Peter R. Quiñones wrote the following brief reflection recently, and it mirrors my own sentiments as well. As an idealistic youth I voluntarily joined the peacetime US Navy just after Vietnam in 1976, in the hopes that America had learned her lesson about fighting wars abroad that had nothing to do with keeping America “safe”.
The greatest message you can communicate to anyone you encounter on Memorial Day is that it is a holiday that should not exist. The excuses for the men and women who have died in “service to this country” are numerous, but only in the rarest of circumstances does it have to do with protecting American lives or liberty on this piece of soil.
I’m only going to address the 20th Century here so we should start with World War 1. Was the United States homeland in danger of being invaded by anyone? Of course not. Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s great book, “Democracy: The God That Failed,” conveys to me that WW1 was fought to destroy any remaining trace of historic monarchies in Europe, and to institute democracy instead. Even the countries that kept their royalty saw them become only symbols in a parliamentary system rather than a one family rule.
What about World War 2? PEARL HARBOR!!! HITLER DECLARED WAR ON US!!! WW2 is the war that is consistently sold as the “good war.” Fortunately, many good historians have shot multiple holes in the assumed fact that the US had to enter WW2 on either front. I interviewed one here.
What about Korea? Vietnam? Iraq War 1, 2, 3 and 3.5? Afghanistan? Somalia? Libya? Syria? I could go on and on (unfortunately). The bottom line for all these is this; the “honorable” and “patriotic” reasons given for American men and women dying on battlefields across the world are strained when you begin to look at them more closely. The hundreds of thousands who sacrificed their lives believing they were fighting for American freedom were mistaken. Overwhelmingly they were duped. But it’s not their fault. With the draft in effect for most of the 20th century (ended in 1973 when the US pulled out of the Vietnam War), many had no choice but to fight. Many others were convinced to enlist by war propaganda.
On Memorial Day I weep for the fallen. Not because of their sacrifice, but because they were sacrificed.
Routinely, the American government has squandered the innocence of our youth to do exactly what Robert E. Lee warned about:
In my previous post I covered a lot of ground towards truths that could (I rarely say “should” as I believe you don’t typically “should” on you real friends 🙂 ) open their eyes to the true character of their evil government. The so-called American Exceptionalism is pure myth. Just ask other people around the world who have experience our “help”.
There is, however, even in these days much to be hopeful for. We can continue to plant the seeds of truth with those who will listen about the lies that seem to bombard us each and every day in our world. This unwrapping of truth could very well lead this nation, or preferably, parts of this nation, to reflect on core truths that might bring about a new season of liberty and freedom in the regions that hold these truths to their hearts.
Maybe this American Government holiday can be used to help people question the very nature of their government, their politicians and the evil cabal that backs an evil agenda in this land all for power and money.
Reflecting back on the past 5-10 years, there has been a steady trend in hearing more about politics in the work environment. While this happens in the rank and file, it has exploded in the levels above the average working/operational team. 2020 was the year I heard how wonderful the BLM was and by 2021 I heard how horrible was the unarmed insurrection. (you have to be joking right? unarmed overthrow? as Cornwallis said to his second in command said “You dream, General”)
Today I typically read the first line in every correspondence from the top executives and call it good and “file” the e-mail away for safe keeping while I attempt to keep from barfing. As a recent article about the US military states, the same thing is happening there:
.. many of our top brass are far more politicized than in the past, and can grow more ideologically distant from lower-ranking officers and enlisted personnel.
So what is up? Well, this is the pointy end of the spear aimed right at the hearts of the common man (men and women in the workforce). This is an agenda from “enlightened” people who have a vision of utopia in their heads that feel they have been anointed to bestow “right thought” on to the masses.
Regarding the military, the left sees this as an opportunity:
One, the left now dotes on what it envisions will soon be a woke military. It believes the chain of command can green-light progressive social changes—from women in combat units to timely displays of massive force on the streets of Washington—without bureaucratic red tape or opposition from Congress.
Two, federal agencies in therapeutic fashion now often dilute their traditional missions to accommodate social-awareness agendas.
Will “feel good” translate into operational effectiveness and adding value in society and around the world? Again, as Cornwallis said:
The same attempt to change the culture in the workplace with propaganda is also taking place in the military. As pointed out in this article, with the average soldier and sailor reacting to the difference between the BLM-Antifa efforts in 2020 with over 275 riots and $1B+ in property damage that somehow history is being altered to picture what happened at the US Capitol on January 6th is much worse and labeled an “insurrection”. The Biden administration and military re-action to this is placing 30,000 troops in the nation’s capital which is the most placed there since 1863 when Confederate General Jubal Early threatened the city with his ARMED forces.
Top military brass is hell-bent on making any comparison between the Portland-Seattle-Kenosha and beyond BLM/Antifa efforts of JUN2020 and the 06JAN2021 two hour invited tour of the US Capitol off limits. The history the military wants imprinted is that 06JAN2021 was bad .. period .. and ignore the feelings expressed in the summer of 2020.
Just listen to the top levels of the US Army in this article discuss the concern they have that their common-sense subordinates might think differently without the constant Kool-Aid IV drip from Marxist agendas:
In a Thursday briefing with reporters at the Pentagon, Chief Master Sergeant Ramón “CZ” Colón-López, the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that some troops have asked, when the Jan. 6 riot is brought up, “How come you’re not looking at the situation that was going on in Seattle prior to that?” .. He said that is one example of the mindset many military leaders are encountering, and he is “concerned about the way that some people are looking at the current environment.” .. “This is coming from every echelon that we’re talking to,” he added.
Chief Master Sergeant Ramón “CZ” Colón-López, the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a March 18, 2021 briefing with reporters. (U.S. Army)
This is “leadership” in the US military today. Snowflake central!!!
Colón-López said the confusion some younger troops have expressed shows why the training sessions on extremism are needed.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the stand-down Feb. 5 and gave units across the military 60 days to discuss extremism in the ranks with troops.
You can’t make this s**t up. I guess this is in continued preparation for a future army that will shutter at the mention of mere words. You know how easy it is to trigger this mentality and render the whole armed forces impotent in their actual roles around the world? OTOH, maybe this is just as well, so that the US empire can start to die with the military leaders crying and complaining about the dangerous words and ideologies that are in conflict with the leftist/Marxist bent currently run up the flag pole as something to embrace.
I digress.
I know that it is tough to swim upstream in compliant military circles against the masses that will be convinced that Marxism attempted correctly will make everyone equal and feel good someday, but even underground push-back is honorable until one is in position to encourage others openly to stand for liberty and freedom.
Large corporations too are actively limiting the career ladder climbs for those that don’t fall in line with these ludicrous dreams from upper management that they are asked to parrot. It is a dark and treacherous path forward for those who can critically think and can find honorable alternatives in the face of this attack on society.
All levels of government including public schools are doing the same.
Stay the course and be strong. Wise as serpents, harmless as doves remember!!!
Talisman of Polaris, the North Star. This star is a symbol of unwavering strength and serves as a constant guide
It has been over a month since I said:
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.
That month we were able to travel some through the USA and found some “freedom” (in perspective, still a lot less than in the 2000s, or 1990s .. or 1950s .. or 1880s .. or 1780s when maximum freedom seemed to be at hand).
There are parts of the USA that have resisted the political agenda to not waste this crisis in making this part of the world a perpetual police / medical state run by the edicts of bureaucrats in DC, at the state level and even at the village level that love to be dictatorial at their core. The Deep State has also shown its cards as being on the inside of this coup against many of the American people. The trust that was barely in place before has been blown wide open showing us all that Archie Bunker was spot on back in the 1970s
Government is the scourge that moneyed elites get their agendas accomplished though. Picture government as the plantation master and the evil moneyed elites as the plantation owner. The “Jones Plantation” promoted by Larken Rose comes to mind. A ten minute clip that puts things in perspective.
If you watched this to the end you will understand that this system has been in place all our lives, and the degree that we have FELT free is usually dependent on the lies that we are told to believe. Those of us that have started to see these lies for what they are have a tough job of having Samuel’s job (in the video) of planting seeds of freedom and liberty in the minds of our fellow slaves.
It is a tough road ahead as the American psyche has been further broken as evidenced by the poll that claims that 70% of Americans will continue to wear masks (for the “common good”) even if the mask mandates were lifted. This is further supported by the mask compliance rates seen in California (mandated) vs. Florida (no statewide mask mandate)
It seems that the sheep are more than ready to comply with an order that fails to make sense, to wear masks (from N95, to surgical, to cloth) that have holes larger than the coronavirus that media and the medical “experts” claim will not only keep the wearers safe, but also others, especially “Gramdma”!
Masks themselves are a great freedom antidote, and the elites understand this all too well. There is nothing like making everyone look the same to make them distrustful of others by default (did we trust people in public with masks before Covid-19?) and to eliminate the individual nature that each one of us was created for, being a unique individual facial wise as well as intelligence wise. We are more slaves now in 2021 than we were at any other time of our lives, and most of us still look to politics to fix all this and give us back some of the freedoms that were removed over the past year.
Good luck with that ..
Peace out on the road forward .. stay strong and stay the course.
Those of us that treasure the principles of liberty and freedom for all will have some very difficult choices in the days, weeks and months ahead. Knee-jerk reactions will have to be avoided as critical thinkers think through the consequences of possible decisions, not just the initial consequences, but the second and third tier consequences as well (something all political types are ignorant about). Unintended consequences of good intentions are still a problem. The end does NOT justify the means.
An article published today by Tom Luongo of Gold, Goats and Guns website challenges the conservitives of today to avoid the trap that the elites have laid out that was highlighted by this Brandon Smith (Alt-Market) quote:
To be clear, what I believe is happening is that conservatives are being prodded and provoked, not to separate and organize but to centralize. I think they want us to support actions like martial law which would be considered totalitarian. Conservatives, the only stalwart defenders of civil liberties, using military suppression and abandoning the Bill of Rights to maintain political power? That is a dream come true for the globalists in the long term. And despite people’s faith in Trump, there are far too many banking elites and globalists within his cabinet to ensure that such power will not be abused or used against us later.
Tom rightly responds:
Nothing would give Klaus Schwab and The Davos Crowd [moneyed global elites] more pleasure than turning us into them — willing to use indiscriminate violence to push otherwise humble and decent people into crazed killers and repudiate their inherent meekness, their inherent desire to pursue their bliss, allowing everyone else that same courtesy.
Principles people! Politics is NEVER a good answer. Fight the good fight using the Golden Rule even if it looks tough and shortcuts look appealing.
Part of the problem is that a vast majority of over 70M people who voted for Trump still believe in the Mythology of America. America as mythology has always stood as the ‘shining house on the hill’ for this enlightened idea that the wishes of the individual pursuing his bliss creates the community and culture which lifts the world out of a less attractive reality. This is why the US destroyed Iraq and Libya, which were each enjoying their own version of success to bring about US democracy, which left them in fractured states decades later, producing many dead innocent men, women and children, reducing Christian influence in these regions and causing many to be refugees, leaving their ancestral homelands of centuries.
That America has been dead since before the myth was birthed. In reality, the 1776 revolution brought HIGHER taxes and more central tyranny to this land than the Brits had even dreamed of. The 1865 reaction to a peaceful secession forever removed the sovereign states as a barrier to full blown federal tyranny, which is the prime reason we are seeing what we have now.
So we have all been taught a myth .. and now we have to critically think about our real options now that the myth has been shown to be a lie.
Tom laments:
What if the mythology of America today has these two wars backwards? What if all the conservatives mourning the Constitution today thanks to a feckless Supreme Court and treasonous Congress have it all wrong? What if the America they mourn the death of today died in 1865 not 2020?
Would that America still be worth finally fighting a bloody civil war for? Because that’s what The Davos Crowd is daring Donald Trump to do.
What if the better response is to do what the South tried to do and failed.
Simply walk away and say, “No more.”
Because fighting the bloody war of all against all, becoming raving fascists rising up to stop the rapacious (and economically backwards) communists in the process is always the wrong option.
Secession is always an option. Opting out of the hyper-collectivizing impulses of in-group/out-group bias is always the right choice. They want us to throw the first punch, to lash out, fire first out of fear, c.f. Fort Sumter, to justify their brutality afterwards.
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.
“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 🙂
