Our Conservative March Through the Institutions

 E. Jeffrey Ludwig has a hopeful article at the American Thinker entitled Wokeism Contains the Seeds of its Own Destruction. He in turn cites an article on Substack by N. S. Lyons entitled No, The Revolution Isn't Over. Lyons explains why the "wokeism" that has taken over our society is likely to not just continue but get worse. Part of its success is due to the fact that it is a sort of substitute for religion. But many of the big money donors, even the law itself is driving "wokeism."

For the record, I think Lyons is correct. He points out that the Left owns the cultural highground. The corporations, big tech, the foundations, the think tanks, academia and frankly they are infiltrating the church...the Church! And the government too: the courts, the three letter agencies, the military. And while politicians come and go, I have come to believe that they have less effect on the overall policy than their current position indicates.  Trump was a speed bump.  No matter who is at the top, the culture keeps drifting leftward.

Ludwig, however, is hopeful because he believes the woke will eventually destroy each other.

Lyons's article is well written, but he does miss a few things. He misses that the unprincipled movement of the wokesters plants the seeds of its own destruction. Thus, a comparable fifty-year march through our institutions really will not be necessary for the woke message of life-transforming narcissism to collapse. The pathetic destructive dance of AOC, Ilhan Omar, and other Squad members (including the fierce-looking Rashida Tlaib) and their ilk will most assuredly turn on each other and gobble, gobble, gobble. We already can see the beginnings of the self-destruct button of narcissism working in this woke subculture.

The Cuomos are out. Matt Lauer is out. Harvey "Fat Mouth" Weinstein is out. Soon more of the brittle psyches with the destructive personalities will destroy each other — e.g., Alec Baldwin and other vain and intemperate men like him.

Now I am all for following Napoleon's dictum that when the enemy is making a mistake, don't get in his way. But I also believe that it will take more than just that. I think we will have to do our own "march through the institutions." We will not have the advantage of lying and presenting ourselves as something we are not. That is the province of the Left, for whom "by any means necessary" is the byword. So, our march will be more difficult. I think too we ought to start with marching through the Church.

Taking over the school boards is part of the answer, sure but then there is this:

9. Personnel is policy. Let’s imagine, for example, that some lawmakers officially ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in their state’s schools or universities. Will this be the end of the matter? Will all the woke teachers and administrators who consider “consciousness raising” through “critical pedagogy” – or in general what Marxists call “praxis,” the constant need for the transformation of theory into practice – to be practically a religious commandment just stop doing so? No of course not. As one consultant/cleric recently advised teachers, “Don’t say critical race theory, just teach its precepts… You’re going to see how classroom teachers apply some of these pedagogical models in ways where they don’t even mention the words critical race theory but are doing anti-racist work.” Yes, the work of spreading the new good news shall not be stopped! After all, who is going to stop them? Will they be fired by the woke human resources department, or the woke principal? Abandoned by the woke teachers’ union? Reported to the state by their un-woke peers, all of whom have already been systematically purged from the collective for their heresy? If concerned parents do manage to get them fired, who will hire their replacements? Why… the woke HR department! The people who actually set the effective policy of any institution are inevitably the personnel located in the power centers closest to implementation. Or as a Chinese saying goes: “for every measure that comes down from on high, a countermeasure arises from below” (上有政策, 下有對策). That principle works equally well for a revolutionary professional managerial class as it does for beleaguered counter-revolutionary peasants...

You see the problem. Just to change this one issue, you must march through the Education Departments at the universities, through the HR departments that hire teachers, etc. It will be a long, hard slog. But unlike the Left, this is not about politics or power for us. This is about making this a decent place for our families to thrive and grow, and eventually raise their families. It would mean a renewed belief in upholding individual rights as expressed in the Bill of Rights, which besides protecting individual rights places the individual in their proper relationship to society as a whole.

What is the ideal temperature of the Earth?

 On January 21 of this year, Selwyn Duke had a article at the American Thinker entitled The Global Warming Question That Can Change Peoples' Minds. The question? That may need a little context, and Duke provides such context:

Late last year, I got into a discussion with a fellow who was quite sold on the idea that man's activities were warming the Earth. While not a hardcore ideologue, it was apparent the gentleman had accepted the climate change narrative presented by mainstream media and believed we truly were imperiling the planet. I didn't say much to him initially, as we were engaged in some recreation, but later on, I resurrected the topic and told him I just wanted to pose one question.

"What is the ideal average temperature of the Earth?" I asked.

It was clear he was without an answer, so I explained my rationale. "If we don't know what the Earth's ideal average temperature is," I stated, "how can we know if a given type of climate change — whether naturally occurring or induced by man — is good or bad? After all, we can't then know whether it's bringing us closer to or moving us further away from that ideal temperature."

...snip...

Part of the question's beauty is that no one can answer it. There is no "ideal" average Earth temperature, only a range within which it must remain for life as we know it to exist. At the spectrum's lower end, polar creatures proliferate; at its higher end, tropical animals do (though warmer temperatures do breed more life, which is why the tropics boast ten times as many species as does the Arctic. Moreover, crop yields increase when CO2 levels are higher).

Of course, the unspoked assumption is that the ideal temperature is the temperature now. But that isn't necessarily true. The Earth has been much warmer, and much colder than it is today. In fact, dinosaurs have been discovered in Antartica. The Earth has also been cold enough that so called Native American migrated across the ice from Asia. As you will read in Duke's piece, the Earth has almost been completely covered in ice.

While the Skeptical Science site attempts throw up a strawman and knock it down, the basic point remains that CO2 levels in the past have been dramatically higher, and yet the planet didn't burn up. Indeed, life thrived. Indeed, I suspect that we would also survive with a much warmer planet. Check out the chart that shows much of the Earth's history.

Given all that, what is the ideal temperature of the planet?

The Virtues of Masculinity

 John Daniel Davidson, at The Federalist has an article yesterday entitled If Conservatives Want to Defend Manliness, The Better Know What It Means. I have contemplated this issue over the years, but truthfully, Davidson defines manliness pretty well. It is not "toughness" per se, though being tough is part of it, but it is in the nature of manliness to sacrifice for the weaker individual. To come to the rescue of the weak, to defend women and children, at the expense of your own interests.

For some conservatives, the conversation about masculinity has gone completely off the rails. It has devolved into a mere tough-guy pose. You see it in the tendency of certain high-profile conservative thinkers to deride all classical liberals and libertarians as effete and unmasculine. You see it in the growing penchant among some very-online conservatives to mock the physical appearances of their ideological opponents, and especially in the compulsive tweeting about “physiognomy,” mostly from anonymous trolls on the right but sometimes from young conservatives who ought to know better.

All of this is profoundly unmanly, and it gives ammunition to those on the left who would brand traditional masculinity as toxic and dangerous. If we’re going to defend manliness as good and virtuous and necessary for a healthy republic, then we need to be clear about what it is and what it is not.

Yes, men should be physically strong. They should also exemplify traditional masculine virtues like courage, independence, and assertiveness. But why? Not so they can sh-tpost about how ripped or good-looking they are compared to libs, but so they can protect and defend those who are weak.

That is the organizing principle behind the entire concept of manliness: it is not a style or a pose or an adornment. It is a way of being, of living according to the principle that you are responsible for the welfare of others, and should sacrifice yourself for their sake.

It sounds a lot like some of the old idea of chivalry. Now, realistically, women are, in general, weaker than men in general in terms of upper body strength. As is shown by the so called "transgender women" competing against females, the larger size and strength of the "transgender women" cause them to overwhelm their female competion. It is clearly unfair, unmanly of these so called "transgender women." But in the real world, women are not helpless creatures, and I would never suggest that they were. But women deserve defending because they, more than men, are involved in making a home and raising the children. It is men who should defend not just women, but the homeland itself.

I will take just one example of manliness. The media often portray gun owners, and in particular, those who carry as somehow not quite legitimate, maybe even somehow evil. Gun carriers who carry for self defense and the defense of others are conflated with actual criminals, who carry guns to intimidate the innocent. But the truth is that guns are themselves neutral. They are neither good nor bad. Rather the reason for carrying is what may either be good or evil. If you are carrying as a means of defending yourself and your family, that is precisely what the manly virtues are about. 

I suspect that some conservatives are over reacting and making perfect targets for the "toxic masulinity" charge.  But the traditional masculine virtues remain necessary to a free society.  The drag queens doing story hour for kids will not defend us.  And why should they?  They don't have families.  Oh, and the ancient idea of the island of Amazons?  That was a myth.  Gentle readers who are interested in this topic should check out the whole article.

Biden Tries to Change the Conversation With Talk of War

 Kurt Schlichter has a piece at Townhall entitled A Biden Intervention In Ukraine Will Expose American Weakness. Of course, that is a problem. Our military is not prepared to go up against a real, serious power. It has become, since the Obama years, a woke joke. They couldn't even withdraw from Afganistan smartly. But, even worse is the gross hypocrisy, that while claiming it is SO important to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity, our own Southern border is wide open and undefended. We have sent troops to defend Ukraine's border, but we don't have any troops on our Southern border.

Just as our Democrat "friends" are betraying us with the endless pandemic, they are also betraying us by beating the war drums while not enforcing our Southern border. And the so called neo-cons are on the side of war, which makes it seem as if conservatives are all for it. We are not. But they are also playing a dangerous game throwing our military into harms way in support of a cause that doesn't have any relationship to vital American interests.  Any parents of service members out there?

Now all these questions deserve answers, but don’t look for any since none of the answers are good. And bad answers would slow the rush to war, so we can’t have them come out. Instead, the establishment is going back to the classics. If you ask what America’s vital interest is, you love Putin. If you ask what our military objectives would be, much less how we can rev up the combat power way over there to attain them, you love Putin. Yeah, it’s always a delight to be a vet of the Cold War being who is told he digs the Russians by a bunch of DC saps whose experience with the Bear is trying a Moscow Mule once, deciding it was icky, and asking for a white wine spritzer instead.

The Ukrainians are getting a raw deal, and I hope they drown their invaders in a river of blood. But it’s not our fight. And, if we did fight, there’s a significant chance we would lose. Then every two-bit tyrant on Earth will be coming for a piece of the helpless giant. We’re weak right now, folks, and the worst thing we can do is get up in front of everyone and prove it.

Seriously, go read Schlichter's piece. He has actual experience on the ground dealing with the Russians, and the effects of Russian infulence. The real problem is that the Democrats and the neo-cons don't work for you, and they don't even like you. We have to change that.

The Endless Pandemic

 Blaine L. Pardoe asks an important question, namely: The Pandemic Endgame-Is There One? It is an important question because there doesn't appear to be on. I stepped into a music store to inquire about music lessons only to discover that one must wear a mask during said lessons. I asked how a trumpeter could play his horn through a mask. I was informed that they have a mask (conveniently for sale) with a hole in it. A hole? And how does that "protect" anyone? The hypocrisy was stunning. Needless to say, I did not take lessons there.

As we all slog into year three of this pandemic and the debates about mandates, masks, and a staggered economy, it feels as if we have lost sight of something important; namely, how does this end? At what point do we all just take a step back and return to some sense of normalcy, i.e., a pre-pandemic state? It’s like a bad TV series that is going on one season too long… you just want it to end.

Early on, back in those bygone days when the media taught us all how to wash our hands, there was talk that we would be able to return to our normal lives. If we had a certain percentage of people vaccinated, or if the infection rates dropped to a certain level, this might be over.

Now those conversations are gone. Also gone is the concept of being done with all this. What we get instead is municipalities demanding that you show proof of your vaccine status to enter businesses, and mask mandates that have no end in sight. There is no longer talk of normalcy at all. There’s talk of a ‘new normal’ which is ill defined but seems to be a state where mask wearing continues indefinitely, as does a never ending array of booster shots. Amazingly people are willing to go along with all this. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sign up for a new normal. I just want my life back the way it was.

Fauci recently said that we should stay the course for just a few weeks more. Isn't that how all this started? Just two weeks to flatten the curve. Now, two years later, there appears no end in sight. The powers that be have never defined what number of cases, or deaths, or any other statistic, or set of statistics will mean we can get back to normal. And let's be clear, COVID is not the cause of the most deaths in the United States, despite what Geraldo! keeps crying.

There are 2,255,000 deaths every year in the United State. Finding out what percentage of this total COVID represents is a little difficult to find out, but clearly when the total death rate over the last two years is only 875 thousand, there are other reasons people are dying.  Yet people, under the influence of the media's constant drum beat of COVID scare mongering believe that COVID is the only reason that people die.  Yet, as adults, we must weigh the risks from all causes of death and disability to remain as safe as possible, while actually living our lives.  And we must teach this skill to our children.  But at least half of us have delegated this vital task to those in authority.  But our "authorities" have betrayed us.

While normal Americans want the pandemic to end, Democrat polititians, and not a few Republicans, don't want it to end.  If they can keep everyone scared and clamoring for a "savior," they keep themselves in power.

One suspects that the only way we well end the pandemic is if we end some people's seats in Congress and the governor's mansion.

Those who claim "science" have no science on their side.

 Dennis Prager has an article at Townhall.com entitled Why the Mased and the Unmasked Have Disdain For Each Other that seems both accurate and evenhanded. The maskers claim 'science' without any scientific evidence to offer anyone. They simply assert that the unmasked are killing them and don't care. Interestingly, he cites the disdain of the unmasked as contempt for the contempt of the masked. I find this to be true:

Consequently, pro-mask Americans regard those who do not wear masks, let alone those who actively oppose mask-wearing, as selfish, anti-science potential killers.

What may be less obvious is why anti-maskers hold pro-maskers in equal contempt. So, this needs explaining in greater detail. After all, anti-maskers don't believe that maskers are putting people in hospitals.

First, anti-maskers regard the charges made against them by pro-maskers as baseless. Therefore, as odd as it sounds, anti-maskers have contempt for the pro-maskers' contempt. To wrongly charge people with causing mass death is, to understate the case, immoral. And if this charge is demonstrably wrong, the people who level it are the ones who are anti-science.

If you have read this blog for any time, you will know that I am against masking and mask mandates, and I don't usually wear a mask.  There is no science that shows a benefit, and much that shows negative effects.  So, yes, I get upset with Karens who try to force me to wear one.  I don't mind so much if others want to wear a mask because they think it protects them, but why do they insist that I wear one too?  It reminds me that the Left insists that I, and people like me, participate in their fantasies, whether it is transgenderism, or climate change...or...I could go on.  These people are not well.

Please check out Prager's article.

Just How Many Elections Have Truly Represented The Voters' Will

 Andrea Widburg asks Did over 100,000 people over 124 years old vote in Wisconsin? It seems that 569,277 voters registered to vote on January 1, 1918. And of course, to do so, they needed to be at least 21 years old, thus the 124 years old. And, it seems that 20% of these senior citizens cared enough to get out and vote. This is truly astounding, if true! But I don't believe it to be true.

For regular American Thinker readers, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Roughly two weeks ago, Jay Valentine wrote about the extent of fraud he and his team have discovered as they’ve uploaded voter rolls (which often had corrupted data that seemed deliberately intended to keep information opaque) into Valentine’s system. Once the information for any given state was loaded and sorted, it invariably revealed rather surprising information in both red and blue states. Among other things, in one red state, there were “4,300 people over 100 years old on their rolls. Some were 121. Those were the kids. The really old ones were almost 2,000 years old, and there were a bunch of them – and they voted.”

(For those wondering, my understanding is that Valentine did not identify specific states because it’s important for the volunteer canvassers to have complete anonymity. Naming states could make the officials who are being exposed as corrupt or inept start looking for canvassers.)

Please read Widburg's post. It is short, and points to the fraud that took place in 2020, and who knows how many other elections. I believe that the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump, and Molly Ball's article at Time The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election kind of proves it.  And as Jay Valentine, who has been working with voter integrity groups around the nation it is not just the Democrats.  Both parties are in on the fraud.  It makes one wonder just how many elections have truly represented the voters' will.

The Left is attempting to intimidate us into silence.

For those who haven't been paying attention, the totalitarians...er...the government has charged Stewart Rhodes, the head of Oath Keepers with having conspired to run a paramilitary operation to prevent Congress from certifying the election of 2020. Spoiler alert, they did no such thing, as you will find out when you read John Green's article at the American Thinker entitled Who Are the Oath Keepers? Green accurately describes the Oath Keepers, and what they stand for. Essentially, the Oath Keepers are people, mostly law enforcement and military, who have reaffirmed their oaths to defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Let's be clear, this position should be the very center in American politics. While people might be, the organization itself should not be described as "right wing," and if it is, what does that say about those describing it?

Media coverage of the group is sprinkled with terms like “right-wing extremists,” “anti-government extremists,” and “far right militia.” Like any story, the reporting about the Oath Keepers can be spun to support a narrative, or to give an unbiased assessment. The MSM has chosen to go with the narrative. One has to look beyond the scare quotes, and assess what the organization has actually done to get a true sense of its nature.

...snip...

Stewart Rhodes is an army veteran (a paratrooper) and a Yale law school graduate. He understands what our founders intended for America, and has served to defend it. He believes that the Democrats see illegal immigration as a way to get more votes -- pay no attention to those cancelled boarder wall contracts. He also believes the Democrats would like to confiscate everyone’s guns -- because that’s exactly what they’ve said. He considers BLM to be a communist front organization -- which isn’t a big leap given that its leaders are trained Marxists. Such crazy thinking can’t be tolerated -- if you’re a Democrat or a deep state operative. In short, Rhodes is only an extremist if the ideas of freedom, limited government, and self-determination are now extreme.

The organization’s name is a reference to the oath that all soldiers and law enforcement officers swear -- to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Although anyone can join, a large percentage of the membership is comprised of people who have taken that oath in either law enforcement or the military. Is that what the propaganda ministry calls “extremist”? Consider this: If all of our government officials complied with the oath they have sworn (looking at you Merrick Garland), would America be better or worse?

Green then takes us on a tour of some of the Oath Keepers past actions, which have been entirely within the Constitution. Do these things go against the Leftists and their narratives? Well, they seem to, but then, doesn't that put the Left in a bad light, not the Oath Keepers? After all, if the Oath Keepers maintain the center of American politics, doesn't that paint the Left as the "extremists."

As the financial guys say: Past performance is the best predictor of future behavior. So, what have the Oath Keepers done in the past? They’ve defended the property rights of private citizens, protested an election that half of America thinks was stolen, and accused Biden of being a Chinese puppet. Stewart Rhodes must have learned a thing or two about the Constitution at Yale Law. All of his organization’s past activities have been entirely consistent with the Constitution -- freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, property rights, and government by the people. Unfortunately, we live in an America in which one of the two political parties believes those positions are extreme. The issue isn’t the Oath Keepers. The issue is our current political environment.

Green puts it too politely when he says that the issue is our political environment. The issue is that the Left is attempting to intimidate us into silence. We can not allow it.

Will Biden Pivot to Gun Grabbing?

Over at Ammoland Lee Williams tells us to Beware Biden's Desperate Anti-Gun Pivot, When All Else Fails Confiscate Guns!. Williams takes us through his analysis, and it seems pretty tight. Biden has lost the Democrat Media, and pivoting to gun grabbing would please the media, as well as Giffords, Everytown and Brady.

Washington, DC – -(Ammoland.com)- The Biden-Harris administration is trapped inside a hostile media spotlight, a victim of their own incompetence. They’re like a cornered animal – desperate for a way out, but clearly willing to settle for anything that would shift the public focus off of their ever-growing list of foibles. They’re a consistent bunch, that much is true. They consistently lurch from one self-inflicted crisis to another, while we pay the price for their mistakes.

...snip...

The pivot could take the shape of a new ATF rule – most likely his long-threatened attempt to move ARs, standard-capacity magazines or whatever else scares the anti-gun crowd, under the regulatory of the National Firearms Act, or NFA, which currently regulates machine guns, suppressors, short-barrel rifles and shotguns and other devices that give the gun-grabbers fits.

To be clear, such a move would be clearly unconstitutional, and the ATF certainly lacks the authority to impose such a rule. However, that hasn’t stopped this crowd before. Biden or whoever else is really calling the shots has shown they don’t care about the constitution or the rule of law. If they did, the Supremes wouldn’t have pulled down their drawers and given them a public spanking for trying to reinvent OSHA’s authority with their vaccine mandate, which Biden’s own chief of staff Ron Klain admitted was a “workaround” of the United States Constitution.

One more thing that Williams notes: to violate the Constitution is a crime. I might call it a high crime.

Like with any crime, and to be clear, willfully violating the constitution is a criminal act, you have to look at motive, means, and opportunity. Joe Biden has the motive to violate our rights and the means to do so, and although I believe it will happen sooner rather than later, unless fate or the 25th Amendment intervene, for the next three long years he’ll have the opportunity for all the infringing he and Kamala desire.

What the hell, people?

 Eric Utter at the American Thinker today tells us that The authoritarians must be stopped. It's clear from the start that Utter is mad as hell about the authoritarians who have tried to tells us what to do and to think, to the point of censoring other opinions.

There can't be a worse, more dangerous, and outright evil class of people than those who want to tell others how to think and what to do. Those who would rule you and take away your liberty do not do it "for your own good." Ever. The Founders knew this. That is why they pushed back hard against "The Intolerable Acts." It is why they tossed tea into the harbor. It is why they eventually fought the world's mightiest military. And it is why they so valued the Right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness granted to us by our Creator.

...snip...

This is our heritage as citizens of the United States of America. And I, for one, am getting damned sick of that heritage being bastardized, twisted, denied, denigrated, and mocked.

Despite what so many now claim, the truth is that the United States of America is an exception nation. It is exception not because we are "better" than other nations, but rather because we are the only nation with a Constitution that obligates our government to defend the peoples rights to life, liberty and happiness. But more and more our government does not do these things, it is illegitimate. And those who work for the taxpayers are not supporting and defending the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Instead, they seek power by defying the Constitution. And too many seem to be happy to let them.

To wit: Does anybody truly believe that those who want to ostracize the unvaccinated, tax them, fine them, take away their livelihoods, and confine them to "camps" really wish to do so out of concern for the unvaccinated? Or for anybody — or anything — else but their own power? Is this why people in need of life-saving organ transplants are being sent away if they haven't acquiesced to the jab? Is this why those who so loudly profess deep concern for their fellow man so often make comments about those with whom they disagree, like "let them die"?

Democrats and "progressives," and authoritarians of all stripes, have imposed their will on the rest of us for two years now, in the form of mask and vaccine mandates. At times they have told us we can't go to work or leave our homes, have our family over for Christmas, attend church, go to weddings, visit dying relatives, or even allow more than a handful of people to grieve with us at their funerals.

What the hell, people?! Those who created, fought, and died for this country would be equal parts stunned, devastated, repulsed, and angry if they could see it now. So much for a limited government "of, by, and for the people."

Like Utter said, what the hell? If we don't start resisting now, are we really going to do it when they start really cracking down?

Why They Hate Us

 Lee Smith tells us why, exactly, the so called "elites" hate the rest of us in a piece entitled The Thirty Tyrants. The thirty tyrants were a group of Athenian oligarchs who, like today's American oligarchs favored rival Sparta to their own democracy. These people worked to defeat Athens in its war with Sparta.

In Chapter 5 of The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli describes three options for how a conquering power might best treat those it has defeated in war. The first is to ruin them; the second is to rule directly; the third is to create “therein a state of the few which might keep it friendly to you.”

The example Machiavelli gives of the last is the friendly government Sparta established in Athens upon defeating it after 27 years of war in 404 BCE. For the upper caste of an Athenian elite already contemptuous of democracy, the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War confirmed that Sparta’s system was preferable. It was a high-spirited military aristocracy ruling over a permanent servant class, the helots, who were periodically slaughtered to condition them to accept their subhuman status. Athenian democracy by contrast gave too much power to the low-born. The pro-Sparta oligarchy used their patrons’ victory to undo the rights of citizens, and settle scores with their domestic rivals, exiling and executing them and confiscating their wealth.

The Athenian government disloyal to Athens’ laws and contemptuous of its traditions was known as the Thirty Tyrants, and understanding its role and function helps explain what is happening in America today.

You can read all about how Americans have profitted handsomely by sending American jobs to China, where things can be made cheaper with slave labor. But China has also either stolen or bought U. S. technology, and politicians in all levels of government. They see scapping the Constitutional Republic and adopting an authoritarian system like China's as a way to maintain their personal power, wealth and prestige.

That Democratic officials intentionally destroyed lives and ended thousands of them by sending the ill to infect the elderly in nursing homes is irrelevant to America’s version of the Thirty Tyrants. The job was to boost coronavirus casualties in order to defeat Trump and they succeeded. As with Athens’ anti-democratic faction, America’s best and brightest long ago lost its way. At the head of the Thirty Tyrants was Critias, one of Socrates’ best students, a poet and dramatist. He may have helped save Socrates from the regime’s wrath, and yet the philosopher appears to have regretted that his method, to question everything, fed Critias’ sweeping disdain for tradition. Once in power, Critias turned his nihilism on Athens and destroyed the city.

...snip...

The idea that countries that scorn basic human and democratic rights should not be directly funded by American industry and given privileged access to the fruits of U.S. government-funded research and technology that properly belongs to the American people is hardly a partisan idea—and has, or should have, little to do with Donald Trump. But the historical record will show that the melding of the American and Chinese elites reached its apogee during Trump’s administration, as the president made himself a focal point for the China Class, which had adopted the Democratic Party as its main political vehicle. That’s not to say establishment Republicans are cut out of the pro-China oligarchy—Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s shipbuilder billionaire father-in-law James Chao has benefited greatly from his relationship with the CCP, including college classmate Jiang Zemin. Gifts from the Chao family have catapulted McConnell to only a few slots below Feinstein in the list of wealthiest senators.

...snip...

The family of the incoming commander-in-chief was reportedly given an interest-free loan of $5 million by businessmen with ties to the Chinese military, while Biden’s son Hunter called his Chinese business partner the “spy chief of China.” The reason that the press and social media censored preelection reports of Hunter Biden’s alleged ties to the CCP was not to protect him—$5 million is less than what Bezos has made every hour during the course of the pandemic. No, for the pro-China oligarchy, the point of getting Joe Biden elected was to protect themselves.

As Smith makes clear, the damage the thirty tyrants did, executing and banishing their opponents and stealing their wealt was significant. On the other hand, their reign of terror was short lived.

Because they hate you

 Following on yesterday's post about the need to stop wearing masks, is Eric Utter's post today at the American Thinker entitled A Nation Behind Masks. Utter starts his post by describing a mask as a device for hiding who you are. Then he writes:

Masks can’t cover up, disguise, or conceal the real, grotesque reasons why we have been forced to wear them. They can’t hide the fact that our rulers and “experts” enjoy the power they have over those they make don them. Nor can they cloak the disdain our rulers and “experts” have for us, as continually proven by their almost universal refusal to wear masks. In the very same places and situations, and at the very same times, that they mandate we wear them. How many elegant soirées have we seen at which maskless Democratic politicians are being feted by uniformly masked servants?

And that is how they think of us. As servants. This is the reverse of what was intended by the Founders. We pay them via our taxes. They are public servants. They are supposed to serve us.

Instead, they wear expensive dresses saying, “Tax the Rich.” Instead, they screw us.

And yet we genuflect to them, don our masks and treat our fellow human beings as if they are nothing more than carriers of disease, bringers of sickness and death. We shy away from social interaction and human touch. Some of our kids wear two diapers, one on their bottoms and one on their faces. Older children are now socially and emotionally stunted, their growth retarded by the masks that make it impossible to discern others’ feelings and harder to hear their words. Are they smiling or frowning?

That is probably the worst of it. That everyone looks at everyone else not as a friend, a colleague, but as the potential carrier of disease. The elites are training us to hate each other the way they hate us. We can not let them do this to us. Humans are social creatures, and masks destroy social opportunities, making us less human.

We Need To See Each Other Face to Face

 Maureen Mullarkey tells us What Hiding Our Faces Tells Us About the Condition Of Our Souls. The face of a newborn has barely any distinguishing features. But as the face ages, it takes on lines, wrinkles, and other distinctive features, some of which no doubt are due to that person's life experiences.

Here within the orbit of Manhattan, masks are not merely tolerated; they are embraced. Obedience to Covidian biopolitics elevated masking to a sacramental act. It has become the secular analogy to sprinkling holy water or making the sign of the cross.

...snip...

Instead, the tenor of our faces—their expressive tonality—is formed and fixed in the furnace of living. The lived life is a kiln that consumes facile ideas about how to create, or maintain, mortal beauty. Only moral imagination resists the old pagan cult of the body with its fixation on health and material beauty.

At a certain age, mother insisted, every face is stamped—who knows how?—with the character of our choices, of what we have found worthy of praise or blame. It is inflected by those things we pity and those we censure or resent. In the eyes of this Ursuline nun, a face is the work of our minds. Incised on it is the texture and reach of our hearts. Call it soulcraft.

The other day I saw a coworker in the break room without a mask for the first time. Her face was lovely, and I told her so. We should all see each other face to face.

Is Ray Epps the Key?

 At the American Thinker today, John Green asks Is Ray Epps the Key? The key to what you ask? Well, John Green takes us through the January 6 incident and shows that while Epps clearly attempted to instigate the Capitol riots, he isn't charged with anything. Why not? Others, who merely entered and walked around are seemingly having the book thrown at them.

Is Ray Epps the key to uncovering a deep state conspiracy that many of us have suspected for years? With what we have witnessed with Midyear Exam, Crossfire Hurricane, the Whitmer Kidnapping, the 2020 election, and now the January 6 “insurrection,” it has become obvious that our government is not that of a healthy functioning democratic republic. But the depths of the corruption, and how far bad actors are willing to go in corrupting our society, has largely remained hidden.

...snip...

Who is Ray Epps? He’s a Marine veteran and the owner of a ranch in Arizona which is used as a wedding venue. He is also the former president of the Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers -- a group which as been under the watchful eye of the FBI for some time. Prior to 2021, Epps and his wife were listed as officers of Patriot Holdings LLC -- a commercial real estate company. They were removed from their positions in May of 2021. It is unknown if their departure from Patriot Holdings resulted in any financial distress for the couple. We don’t know if Ray Epps is, or has been, an asset to a federal agency. We do know that his background would make him a prime candidate for recruitment. We also know that there have been a number of curious connections between the feds and the Oath Keepers.

On January 5, the night before the Capitol break-in, Ray Epps was seen on numerous videos approaching groups of people around the Capitol. He used a canned speech to encourage everyone to enter the Capitol – supposedly for the sake of the Constitution. All rejected his advice, with some even accusing him of being a fed.

Doesn't it seem as if this might have been a false flag operation? It is not as if the FBI hasn't set people up before. The kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer is a classic example. If it wasn't for the FBI providing encouragement, technical expertise and various other material support, the kidnapping would have been some duffuses jawboning at a Waffle House. As it was, Whitmer was never in any danger.

For years now, since at least the Obama administration, it has seemed as if our government hates us average Americans.  And Joe Biden shows us more of that hatred every time he makes a speech.  It's as if they fear us.  And have you noticed that all of them seem to be gun grabbers.  If they were working in our interests, they would not fear us, and thus would not hate us.

What they want is money and power, without having to seek the consent of the governed.  Since we no longer have kings, I guess these people would be called tyrants.  And Ray Epps may be the key unraveling this coup against the American people.

Will it be too late?

 Today, at the American Thinker a doctor, Henry F. Smith, Jr., M.D. wonders about Our Bizarre Devotion to COVID Vacccines. Smith starts out by presenting baffling statistics. The statistics just seem bizarre.

In my former life as a doctrinaire practitioner, I would’ve been loath to consider the wild claims of medical conspiracy theorists. There are those who talk about the vaccine containing graphene and other nanoparticles meant to monitor and control. I certainly don’t believe in these theories. But the escalating efforts to penalize the unvaccinated by their governments seem so irrational that it is not unreasonable to wonder: what the hell is going on?

And there is the crux of the issue. The insistence that EVERYBODY MUST GET VACCINATED. Now!  It doesn't make sense, which causes people to think it is because of of something sinister.

Why insist that an increasingly ineffective immunization be given again and again, at shorter intervals, to the entire human population, including children who tend not to be severely affected? And how can we force injections with products that are still officially investigational, and not FDA approved? And why, as these vaccines have the highest rate of adverse effects by far, according to the CDC’s VAERS data, do we insist? And by firing reluctant healthcare workers, who have a fairly high rate of vaccine hesitancy (I wonder why?), we are stripping the healthcare system of talent we now claim to desperately need.

None of this passes any test of common sense. More and more I think people are beginning to realize this, and are growing skeptical. Even elements of the press are starting to ask questions like: “how many more boosters will we be expected to take?”

I suspect we will eventually find out, but when we do, it will be too late.

What the COVID lies are all about

 Andrea Widburg has a post at the American Thinker entitled It turns out that, if you doubted COVID's deadlines, you were correct.

Something peculiar has become clear over the last two years: leftists seem to enjoy the COVID panic. For them, it started with the camaraderie of lockdowns and morphed in the smug self-righteousness of the masks and vaccinations, all made shiveringly delicious with that soupçon of fear that pairs well with totalitarian mandates. CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky's appearance on Monday's Good Morning America, however, may destroy that delightful emotional castle in which leftists have immured themselves.

It turns out that most vaccinated people no longer need fear imminent death. It's been very weird for those of us who have maintained some degree of objectivity about the whole COVID uproar to see leftists maintain their high degree of terror about COVID despite their being vaccinated and boosted. JP Sears perfectly captures the illogical combination of fear and the lust for power that has seen the leftists ramp up their paranoia even as omicron proves to be innocuous and they're madly injecting mRNA treatments into their bodies:

Please, of course watch J. P. Sears' video.  Not only is if funny, but it shows the illogic of the vaccination and mask mandates.  What all of the lies have been about is tyranny.  

The Democrats Are Intent On Destroying Democracy

 So, the Democrats want to destroy the filibuster, because they can't get their election 'reforms' otherwise.  And of course if they  got all the 'reforms' on their wish list, it would destroy democracy, but would put Democrats in power forever.  Which is the whole reason they want it so badly.  Kurt Schlichter has an article that gives some election reforms that actually make sense without taking elections out of the States hands and putting it in Federal hands.  That last, Federalizing elections is, of course, Unconstitutional, but when did that ever matter to the Dems?  They want power, and whatever they can get away with is up for grabs.  Schlichter's article can be found  at Townhall.com at Hey Dems, We Got Your Election Reforms Right Here.

Now, the Democrats have a very different objective in reforming the election system than we do. They seek to make it easier for lazy and stupid people to vote. This is perfectly reasonable, considering that the indolent and idiotic make up key components of the Democrat coalition. Further, they want to flood the system with unaccountable votes in order to allow themselves to cheat. In this way, they can steal wins where otherwise voters would reject them for their incompetence, corruption, and general tiresomeness.

But we patriots have a different goal. We want election security, and we also want to make it more difficult for bums and morons to participate in our electoral system. The Dems complain that we would make it harder to vote. Guilty as charged! Voting should be a minor inconvenience in order to screen out the lay-abouts and mouth-breathers who find getting up off their stained, stinking couches, wiping the Doritos detritus off their Linkin Park t-shirts, and taking the bus to the polling station too much of a hassle.

So, what would real reform look like you might ask. People will no doubt have different ideas but these are a good starting point:

Our patriot voter reforms, in contrast, recognize the primacy of electoral security and the idea that if it’s too much trouble to vote, you will probably be voting for some leftist tool anyway. Here are the key components of our “Voting Freedom Initiative”:

Picture voter ID both to register and to vote. If you are too dumb to get an ID, you should be licking windows instead of casting ballots.

No same day registration. There’s no way to confirm your identity the same day you sign up.

One day voting, on Election Day. If it’s too much trouble to vote on Election Day, don’t.

In-person voting. If you are deployed with the military or in an iron lung, you can vote absentee. Everyone else shows up in-person.

Only absentee ballots arriving by 5 pm on election day get counted.

No ballot harvesting. That nonsense ends.

Paper ballots only. We want an audit trail.

No ballots not counted within 12 hours of the polls closing get counted. We’re done with dumps and “found” ballots.

Every vote gets counted in public with lots of observers. Total transparency.

Large urban centers must report votes first. This makes it hard for Democrat pols to know how many ballots to find.

No changes to election laws or procedures within 180 days of the election. That gives time for us to litigate the scams.

One thing that Schlichter did not mention is that we also need to clean up the voter rolls. Jay Valentine has a piece on the results of various State election integrity projects. And what he reports should concern every voter out there. You can find his article at the American Thinker at When A Secretary of State Is In On Voter Fraud. And surprise, surprise, both Democrats and Republicans appear to be in on the fraud.

We coined the term “sovereign fraud” right here on American Thinker. At the time, it was a concept, until we started doing voter anomaly analysis for one large, Midwestern swing state.

We have now finished state 15, on the way to 30 or more; we can say with certainty that the Secretaries of State are unlikely to lead voter roll clean up. In many states, they thwart it with flagrant data tricks.

It is hard not feel like "a pox on both partys" after reading Valentine's article. But the integrity of voter rolls is just as important as reforming our elections to get rid of the shenanigans that have plagued our voting system.

The November 4, 2020 Coup d'etat

 So, I wasn't going to help the Democrats celebrate their coup d'etat today, but then I read Vince Coyner's article at the American Thinker entitled There Was No Insurrection, But There Was a Coup, and thought it was a pretty good summary of what has happened. The first thing to keep in mind is that there were no guns found among anybody who participated in the riot that day. None. Now if this was an insurrection, how can that be? The answer, of course, is that it was nothing of the kind. Every time I hear someone say the words "violent insurrection"  with reference to the January 6 riot, my blood starts to boil. The only violence was when Ashli Babbitt was shot by a Capitol Police officer.

The fact that Molly Ball, at Time magazine conveniently let the cat out of the bag with her article The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election should have been a road map to track down and prosecute the perpetrators of this coup. Instead, what the American people have been treated to is a constant drumbeat of propaganda claiming it was the other side that did it.  Well, as usual, if the Democrats are pointing the fingers at Republicans, you can be sure the Democrats are actually doing the dirty deed.

Which brings up a third point, maybe the most perplexing of all: why have the Republicans gone along with this coup?  Whether Chucky Schumer gets his "For the Democrats...er...People Act" passed or not, the Republicans should pursue a massive purge of Democrats.  The coup d'etat that took place of November 4 is not something that can be forgiven. People must go to jail. Otherwise, our Republic is dead.

Go read the whole article.

May Your Chains Set Lightly Upon You

So, apparently the "experts" are now admitting that the mandated masks have never been about stopping the virus, since they don't, but about instead controlling people. Kylee Zemple, has the story at The Federalist entitled Health 'Experts' Finally Admit Mask Control People Not Viruses.

We’ve been censored. Hollered at by Karens in the grocery store and sometimes even outdoors. We’ve been lectured, demonized, scoffed at, and called murderers and rubes — all for the sin of ignoring mask security theater and daring to show the lower half of our faces in public. That’s why it’s just remarkable to hear the experts now admit that the same face coverings required in so many establishments and localities are not stopping any virus from spreading.

...snip...

This is now the wisdom imparted by the experts, that the sweaty, flimsy, itchy muzzles that have been forced on schoolchildren, healthy athletes, socially distant employees, grocery-shopping moms, and even their toddlers are “not appropriate.” They’re nothing more than “facial decorations” against a virus that’s in the air and can’t be contained.

The information has been out there since the beginning. Fauci, in fact initially told the truth. But then someone told him that gee, let's see how many people can be scared into wearing a soggy face diaper. It has been both eye opening, and incredibly disappointing. I thought my fellow citizens were an independent bunch. But what I find is that a sizable number of them live in fear, and are willing to hand over their lives to authorities that have no clue. I am reminded here of a quote by Sam Adams:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” ― Samuel Adams

Dr. Malone: U.S. under 'mass formation psychosis'

You probably know who Dr. Robert Malone is, but if not here is a biography. As you can see, he was the inventor of mRNA technology. So when twitter cut him off for criticizing Big Pharma, they are not listening to the science. Indeed, it is entirely possible that Malone may have been off base with his remarks. But then the proper thing to do would be to counter his remarks, not plug peoples' ears while yelling 'fa la la la.' Clearly, twitter is a sewer and the less time spent their the better.

Indeed, if you want a more balanced take on Malone, you could do worse that Monica Showalter at the American Thinker entitled Did banned mRHA vax inventor Robert W. Malone M.D. just break the Google algorithm?

Did the Twitter punks who banned mRNA vaccine inventor and bona fide vaccine expert Robert W. Malone, M.D. just set off the Mother of all Backfires?

Kind of looks like it, now that they've drawn so much public interest to the man that they've apparently broken the Google algorithm for censoring stories about him.

Dr. Malone has noted that vaccine mandates are illegal, and violate the Nuremburg Code. Today, at the Epoch Times Malone speaks to Joe Rogan and tells him the U. S. is in a 'mass formation psychosis' over COVID. I think that about sums up the situation. At least half of the population has been driven nuts over what can only be described as a bad cold. Survival from this disease is something like 99.6%. These are extremely good odds!  It is time for most people to return to sanity.

Please read the full articles

Living In the Devil's World

 First off, let me say Happy New Year to my gentle readers.  I have been remiss in posting, it is true, but I have been severely under the weather with the flu.  Yes, I got the flu shot, but it is always a crap shoot.  I am over the worst, but am still easily fatigued.  Well, I hear you thinking, you must get tested to see if it was the dreaded Omicron.  But I ask: "Why?"  What good does it do me to know if it was Omicron or just a stardard flu?  Would I have done anything different?  I don't think so.

There are two articles today, both of them at the American Thinker, both of them sounding a similar theme. The first article is by Dee Chadwell, and is entitled The Devil's World. Chadwell clearly spells out what our purpose is here on Earth. That purpose is to be God's warriors fighting the Devil. It is as if she had read Father Longenecker's book Immortal Combat, which makes the same point, only in a longer format that allows greater explanation.

Chadwell cites a number of problems facing our nation from mass unchecked immigration at our borders, to inflation, education, election integrity and so on. And she notes that all of these seemingly intractable problems have relatively simple solutions. To make matters worse, we know what these solutions are. So, why don't we implement them immediately? Don't we have even the courage of our convictions? Christ noted that if we had faith as small as a mustard seed, we could move mountains. So what does that say about our faith?

And it is here then that Chadwell comes to the point. We are living in the Devil's world:

The answer to that is also simple, but it’s terrifying: this is the devil’s world. He runs it and he wants to run it his way -- the opposite of what is known to work and work well. He wants to one-up God. (Isaiah 14). He’s failing miserably, that’s obvious, but he isn’t going to let that stop him from trying.

You see, when we start running things the way God dictates, Satan is going to fight us with everything he has. Why do you think there was such rampant fraud in the last election? Why is there still such a nonsensical resistance to election integrity? Why are they talking about packing the Supreme Court? Why are they hell-bent on enlarging government and driving up the national debt?

Common-sense solutions are a huge embarrassment to the devil and his minions. They think they’re smarter, better, more nuanced than everyone else, so we can’t have just regular folks fixing problems -- problems they not only have failed to fix, but caused in the first place.

If one follows the news, it seems as if there is a person or a group there to fight against every one of the common sense solutions mentioned by Chadwell. Mostly, these people put up nonsensical "reasons" for "feeling" the way they do. The truth is that these people are in thrall to the Devil. Oh, I know, you don't want to believe it. It feels too...medieval, somehow. One wants to believe that he is above superstitious mumbo jumbo. And so, the Devil accomplishes his goal of making the world believe he doesn't exist.  But he does.

This is where I always end up -- God. We absolutely can’t fix this mess without Him. He is the giver of courage. He is the producer of patience. He is our salvation, both spiritually and nationally. He is absolute truth, so if we follow Him -- through His Son, Jesus Christ -- we will be able to claw our way out of the trust issues that plague our national discourse. If we absorb His Word, we will find the solutions, the guidance we need. That’s what ancient Israel was for -- an example for the rest of the nations.

Things are, after all, essentially binary. That’s why the left so hates that idea. There are only two ways to do things: God’s way or the devil’s way. There’s no middle ground, no just being a “good” person, no reorganizing of society in “reimagined” ways. We have no need to reinvent the wheel -- it was round to begin with. All the Satanic ideas merely add pointed corners. They may plump some egos, but the overall result is always tragic.

We now turn to the other article today at the American Thinker by Andrew W. Coy entitled Men Have Forgotten God. Just as we have been convinced, through our own pride and sense of superiority to belive the Devil does not exist, we have also been led astray to forget God.

"Men have forgotten God". When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was still a young child growing up in Russia/Soviet Union many of the elder population were asked, why is all this calamity falling upon us? Why are the authorities limiting our freedoms and choices? Why are we not allowed our basic human rights? Why are we starving to death? Why are the authorities creating a surveillance police state that monitors our every move? Why are we being sent to the gulags for our disagreement with the authorities? Why are our churches being shuttered? Why is religion forbidden? The answer that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn remembers hearing as a child from the older, more experienced, wiser Russians was that "Men have forgotten God; that's why all of this has happened." The Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist government and rule was allowed to happen and expand. And thus it became more dictatorial, oppressive, and authoritative. All this, according to the elderly Russians, because men had forgotten God.

...snip...

When we look for the answers to why have these things gone so wrong so quickly, I suspect we can really find those answers; if we look hard enough and are honest enough. And by the way, it really has not been that quickly. We have raised a generation since the 1960s questioning "Is God Dead?" And now,that generation is in power in the city of Washington. What did we think would then happen? The American experiment was built on four vital columns of steel. They were Faith, Family, Freedom, and the Free-Markets. The American house appears to be crumbling and titling ever so quickly into a disastrous collapse. This is because the four principal pillars are being knocked out from under it. For the constitutional republic to stand, the four basic columns must be reinforced under the house. Starting with Faith. Faith is the cornerstone. For when "Men have forgotten God", the house will undoubtedly crumble. And something else will be built upon the ruins, and this something else will look nothing like America. Just ask Solzhenitsyn, and Washington, and Adams, and...

I urge readers to click on both articles today and see if there might not be the ring of truth in both of them.