Tag: community

If 2020 Vision Woke Up People to Their Slavery, 2021 Already Gave Us a Look Ahead!

(Photo by: Education Images/UIG via Getty Images)

2020 will go down as the year most people remember complying with two weeks to flatten the curve, “supporting” BLM/Antifa as they took their anger out on 150 federal buildings, untold private businesses and killing hundreds and then becoming deputized to enforce the various mask mandates until looking forward to Operation Warp Speed’s vaccines. The rest of us saw many of our family members, friends and co-workers become happy with the chains that have, loving the safety they feel from the government religion. The most common word for 2020 was “stupid” for those of us that could think critically. Logic seemed missing as feeings ruled.

Well enough about 2020 as that year is in our rear-view mirror, already in 2021 we can see the trends and chart the trajectory. As 2021 dawned it became very apparent that the grand merger has happened, big business and big government are indeed one in the same. In the past it was one thing to see the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) in action in Vietnam, the Cold War and quickly followed by Gulf War I, Afghanistan, the Iraq Invasion and then the Democrats, seeing the lure of MIC lobbyist money, sparked Libya and Syria. But what emerged in 2020 was another MIC, the Medical Industrial Complex and its partner by way of the Bill Gates connection, another MIC, the Media Industrial Complex including big tech and MSM.

Angelo Codevilla’s 19JAN2021 article is a great place to review how it all happened and gives us a glimpse into the future. He writes:

In 2021, the laws, customs, and habits of the heart that had defined the American republic since the 18th century are things of the past. Americans’ movements and interactions are under strictures for which no one ever voted. Government disarticulated society by penalizing ordinary social intercourse and precluding the rise of spontaneous opinion therefrom. Together with corporate America, it smothers minds through the mass and social media with relentless, pervasive, identical, and ever-evolving directives. In that way, these oligarchs have proclaimed themselves the arbiters of truth, entitled and obliged to censor whoever disagrees with them as systemically racist, adepts of conspiracy theories.

Corporate America and the Federal Government have teamed up on a final assault of anything that rings of individual liberty, freedom and Natural rights. The shift towards USSR-think has been astounding, but so many in their corporate jobs that required years in socialist universities are blind toward any problem. Between their remote status and their student loan debt, they are as dependent on government as those that are on welfare.

Angelo goes on:

Corporations, and the government itself, require employees to attend meetings personally to acknowledge their guilt. They solicit mutual accusations. While violent felons are released from prison, anyone may be fired or otherwise have his life wrecked for questioning government/corporate sentiment. Today’s rulers don’t try to convince. They demand obedience, and they punish.

This is 2021 and beyond. This is the squeeze. Between big business and those directly dependent on the government, obedience will be the main thing as the compliance of 2020 made the elite ever so bold in this assault.

“the United States of America is now a classic oligarchy”

Angelo does a great job in charting the course of this moment back to the late 1800’s and shows how our grandparents and parents were also blind to this trajectory. Personally, for me the rot came in 1787 with the secret penning of the US Constitution when Patrick Henry said “I smell a rat”

Angelo also shows the recent acceleration of America’s path to oligarchy, through a catalyst called Donald Trump:

Thus, as the oligarchy set about negating the 2016 electorate’s attempt to stop its consolidation of power, Trump had assured them that they would neither be impeded as they did so nor pay a price. Donald Trump is not responsible for the oligarchy’s power. But he was indispensable to it.

Trump’s rise gave clarity to the Resistance as to who they were up against and gave fuel to motivate them to rally their allies:

#TheResistance rallied every part of the ruling class to mutually supporting efforts. Nothing encourages, amplifies, or seemingly justifies extreme sentiments as does being part of a unanimous chorus, a crowd, a mob—especially when all can be sure they are acting safely, gratuitously. Success supercharges them. #TheResistance fostered the sense in the ruling class’ members that they are more right, more superior, and more entitled than they had ever imagined. It made millions of people feel bigger and better about themselves than they ever had.

Moral superiors, not unlike how the North felt toward the South in 1861, that being just as racist, or even more than their Southern brothers, they felt as though they were on the right side and could justify ANYTHING that stood in their way of making the whole country “right”. Talk about a narrative that cost 750,000 lives, not unlike other totalitarian narratives of Mao, Stalin and Hitler that cost millions.

The trigger for this rapid transition was non other than a virus with an IFR of 0.01%, the scary Covid-19 and Trump’s actions in mid-March 2020:

Because the power to crush the general population’s resistance to itself is the oligarchy’s single-minded focus, it was able to bend fears of COVID to that purpose. Thus, it gathered more power with more consequences than the oligarchs could have imagined.

But only President Trump’s complaisance made this possible. His message to the American people had been not to panic, be mindful of the scientific facts—you can’t stop it, and it’s not that bad—while mitigating its effects on vulnerable populations. But on March 15, Trump bent, and agreed to counsel people to suspend normal life for two weeks to “slow the spread,” so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. Two weeks later, the New York Times crowed that Trump, having been told “hundreds of thousands of Americans could face death if the country reopened too soon,” had been stampeded into “abandoning his goal of reopening the country by Easter.” He agreed to support the “experts’” definition of what “soon” might mean. By accrediting the complex of government, industry, and media’s good faith and expertise, Trump validated their plans to use COVID as a vehicle for enhancing their power.

The Covid-19 express was then followed by the BLM/Antifa distraction once Trump’s impeachment process concluded, and this would give cover to the oligarchy all the way to election day:

The oligarchy’s proximate objective, preventing the 2020 presidential election from validating the previous one’s results, overrode all others. The powers it had seized under COVID’s cover, added to the plethora that it had exercised since the 2016 campaign’s beginning, had surely cowered some opposition. But as November 2020 loomed, no one could be sure how much it also had energized.

Few people were happy to be locked down. It was a safe bet that not a few were unhappy at being called systemically racist. The oligarchy, its powers notwithstanding, could not be sure how people would vote. That is why it acted to take the presidential election’s outcome out of the hands of those who would cast the votes and to place it as much as possible in the hands of its members who would count the votes.

I know Trump saw this coming, he barked about this up to election day but only did something when it was too late:

Pennsylvania et. al. answered Texas’s late lawsuit by arguing it demanded the invalidation of votes that had been cast in good faith. True. But Texas argued that letting stand the results of an election carried out contrary to the Constitution devalued the votes cast in states such as Texas that had held the election in a constitutional manner. Also true. Without comment, the Supreme Court chose to privilege the set of voters on the oligarchy’s side over those of their opponents. Had the lawsuit come well before the election, no such choice would have existed. Typically, the Trump Administration substituted bluster for action.

So now, what does the future hold? Well as long as the oligarchy can stay united in its hate for 74 million Americans that voted for Trump, it can do quite a bit of pent-up damage from the last 4 years that they hope to recover from:

The logic of hate and disdain of ordinary Americans is not only what binds the oligarchy together. It is the only substitute it has for any moral-ethical-intellectual point of reference. Donald Trump’s impotent, inglorious reaction to his defeat offered irresistible temptations to the oligarchy’s several sectors to celebrate victory by vying to hurt whoever had supported the president. But permanent war against some 74 million fellow citizens is a foredoomed approach to governing.

The Democratic Party had promised a return to some kind of “normalcy.” Instead, its victory enabled the oligarchy’s several parts to redefine the people who do not show them due deference as “white supremacists,” “insurrectionists,” and Nazis—in short, as some kind of criminals—to exclude them from common platforms of communication, from the banking system, and perhaps even from air travel; and to set law enforcement to surveil them in order to find bases for prosecuting them. Neither Congress nor any state’s legislature legislated any of this. Rather, the several parts of America’s economic, cultural, and political establishment are waging this war, uncoordinated but well-nigh unanimously.

Division keeps the eye off government’s own short-comings, which they are many, but in order to stay relevant, they all have to stay “in the loop”.

In summary, Angelo states that in effect, the actions of the woke-elites sends a message loud and clear to those who treasure family and community, and business no matter how small. Separate!

In sum, intending to relegate conservative America to society’s servile sidelines, the oligarchy’s members drew a clear, sharp line between themselves and that America. By telling conservative Americans “these institutions and corporations, are ours, not yours,” they freed conservative America of moral obligations toward them and themselves. By abandoning conservative America, they oblige conservative America to abandon them and seek its own way.

If there were a way to do this peacefully like the USSR did that would be great. But I do not see the ruling elite as giving up ANYTHING they value in this separation. Please note how the so-called American Civil War ended, with the southern region ruined in poverty for 100 years!

Time to be wise as serpents as we who value the individual over the collective, freedom over slavery and family over government chart our future.

Peace out

-SF1

Collectivism Addiction – The US Society Circles the Drain

The masses have been sold that collectivism, the whole “Diversity and Inclusion” agenda (typical these days to name things opposite of what they actually accomplish, like war on terror, war on poverty, Anfifa and BLM), has been projected to make a better tomorrow, for the “greater good”.

Puke. Anyone with critical thinking skills knows that people are unique individuals, endowed by their Creator with unique talent and gift set, that in community with others “can” achieve amazing things to the benefit of society. Most of the time, this is serendipitous, luck or I contend, a God-arranged group for such a time. Think militias in South Carolina colony that kept Cornwallis behind in his agenda to roll up the southern colonies and join Clinton in the north to finish off George Washington.

From an eight year old article in Lew Rockwell’s web site ( ‘The Scourge of Collectivism’ ) comes some pretty accurate critique of this whole collective approach to life, that no doubt only benefits the ruling elites in the long term.

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, “to be free from freedom.”

~ Eric Hoffer

Yes, Nazism is pure collective and totalitarian thought. You can group this with Fascism, Socialism, Communism and even Democracy.

As Butler Shaffer pointed out in the past in his great article titled Collectivist Utopias:

“All political systems are socialistic, in that they are premised upon the subservience of individual interests to collective authority.”

Politics is the place where good ideas go to die. I have seen this inside big business, small churches and the US government.

“Collectivism holds that, in human affairs, the collective — society, the community, the nation, the proletariat, the race, etc. — is the unit of reality and the standard of value. On this view, the individual has reality only as a part of the group, and value only insofar as he serves it.”

~ Leonard Peikoff

This is America’s greatest loss in the last century, the lure of collectivism is an easy out for the masses to pretend they are helping.

The mind of the collectivist is empty and pitiful, and has not the ability to think on its own. It has no uniqueness; it has no individual personality. It does not create, nor does it possess any sense of self. The collectivist mind can’t possess these virtues because it is only a very small cog in a wheel of the group. It is but a speck in the midst of a mob. This is the story of America today, as collectivism runs rampant and individualism is shunned.

It is a very sad story that runs counter to what the founding generation had to offer each colony, the American colonies and the world. Acting as individuals that each could think for themselves, militias came and went, bad battles/strategies had no one to fight them, good battles/strategies had plenty of volunteers. The collective Continental Army was not as lucky.

When collectivism takes hold, individual rights naturally disappear, and mob rule policies take root. This policy transformation of course, is affected by the state. The progression from a system that is based on individual self rule and individual sovereignty to one of community or nation is not in the interest of freedom and liberty. When any political system is in place, this negative progression is easily achieved nonetheless. Only peaceful anarchy allows for the individual to be truly sovereign. Only when the state is absent can freedom flourish.

Ruling “elites” crave this merging of individuals into a societal tumor, because this cancer destroys the power of individual thought. The result of this diseased system can lead only to consensus and compromise. It can lead only to corruption. Consensus leads to no real decision at all, and the following compromise is nothing more than a mass combining of ignorance. When political policy is decided in this manner, it serves only to limit the individual’s ability to achieve.

The state is the poison for society. The state must be minimized for liberty and freedom to thrive. Perceived safety as a goal always leads to little liberty and little safety in the long term.

“.. In the United States today, virtually everything is decided by the few, but with the implied consent of the mob. The U.S. political system has major aspects of socialism and fascism, and is certainly an oligarchy, but most have the misguided notion that the mob is in charge. This is due to a belief by the masses in the farce of voting. Voting gives the false impression that the voters themselves are in control, but nothing could be further from the truth. In essence, those voted into office as “representatives” of the people, are fully controlled by very powerful interest groups, and these groups are the real rulers. This is a very flawed system, but it is one that gives the false impression that the majority rules. That is simply not the case, and even if it were, it would still be immoral! This system is accepted and embraced by the crowd, but in reality, why should anyone rule over anyone else, majority or not? How can freedom survive in a place where one has the power to rule over another? I can tell you, it can’t!..”

In 2020, only those in denial still believe that voting matters.

Finally, be aware of all the ways this collective thought, sounding so true when first heard, can be destructive of families and communities, which is the ultimate goal of the ruling elites.

“.. The collective “we” has been brainwashed into believing that self-interest, self-responsibility, and self-sufficiency are not in the best interest of the group, but just the opposite of course is the case. This brainwashing has been accomplished through a long indoctrination process that is still firmly in place…”

  • Consider the government’s “public” school system, where most every child in the country is taught the same nonsense for most of his learning years, and is indoctrinated throughout childhood to love first his community, state, and nation.
  • Consider the worship for a constitution that gave massive and in some cases, unlimited (not limited) power to a federal government, and lessened greatly the importance of the individual in favor of the “general welfare.”
  • Consider the reliance on government welfare by the people via the multitude of social programs that are meant to make dependency on government almost mandatory.
  • Consider the mindset of the “99 per centers” that aim to force the so-called 1 per cent to be more inclusive, fair, and responsive to the group.
  • Consider the mob’s acceptance of a heavy and progressive income taxation used as a way to equalize outcomes by redistributing private property for the so-called benefit of all.
  • Consider “public” lands or “public” anything.
  • Consider the idiotic term, “giving back.”
  • Consider today’s strict concentration on race, class, society as a whole, community, state, and nation, all more important than the individual.
  • Consider the mass acceptance of the National Anthem and the communistic Pledge of Allegiance.
  • Consider the constant call “for the greater good of society!”

We need to challenge the promotion of this poisonous thought in unique ways that only the individual can carry out being wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove 🙂

Peace out

-SF1

APR2017 Throwback: “Swamp Fox (Reflections)”

A few years ago during my first read of ‘The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution‘ I had a moment of reflection that I still believe holds true today.

Note the names have been changed to “protect the innocent”:

Halftime in this book, time for a little reflection as to how things were in 1780, how things were for us in the 1990s .. and reflecting on the future.

In dialog over the past week with my son Captain1776 regarding the recaps I have been sharing went like this:

Captain1776: “.. Can’t imagine evading, hiding, having limited food n clothes, fighting a long war away from family as your brothers and neighbors die… its crazy ..”
SF1/Dad: “.. Back then society consisted of mainly pioneer types … this allowed Marion to be supplied buy a slim majority in some areas .. today society is full of snowflakes IMHO . look at your neighbors and think how many would risk to supply you if you led rebellion against the Government. Yup .. a LOT of work to do to change hearts and minds .. will probably need to be preceded by government defaulting on it’s promises in a big way ..”
Captain1776: “..That’s some truth right there. I don’t think there’d be anyone willing to help lol. Smh!..”

I was sitting on the deck this morning in the mid-40s sunshine that SW Michigan offered up with my eyes closed. My mind reflected back to the 1990s when we had a time as family where springtime, especially by April 10th meant it was time for chickens and pigs: (Malibu holding spring chicks)

As a young father, what were my priorities? Family first .. and then community/extended ‘family’. What gave the capacity to do this? Love. Plain and simple, there were just some things that one sacrifices for that don’t always benefit ones self.

As a dad, I love all my kids, and time with them was a premium. But there was also a time that I expanded that to what I call ‘extended family’ .. usually good friends would emerge (whether it was neighbor M.S. or L.G. who I met at church, or B.P. or J.F. or even Pastor R.V.) that would expand my world. My daily thoughts were/are still for them and their families.

It does seem that since 9/11 the distractions from the American Empire and the world have taken center stage, and our love for country wants safety for all involved .. the soldiers as well as the civilians caught up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not long after this “noble” war we learned that it was all based on a lie. Soldiers that did return from the Middle East felt as betrayed as the ones that returned from Vietnam in the 1970s. The American “exceptionalism” meant that we were to go around the world and create new democracies .. however, this too has turned into a lie.

The American media which for generations have brought Americans the journalism that shaped our worldview has started to reveal their true allegiance .. and it is not towards telling the truth.

The American educational system which for generations have taught us a local/regional/national view that has begun to unravel. More Americans everyday are starting to wakeup to the fact that we have been lied to, our parents have been lied to .. our grandparents as well as the version of history, economics and even psychology taught is a subset of what is real.

The American government’s war on poverty, war on drugs, etc. are utter failures, by design, as their monopoly works so that they just need a little more money to get it right while tricking the pawns caught in the web to experience perpetual government dependence or life in prison.

The American corporatism (corporate welfare recipients) have also corrupted our country, with a suspect food supply, suspect health”care” system that only benefits those elites that can gain profit and power from these intrusions into families and communities across America.

The American police state has made it their business to know everything about everybody, and the CIA/FBI/NSA and 14 other intelligence agencies in this country can control both individual lives as well as politics. They now have the dirt on everyone over the past decade plus that can be used as blackmail since all that data can easily be taken out of context to prove ones guilt to the myriad of laws on the books .. and even remove anyone from society with a trip to Gitmo or soon, a drone strike.

Twenty short years from the 1990s it seems that we have lost almost the rest of what America had to offer to those pioneers in the 1600/1700s that provided Francis Marion that opportunity to serve his FAMILY and COMMUNITY by doing sacrificially what he did over the course of two plus years to help the “cause” for each of the thirteen sovereign states to be independent from the English Empire.

While the erosion of locality, family & community, has been ongoing since almost right after the American Revolution .. the last 20/50/150 years has seen times that accelerated this slide.

Personally, I am in the middle of unlearning all that government schools taught me in the 1960s/1970s .. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are not the people the text books make them out to be. This is NOT an exercise in bashing others to make me look good or right. This is an effort to knock down those idols, those deified gods our state has propped up to support their narrative on being that “shining city on a hill” BS.

The real heroes are the family men and women who sacrifice their time, money and sometimes life to provide their kids and community with liberty and freedom.

Francis Marion is one of those rare people that became a legend and yet when a light is shined on their lives they were real people with a heart for others.

So while the evening news, Yahoo News or Google searches try to distract you into thinking that only the American Empire can keep you and your family safe, and that the Nanny State loves all her children and that the Daddy State (Military Industrial Complex) is a righteous power for good in this world and that the Police State can keep you safe from all the bad guys by knowing everything (if you see something, say something) .. think again.

Do your own homework and research. Teach your kids and challenge your co-workers to “change minds and hearts”. Above all, know that Papa is especially fond of you, that He has been greatly misunderstood by many religious teachers and know that Jesus is with you and can relate to where you might be at when you feel you are at the end of your rope. Trust the Holy Spirit in your heart to be your guide and your True North.

“The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love y’all

Spring must be a season for reflections .. soak up time with family and friends!

-SF1

Remake of  in 2014 – RIP Dean Ford – Life is Short:

1780OCT – War Amongst Us, What is that Like?

I do believe it is easy for those insulated from war to have no clue as to the short and long term impact of war on people and society. Many of the politicians, generals and admirals remain out of harms way while giving orders to troops on the ground, in the air and on the oceans treating all of this like a video game. At the end of the day they return to their suburban Northern Virginia homes have been able to compartmentalize their day’s decisions that negatively impacted hundreds if not thousands of men and women not counting tens of thousands innocent men, women and children and the lands and societies they have to deal with on a daily basis. American foreign policy is the root negative issue in most parts of this globe while free market forces are solving poverty and other societal issues worldwide in a positive light.

Returning to the 1780 South Carolina colony that is seeking independence in federation with 12 other American colonies from British rule, if one only reads and understands the dates, stats and facts of the various expeditions the British regulars, American Continentals, and militias on both sides accomplished, one misses understanding what it was like for the average family that endured this 7 or 8 year war that was not regulated to far away fields of battle but took place ‘amongst’ us [movie “The Patriot” clip]:

To learn a “Tier 1” only history about a regional conflict only exposes the tip of the iceberg.  Tier 1, if done right should tease readers and listeners to ask questions about Tier 2, a deeper insight into the daily life of the people involved and how it changed the communities involved.

Americans learn Tier 1 in this history classes in schools, Tier 2 requires one to invest the time to seek out deeper understanding, the ability to enter that period of time IN CONTEXT to fully adsorb what was won and what was lost. In the movie “The Patriot”, only the positives were communicated:

The feel good ending to this movie can only allow reality to counterbalance this by investigating, CSI if you will, how free American colonists were before and after the war. While Benjamin Martin (fictitious character that was the combination of three South Carolina militia leaders Pickens, Sumter and Marion) seems to be doing much better, Francis Marion would tell you differently, and that would be even BEFORE the end of this war!

One of the richest insights can be gained by a read of John Oller’s 2016 book “The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution“.  I have included a few clips below that related directly to the posts I have had about October 1780 recently (here, here and here):

With the quieting of the Tory threat east of Camden, Marion sat at Ami’s Mill pondering his next move. On October 4 he confessed to Gates that he had suffered many fatigues over the previous few weeks but had managed to surmount them. He had never had more than sixty or seventy men with him of all ranks, and sometimes as few as a dozen. In some cases he had been forced to fight against men who had left him to join the enemy; he regretted that he had no authority to punish them. If he had a hundred men from Gates’s army, he thought, he could “certainly pay a visit to Georgetown” and attack the British garrison there. But Gates had answered none of his letters—

So early in October, Marion felt very alone after the three wins his militia had in late September that kept the British distracted from rolling up the colonies towards Virginia and eventually toward Washington’s Continentals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey while British General Clinton totally controlled the port of New York with his troops. It had been a stalemate in the north for months now.

Marion also felt the shift in what his leadership skills had to adjust to in commanding Continental regulars who obey verses volunteer militia that could quit at anytime ESPECIALLY if a command was given that the men did not agree with. I contend that this keeps leadership personnel honest and weeds out “management” personnel who are only worried about the status quo and their own position in the politics of things.

Brilliantly, Marion makes yet another bold move ..

Marion decided to make a little probing incursion against Georgetown anyway. He heard that Micajah Ganey, the Tory whose force he had bested at the Blue Savannah, was in Georgetown to reinforce the British garrison there. On October 9 Marion entered the city unmolested with forty men on horse and, once inside, issued a rather audacious demand to the garrison commander to surrender.

So if you have been reading my Tier 1 posts, you thought that Francis Marion and the men that remained with him took three week off from the conflict when in fact, they did venture into “British occupied territory” to harass the Redcoats!

While the British did not surrender …

Before leaving, however, and to show the enemy he was a force to be reckoned with—or just to show off—he took his men on a little parade through the town. They made off with a few horses and some of the enemy’s equipment and captured several notable Tory military men whom Marion immediately paroled to their homes. If nothing else, Marion served notice that if the British wanted to hold the second-largest population center in South Carolina, they would need to keep men and resources tied down there. “This damned Georgetown business,” as the British called it, would prove an unwelcome distraction for months to come.

Marion again attempts communication in his chain of command:

Marion reported to Gates on his little foray, saying he wished to hear from him as soon as possible, for he had received no word from him in a month. As Marion explained, this lack of information forced him to act with extreme caution lest he fall into the enemy’s hands. He closed by asking Gates to excuse his “scrawl,” as he had no table to write on in “this wild woods.” (Sometimes he lacked even paper to write on, which placed a premium on brevity.)

So here you get a little insight into JUST Marion’s world (Tier 2), not even his neighbors miles away near the St. Mark’s district closer to Kingstree, the shopkeepers in Georgetown or anywhere else in South Carolina.

If you wonder why Marion might have targeted Georgetown, you do know that as a teenager he attempted being a sailor and sailed out of Georgetown decades before right? Oh that Tier 2 knowledge sure does help with the context of things. You will find that Marion has a heart for the strategic importance of this port and what it would mean to the patriot cause. However, he was well aware of his limits and would not place his few men in harms way for his dream.

I do hope you are now even more curious about what made this militia leader tick .. if so, welcome aboard!

-SF1

War’s Value to the Politician, Lifelong Warmonger vs. a Father

Politicians think in terms of election cycles, getting elected the next time is their highest priority. Beyond this, it is either the money the can make along the way from lobbyists, or the power they hold while in office, or the lucrative post-political job they can get to pave their way to retirement.

Warmongers are a different breed. War offers an expediency towards things they value most, an elite status that protects them from the everyday, they dream of empire and destruction of everything in the way of that empire.

“This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves…” 1 Samuel 8 – God’s Warning via Samuel

Fathers think and act very differently as their heart is with the next generations. Fathers think on legacy, think of love and selflessness, and would rather deal with war themselves than let their kids deal with it. Fathers would be willing to look like a fool to take the focus off the object of their affection, their son or daughter. Fathers would wage war, as a very last resort, to give their ancestors and their community more freedom and liberty. With freedom their offspring are most likely to thrive in bringing innovative value to others in their community. Sharing the fruits of what they love to do to others who can trade or barter back the fruits of their own talents and gifts. This exchange is called an economy, an environment of cooperation and friendship!

Jeff Deist from the Mises Institute has a short article out today about war, where he states:

Why do seemingly endless military conflicts persist, despite lacking any constituency for their prosecution beyond the DC beltway? And why does US military strategy appear incoherent and counterproductive, when viewed through the lens of peace? Why can’t we do anything about this, no matter whom we elect and no matter how much war fatigue resides in the American public?

The answer is not found in a facile denunciation of the military industrial complex or war profiteers, though both are very serious problems. The answer lies in understanding how the DC War Party operates. Its goals are not ours. It is not democratic; the government is not “us.” It is not political; its architects are permanent fixtures who do not come and go with presidential administrations. It is not accountable; budgeting is nonexistent and gross failures only beget greater funding. It is above all not “economic” — it operates in an artificial “market,” one created and perpetuated by wars and interventions ordinary people don’t want. War socialism, or what former Congressman Barney Frank brilliantly termed “military Keynesianism,” has taken on a life of its own.

War taken to the edges of our world are accomplished by an elite who operate in a cocoon of their own making, insulated from their decisions, while in true sociopathic style, have zero empathy for those caught up in their unleashed hell on earth.

Ludwig von Mises experienced this first hand:

Ludwig von Mises saw peace as the key to any liberal economic program, and argued strenuously against the fallacy of war prosperity. Even early in his career, before his horrific experiences as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, he recognized the critical distinction between economy and war: the former characterized by exchange and cooperation, the latter marked by the worst form of state intervention:

“Only one thing can conquer war — that liberal attitude which can see nothing in war but destruction and annihilation, and which can never wish to bring about a war, because it regards war as injurious even to the victors.”

The victors DO pay a cost even when they do in fact win the war. In the movie ‘The Patriot’ (2000) the fictional main actor Benjamin Martin says at the close of the movie about reflecting on what we have won and what we have lost. There is a cost to war:

.. the loss is not only economic, it is also cultural and moral. War, the ultimate rejection of reason as a means of navigating human society, reduces our capacity for compassion and makes us complacent about atrocities. Worst of all, it emboldens and strengthens the domestic state — encouraging us to accept absurdities like TSA theater and SWAT teams with leftover military vehicles operating in peaceful small towns.

The small town life of the 1950s, the 1910s or the regional societies of the 1840s and 1780s are no more. Culturally and morally the society we have today in the United States is bankrupt. With the government’s effective pacification of the church via 501C3 exemptions, even the Christian religion has next to zero influence in changing or reforming society. Only an underground non-official movement of Jesus followers could positively impact this empire like it did to the Roman Empire in the First Century.

Until then, the atrocities abroad come home to roost.

 While US troops remain mired throughout the Middle East, a subsurface political war heats up in the US. This cold civil war creates the kind of hyper-politicized society progressives once only dreamed of. Social media outlets encourage even the most ill-informed and ill-intentioned voices to spread hatred against those with differing views. Goodwill doesn’t translate, so fake bravado hidden behind anonymity or distance are the order of the day. Epithets like “racist,” fascist,” “Nazi” and worse become cheap currency in the new vocabulary of meaningless words. Dissenting voices lose jobs, reputations, and access to popular platforms. Mobs form to attack political opponents in restaurants and shops, shout down campus events, and threaten online disclosure of their perceived enemies’ personal information.

The estimate length of time the US Military expects to be in Afghanistan is the same as it has been for Germany and Japan .. OVER 50 YEARS!

Jeff Deist ends his article with a dire prediction:

The hawkishness of neoconservatives and the “democratic socialism” of progressives both lead in the same direction, toward economic destruction and war. If you think American society is polarized and prone to lashing out abroad now, what happens with a shrinking economy and 40% unemployment?

The end of the rope experience like present day Venezuela may very well come to the American Empire. Prepare yourself and your family appropriately with self defense training and skills, adjust economically, be strategic psychologically,  and most importantly, get right spiritually toward being a loving father or mother of your kids, your extended family and friends as well as others in society in the future. Be ready to be a light in the darkness.

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