom and individual liberty to spring forth.

Immigration, Terrorism

Who’s in charge here?

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President Trump’s recent travails over his immigration restriction order call up the question of what the role of the U. S. federal government is, perhaps in contrast to the roles of other governments. “Federal” is in quotes because many people don’t understand the difference between a federal government and a national one.

Further, many don’t grasp the unique role of the United States – and our government – in the world, since, say, the Spanish-American War. That was a funny, lop-sided war about which little is taught in public schools, anymore. In fact, it was so short-lived and had so few veterans that one might wonder what the fuss was all about, anyway.

“Remember the Maine!” Ever hear that? If you’ve gone to Arlington National Cemetery you’ve seen the Memorial to Maine’s 260 dead sailors. The destruction and sinking of the Maine may or may not have had anything to do with the Spanish, but it caused the decision to solve the Cuba problem, and the Spanish problem, once and for all.

In the end we temporarily took over Cuba (dominating it until Batista was dislodged by Castro), Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam; Teddy Roosevelt enhanced his resumé, changing presidential history, and the U. S. became a more involved Pacific power. MacArthur was forced out of the Philippines by the Japanese only to commit to returning, and Guam played a key role against the Japanese, as well. U. S. relations with South and Central American nations became even more strained and domineering, causing difficulties that persist to this day. So, not so inconsequential, after all.

America’s role on this multi-national planet has been gigantic since then, through two World Wars, the rise and demise of Communism in the Soviet Union, and astounding control and profiteering from the global banking/monetary system. Petro-dollars. There are many who think we should tuck our tail and let some other nation do the heavy lifting for a while… we’ve got our own problems to deal with.

Careful thought should reveal that that is the worst path for us to follow. On the other hand, we have learned, painfully, that we can’t impose our form of government on other nations, and we should not. If you’re looking for things that are not constitutional, that is a big one, Prudence counsels.

But after we tried having the several new states contribute to the operations of a “central” government under the Articles of Confederation, we put our minds to the task of creating something new on Earth: a Constitutional Republic, with separated powers and democratically elected representatives and even a democratically elected chief executive – a president not of the Congress, but of the united STATES. It has been quite a ride since then.

By adopting our phenomenal Constitution, “we the people” relinquished a carefully measured portion of our inalienable rights as sovereign citizens, whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness came not from the government, but from God, or, if you please, the order of the Universe that resulted in sentient human beings, whatever that is.

At the same time we created for ourselves an exceptional class of humans who are citizens of the United States with certain rights and responsibilities, while we remain citizens of the several States with additional rights and responsibilities. WE, as citizens of the States, FORMED and granted power to, for limited things – big things, but constrained – the new, FEDERAL government. People have their inalienable rights, States have their rights and the Federal government has its rights and “enumerated” powers to facilitate our individual pursuits of happiness, protect our union of states from foreign and domestic dangers, and, to impose some uniformity of laws and economics, including federal taxation and tariffs, and to maintain an army, a navy and a court system.

States could no longer conduct their own diplomacy with foreign governments or have different policies of immigration or of citizenship – those are Federal, logically, and all matters of citizenship or denial of citizenship, with all of the rights and powers that attach to U. S. citizenship, are the business of the Federal authority and of the Federal courts. Disputes between States or between States and the Federal government, are also the province of Federal courts, including appeals to the Supreme Court. And here we may soon be.

The two forces at conflict in the U. S. since the Civil War are Constitutional liberty and extra-Constitutional socialism. Originally, people and States were free to work, create, gain or lose within the law, and take responsibility for gaining or losing; alternatively they needed collective, or socialized sharing of life’s ups and downs to the point of being “free” from hardship and responsibility under the law. One path is strengthening, the other weakening of the social order and of individuals, and weakening of the States, themselves.

President Trump, as he promised, issued an appropriate Executive Order in accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, restricting entrance to the United States of persons not otherwise legally entitled to enter or re-enter (poorly executed on the ground, but legal and justified, nonetheless) from 7 failed countries that cannot “vet” their residents – no, their occupants – sufficiently to ascertain whether they are who they claim to be or what their record is. From these 7 countries have come, since 9-11, some 72 bad actors who have committed terrorist acts in the United States.

There is no way, practically speaking, to know whether more are on their way; Mr. Trump took an appropriate, Federal step.

Two states sued on the basis that the abrupt interruption of travel impinged on the smooth function of their state governments, particularly of their State Universities, and a federal judge ruled that they had standing to sue. They further charged that Trump’s intention was to ban Muslims, for which they claimed unconstitutionality, as well as “unconstitutional” interruptions on the free travel of their residents, not necessarily of their citizens.

The judge went so far as to cite Trump’s campaign statements about banning Muslims temporarily as a basis for construing an unconstitutional intent – INTENT! – that made the need for a Temporary Restraining Order an emergency.

And here we are. Without precedent, and, let’s hope, without creating a precedent. A federal court has ruled that temporary inconvenience for a State’s internal functions may be sufficient to interrupt lawful measures for the purpose of national security. This is new territory. The creative interference with valid federal duties that restive state’s Attorneys General might devise, is limitless. Federal judges should have sense enough to reject these efforts to politicize our security.

Clearly Prudence doesn’t direct the President, but she strongly advises that the new U. S. Attorney General defend this case in the supreme Court so that there is no precedent created for left-leaning judges to take non-judicial steps to interfere with the executive branch, UN-constitutionally.