Tag: Roman Empire

Know Your Enemy – Roman Empire & British Empire –> American Empire

Roman Empire – Religion (Pharisee) 1st Century power/control partnership (the state)

I was not always aware of the entity that sees me as the enemy. I did not one day just decide that it was my enemy. Over my six decades I have seen more clearly what was hidden by those with evil intentions. Evil prides itself as being seen as a friend, providing benefits even if they have to rob someone else to achieve that. This entity has no ethics, no principles and is selfish to its core. This enemy is the state.

In my youth I knew of this entity, and saw how it dealt with those that would not bow down to it (i.e. JFK assassination in 1963). I saw how corrupt this entity was that sent tens of thousands of young men to Vietnam based on lies that it told (i.e. the domino theory of Communism and the Gulf of Tonkin incident) and following this the details laid bare by the Church Commission in the mid-1970s that showed to the people just a tip of the iceberg called government corruption.

In spite of this I joined the US Navy when the 1960s policy of Affirmative Action made college aid non-attainable. For over six years I learned the inside of one arm of the state, the military-industrial complex and the federal government itself. I then understood how the US Postal Service, Amtrak and other government entities could never become “customer-centric” and would always soak the taxpayer as it ran services in the most inefficient and ineffective ways. Yet, I thought that this disease had not spread to other areas of government “safety-nets” like Social Security and Medicare, but I was wrong.

By the 2000s, with the War on Terror effort to scare Americans into a new world order and the 9/11 Commission’s inability to come to grips with the real truth behind the scenes, I finally saw things coming together. I saw and understood how other nations like Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria are treated by the American Empire, like 2nd class citizens of the world that could be made into refugees as their communities, societies and nations were destroyed based on lies.

Domestically, the Federal Reserve helps to make self-sufficiency and saving money impossible with the constant printing of money to offset the government’s spending of trillions of dollars with no thoughts towards honoring their debts to the Military-Industrial Complex’s effort to ensure their pockets get filled in the years of potential peace after the Cold War, the people of the United States are viewed as tax cattle OR more appropriately in 2020/2021 called tax sheep (slaves) that can be scared into total submission and total slavery in this new era of bio-terrorism.

The 2019 Event 201 / Covid-19 Plan-n-Case-demic PLUS the Great Reset has been Coup d’tat 9.0 in this nation’s history. (The US Constitution in 1787 was Coup d’tat 1.0) The peak of freedom and liberty actually being enjoyed by the pioneers that escaped Europe mainly in the mid-1700s for the British American colonies. The relative minor clampdown on these liberties with the Stamp Act, Sugar Act and the like triggered the common man (men and women and children) to see the British Empire as their enemy. The entity of the state had made itself known from the Egyptians to the Greek and Romans and then matured (sarcasm) into the modern state where monarchy (royalty and religion) ruled. Sure there were alternative efforts that reduced the state’s direct control of their populations by the Dutch Republics from 1550s-1750s approximately as well as the Swiss Confederation of cantons. But the majority structure to control the masses was the king.

It was in this context that American colonists attempted to create a novel solution to what they had seen go bad in every monarchy. In each American colony there were micro-efforts that preceded the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. A federated republic were words that mattered, and carried with it an idea that government needed to SERVE the people wisely in the limited areas that they were chained down to.

In order to understand the enemy, even one that is chained down, requires understanding the birth of the state (no, the state is not eternal, it neither was historically always there, nor will it live forever) as well as the health of the state.

In search of understanding my enemy (which my own government has declared blatantly over the past year or so) I have started reading a book ( Chaining Down Leviathan) authored by a European that targets a thorough review of the attempt to chain down the state here in America from 1776-1865.

This is a study of American political thought between the secession from Britain and the War Between the States. This period was a struggle between the Jeffersonian and the Hamiltonian visions of America. The Jeffersonians favored a highly decentralized federation of sovereign states, whereas the Hamiltonians favored a highly centralized state with a veto on state legislation. This sort of polity has been called “the modern state,” which was a creation of European monarchs. When the monarchies were overthrown, it took on the form of mass democracy and national elections, both of which greatly expanded central power beyond anything the monarchs could have imagined.

When Britain tried to incorporate the colonies into a British version of  the modern state, they resisted and won their independence. Most of the founders did not want an American version of the same planted in America. But some did. Hamilton and others seceded from Britain not because they opposed the modern state, but because they wanted to create an American version and govern it themselves. They failed. The Jeffersonians, though contested, dominated from 1776 to 1861. Lincoln inherited this Hamiltonian tradition and launched an invasion of the South, not to free slaves, but to prevent secession and securely plant a modern style European state in America where none had existed before.

In the balance of my years I desire to know my enemy so I can prepare myself, my family and my friends for the road ahead. We need many more wise students of history to take of the research necessary to help us all understand not only what the colonists faced with the British Empire in the 1770s but also what Jesus-followers faced with the Roman Empire in the 1st century.

Hope for liberty and freedom is an idea that has never been needed more than now in today’s American Empire. Keep the flame alive for the next generations!

-SF1

PS A possible companion book to this more historical one is a recent publication that deals with Coup d’tat 9.0 called The Truth About Covid-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports and the New Normal.

Since early 2020, the world has experienced a series of catastrophic events―a global pandemic caused by what appears to be an engineered coronavirus; international lockdowns and border closings causing widespread business closures, economic collapse, and massive unemployment; and an unprecedented curtailment of civil liberties and freedoms in the name of keeping people safe by locking them up in their homes.

We are now living in a world that is increasingly ruled, not by our democratic systems and institutions, but by public health fiat, carried out by politicians who rule by instilling fear and panic.

In The Truth About COVID-19, Dr. Mercola and Cummins reveal new and emerging evidence that:

  • The SARS-CoV-2 virus was, indeed, lab-engineered and emerged from a negligently managed bioweapons lab in Wuhan, China
  • The global pandemic was long anticipated by global elites who have used it to facilitate and hide the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history
  • PCR testing, case counts, morbidity, and vaccine safety and efficacy data have been widely manipulated and misrepresented
  • Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are known to worsen COVID-19 outcomes, but the junk food industry continues to push its agenda at the expense of public health
  • Safe, simple, and inexpensive treatment and prevention for COVID-19 have been censored and suppressed to create a clear path for vaccine acceptance
  • Effectiveness of the vaccines has been wildly exaggerated and major safety questions have gone unanswered

The good news in all of this is that we can take control of our health and that, together, we have the power to unite and fight back for our health, democracy, and freedom.

No matter how accurate you think Dr. Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are in their research, there is bound to be a lot of information that is spot on. Their distrust of the state is not just a way they gain popularity, believe me, being a proclaimed enemy of the state is not the easy way forward, but a required one for those whose hearts are burdened for the generations that follow. In this regard, these two men have indeed “stayed the course”.

Be like these men and rise to the challenge to do the same!

 

Lost Opportunities: 1776, 1787 and 1861 led to 1865 and Beyond

The efforts toward freedom and liberty have been frustrated for centuries, and it was in the mid-late 1700s where such promise seemed at hand. The American colonies were left on auto-pilot until the British Empire was hoping for some ROI and decided to push for some taxes and control. Please note that human nature’s default is that those in power will push for control as well as compensation for their “management” of society towards orderly conduct.

It does seem to be that the people of this era were pretty well versed (no pun intended) in what they experienced and learned in nature as well as what wisdom could be found in the Bible. It was these kind of people (think Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine) that would help draft the Declaration of Independence.

There is a line in this document that does acknowledge ” the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as well as “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as well as “that all men are created equal”. That last quote never implies that we are to be made equal by man, but that God sees us each as equal, as in made on God’s image, uniquely.

So in God’s/Nature’s God eyes, we are all equal, BUT we are each unique and never equal while on this earth. We are born with different gifts and talents, with various thinking capacities as well as emotional and physical capacities. Men are not the same as women, but equal in God’s eyes.

The problem comes with the progressive always wants to play god and make plans to “make” everyone equal, to “make” the climate perfect and to second-guess God’s decision that we are either male or female. They think so highly of themselves that they feel they can improve on what God has created. I am guessing if they want to work on themselves, then I say let them. However, they are never content with that .. they want their ideas to be applied across society with force. This is where government enters.

The opposing force to these ideas used to be the church but it seems like there is so much in-fighting in those circles that there is little energy left to bring wisdom to the discussion. Another opposing force, or so I thought, were “conservatives”. Well, while we have heard for decades about the conservative (political) fight .. it is just smoke and mirrors because obviously there are zero principles involved.

The conservatives have not just recently let the people down in this regard, even in 1871 critical thinkers saw the GOP “conservatives” for what they are .. Robert Lewis Dabney here calls them out for what they were in his day:

“.. Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation..”

“.. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always—when about to enter a protest—very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip…” [source https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/equality-is-not-americas-founding-principle ]

In summary, it seems like the opportunity presented in 1776 birthed 13 free and independent colonies by 1783, but quickly was swallowed up by the political fears that led to 1787’s coup d’etat when the US Constitution was secretly birthed and ratified in the next two years. No longer was Nature’s God acknowledged until the Confederate Constitution was ratified in 1861.

The failure of the seven, eleven or thirteen states to secede peacefully from the United States of America would put an end of a reliance on “Almighty God” and His Word, the Bible, in trusting Him with our future as a people and as a country.

The future looks more and more like being first century Christians in the Roman Empire.  Always in the minority and always despised until they see the love we can share from our Almighty God and then things may turn around.

-SF1

Respect All, Fear None – 2020’s Scary Movie Take 3

“Respect without fear may come from being prepared and keeping all things in proper perspective.”  – John Wooden

Perspective, critical thinking, knowing your options are all essential skill sets to have in this 2020 environment not just in the USA, but also in most countries in the world as the political chess players are making their moves.

The USA itself is forever in a huge debt cycle compliments of the FED, and most European countries are in the same state of affairs. The socialist moves (thanks to BOTH Democrats and Republicans in the USA) over the past 100 years have eroded the ability for people to rise up themselves and be innovators in their business adventures. When technologies would afford people to become true entrepreneurs, this 2020 Crisis has crippled startups and other businesses to seemingly force government loans/grants to ensure continued corporate welfare dependency on a new generation of small businesses and the bailout of large corporate entities as well.

In an effort to mask the underlying financial hole that consumes a large part of the world, Covid-19 followed by accusations of racism and white supremacy have been followed by … Covid-19 again. Take 3.

A hundred years ago, back in the early 1900s, most people in the USA were farmers who had to understand free markets, investments in capital, saving for a rainy day as well as the science behind making their farms profitable. Most were a principled people who knew their individual connection to society. These people had perspective, they were critical thinkers as their lives depended on it and their efforts in farming with nature’s storms and droughts meant they feared men less and respected God more.

Since those days we have lost so much of our principles in our society as government has become daddy, nanny, our god and/or a safety net and more recently an entity that can be called on to make us all FEEL better. It seems that the longer people are in government schools, the more they conform to the government’s mold. This sadly is by design of course.

Today, everyone is offended, monuments, books and movies all can trigger a bad feeling so they must all go away. The US political party called Democrats have generally encouraged this temper tantrum behavior.

Well, y’all enjoy your moment in the sun because there is a day coming where reality will hit you like one of Aunt Minnie’s pies from the movie “The Help”

Some day when the government runs out of other people’s money, those who have been on the government dole will find out what was really in that government “pie”. There ain’t no way you can easily recover from the revelation that you have been a pawn in their game all your life or for many families, for generations.

There are also other political forces (known as the GOP) that are now upset with all the destruction of (their) things that are so very important to them .. like monuments, buildings and the like. They too are being triggered as this is all somehow ending Western Civilization. Well, if it was only these monuments, books or movies that was keeping it going, it was indeed a hollow shell.

Now, let me be very clear, I do contend that destruction of property is a crime no doubt. But I do wish that instead of “public” monuments that these would have been private monuments so that private citizens could defend them on private land without government interference or arrests! You see, having the government own land is not a good thing. The common square can be trashed and government workers are told to defend themselves instead of protecting people or property. It is never government’s fault for anything.

But I digress.

We in 2020 tend to think in terms of either/or. We are for BLM/Antifa or for Trump/GOP/Neo-cons. Well this is BS as there are other ways.

There is indeed another road or two that most people have not found yet. Many might know it in their head but it ain’t in their heart. Religion and politics have inoculated many of these from these alternate roads where one can really respect all as being made in God’s image while fearing no man.

Historically, the Enlightenment from the 1700s on brought some great things but also sought to elevate man and his political governments above God and so now the republics have turned towards socialism which can lead to fascism, Marxism and communism who all see in their minds:

  1. This life is all there is
  2. A most beautiful future where everyone is equal
  3. A future place where no one gets their feelings hurt
  4. A core benefit that Global Warming is stopped so Mother Earth is saved thanks to man’s efforts

Those who know their history know that Marxism/Communism has been tried before time and again with millions killed by their own governments only to see the whole s**tshow collapse time and again. Just ask Russia! Is it no wonder that Russia learned from its pre-1990 times and therefore keeps Rothschild, Soros and Bill Gates from having influence in their republic?

While that side-show is in progress, the elites are now looking to utilize this turbulence to exert more control on the population while reducing it to a size that they can “manage” in a generation or two. Yes, there are evil people thinking about this day and night for their whole lives. They are not like you and me, on the outside they look normal, but inside they are pure evil. (again, think Rothschild, Soros and Gates) They all dream of a sequel to the American Empire.

So, what are the alternatives?

One way has been a hidden road that is revealed with some history of what happened a couple of thousand years ago another empire was falling as well. From what I understand, Jesus and his followers had it right on many levels as how to approach this life in this broken world, in their case, inside the Roman Empire:

  • This all is not about flesh and blood but about good and evil powers and principalities

‘For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.‘ The Bible – Ephesians 6:12

  • This is not about church buildings, monuments, etc.

“believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” The Bible – John 4:21

  • It is not the things of this world that sustains us in times of crisis, but what is written on our heart

“..you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” The Bible – 2 Corinthians 3:3

The followers of Jesus, were made free by His love, even when 50% of them were still slaves in the Roman Empire. They were all an inspiration to others in the midst of the empire’s fall. Their oral histories were carried on for generations! This was mainly an underground movement for many years.

It does seem that all it takes is small numbers of people (a remnant) in every country, where it seems that the “safety” governments promised is eroding in the face of violence, that can make a difference one person at a time, spontaneously. We shall see if Jesus-followers make a difference this time.

As to another road or way to live, I look for those with a more libertarian bent that may or may not be Jesus-followers. I for one believe that this other “remnant” and true Jesus followers are not that much different. Both believe in the non-aggression principle BUT still believe in self-defense. Both have a concern for others as INDIVIDUALS and do not play into group definitions. Both also allow others the space to figure things out on their own and will not intrude into their space in an effort to change them. Both allow others to observe their lives, their course that is based on their own principles of life, their North Star, to influence others by their actions.

These roads do not take the top-down attempt to MAKE society worthy of the principles of freedom and liberty. Both of these are grassroots efforts, ignoring political quagmires, in an effort to positively impact others one person or one home at a time from the ground up.

Just as the liberty minded of the 1770s who risked all to exit their security, the British Empire, were actually “formed and molded” by the events of the 1760s where many grew up in their critical thinking and formed a foundation for themselves of principles, either on God and/or on freedom.

These are indeed most interesting times!

So may it be in the midst of this 2020 crisis, we can see clearly a small but encouraging uprising not only in the back-country, but also in the inner-city and suburbs from those that know God as well as those who don’t yet.

Don’t look for this on the news, as any underground movement will remain hidden for some time. Maybe in the next 10-15 years we will begin to see amazing things from small beginnings, a society that changes from the inside out, taking on the Golden Rule (below) as a way to live.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you”

This is my hope, and my prayer.

Peace out

SF1

Crap – From Covid-19 to Black Lives Matter: What Is Missing from Any Remaining Dialog

From the great political philosopher Ringo Starr (Beatles):

Everything government touches turns to crap.

If you can think of a worse way to handle a “novel” virus, please tell me. Apparently, government leaders at all levels were duped into believing the worse from entities that have the s**tiest track records .. the WHO, CDC and Bill Gates.

Who allowed them to make those decisions? (No pun intended) No one stood in their way, not the constitutions (state or federal), not the legislatures (state or federal), not corporations (thanks corporatism/crap-italism), not the medical/science sectors (thanks for not sharing the truth, except for the few whose You Tube and Facebook comms got yanked) and not the people, except for the few that dared tell truth to power and were labeled conspiracy theorists or right-wing gun toting thugs (who NEVER resorted to violence).

On the heels of the Covid-19 debacle comes sparked civil unrest, again used to make the people heel and to cause further damage to the grassroots economy. The government (state and federal) loves being the “middleman” in this matrix of division, their own political agenda gets traction (whether it is the police state / military totalitarianism effort OR the welfare state (individual/corporate) that will serve to secure a permanent slave class that will be happy for food and social security in exchange for them wearing masks, getting vaccines (marginally tested) and bowing down to the state).

Either way, totalitarianism seems to be the way of the future, not only in the US but also in every country that were exposed to be prime slave-class material for bowing down to the Covid-19 lock-downs. That’s a fact jack, the Marxist/Socialist/Communist agenda in the US is alive and well. However, there is hope!

By far the best antidote to this totalitarian virus is a combination of critical thinking, a liberty/freedom mindset that will refuse to initiate violence (but is more than willing to actively protect self, family and property as well as the pursuit of happiness) and finally a trust in a loving Creator that weeps for this broken word whose Love can make a HUGE different in the middle of a totalitarian empire. The 1st century Jesus followers were BIG on caring for the hurting, helping families bury their dead and loving on them, encouraging others with hope in a hopeless world and making other curious as to “what made them tick”. Understanding God’s Love INDIVIDUALLY towards each of them (individuals, not groups) actually fueled them to love on others in a selfless way.

Wolfgang Simson in “Houses That Changed the World” shared:

Being brought up in ”Christian” Germany with churches everywhere, I have always felt that there must be something exciting about the Church which Jesus started and about which I read in the New Testament – but somehow I have yet to discover what it is. I dreamed – together with many friends and colleagues, of a church, that is as simple as One-Two-Three, yet is dynamic; an explosive thing, able to turn the world and a neighborhood upside down. The church as a supernatural invention; endowed with God’s gift of immortality; the way to disciple each other, and to transfer the life of Jesus to each other. An experience of grace and grapes, love and laughter, joy and jellybeans, forgiveness and fun, power and – yes, why not, paper. A church, which does not need much finances, rhetoric, control and manipulation, which can do without powerful and charismatic heroes, which is non-religious at heart, which can thrill people to the core, make them loose their head for joy, and simply teach us The Way to live. The church which not only has a message, but is the message; which spreads like an unstoppable virus, infects whatever it touches, and ultimately covers the Earth with the glory and knowledge of God. It’s power stems from it’s inventor,who has equipped it with the most genius spiritual genetical code – a sort of heavenly DNA, which allows it to transfer and reproduce Kingdom values from Heaven to Earth, and transform not only water into wine, but atheists into fascinated apostles,policewomen into prophetesses, terrorists into teachers, plumbers into pastors, and dignified village elders into beaming evangelists in the process. It is like a spiritual family – organic, not organized, relational, not formal; it has a persecution-proof structure, matures under tears, multiplies under pressure, grows under the carpet,flourishes in the desert, sees in the dark, and thrives on chaos. A church that can multiply like two fish and five breads in the Hands of Jesus, were the fathers turn their hearts to the sons and the sons their hearts to the fathers, were it’s people are t’s resources, and which has only one name to brag about, the Lamb of God.

You may wonder why I bring this up. I think it is something that a politician said in the past week that will be used to drive fear deep into the heart of many American, even some or many “Christian” Americans when he said: “There is nothing worse than death”.

This is true for those who see this world as all there is, as this is THEIR one shot to GET everything they can out of this experience. (no wonder so many are so self-centered in getting what they “deserve”) When one has this mindset, it is no wonder why people get desperate enough that when they are told they have not voice, that they feel a religious zeal to loot and pillage other people’s property without a second thought. They are also told that the police are the problem, placing a target on every uniformed police officer while they fail to realize that 1 in 6 “protestors” are in fact undercover police. Government police (just like any corporate entity linked tightly to government) is a recipe for disaster since all monopolies NEVER have a good “customer service side”. Others will say the rioters are the problem and the military should be brought in once and for all to institute Martial Law (I know Tom Cotton, you would LOVE to see the US become the Iraq you knew and loved when the US Empire occupied that country based on a lie).

Missing in all this discussion is the government(s) and their enablers (the elite, including the global elite) role in the the continued rollout of these fear-based events. The CIA’s disinformation campaign since the 1950s is working fabulously on the public school educated so-called adults that could not add 2+2. The inability to critically think and identify the root of the crisis (manufactured) we face in 2020 causes them to be willing servants to the masters who hope to remake this nation as well as the world in the image they have in their minds. These elites do not think like us, they have evil intentions but are never aware of it because sociopaths are like that, you would never understand.

Being wise as serpents and harmless as doves does not mean we fold when power from earthly kings gets applied. Jesus was wise in that he was able to demonstrate power under control, as He was meek but never weak. His M.O. included being elusive in His daily life, with a small group he would engage in dialog with just a few, or thousands in a spontaneous way. He was crafty enough to evade BOTH the religious (politically aligned) and civil authorities and Roman Empire occupiers while never hunkering down for very long. His mission was about the next generation, to impart just enough love and knowledge so that his followers would turn the Roman Empire upside-down, not with violence, but with truth and love.

At its core, “Christianity” was never created to be a religion, as Wolfgang Simson explains:

Before they where called Christians, followers of Christ have been called”The Way”. One of the reasons was, that they have literally found ”the way to live.” The nature of Church is not reflected in a constant series of religious meetings lead by professional clergy in holy rooms specially reserved to experience Jesus, but in the prophetic way followers of Christ live their everyday life in spiritual extended families as a vivid answer to the questions society faces, at the place where it counts most: in their homes

People were never his enemy, but earthly powers (government and religious) that oppressed the innocent people were. It was clear that a majority that thought he would lead an armed revolution abandoned Him the last week of his earthly life. It was only the minority, the remnant who would humbly remain faithful in working themselves out of a job in imparting Life to the next generation, a Life that can give joy in the midst of the storms of life.

Hang in there y’all, please don’t get caught up in all the fear-based stuff, it is never healthy for the body or the soul. Please take time to be with friends and family no matter what arbitrary rules these totalitarians might lay down. Jesus said:

No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. – The Bible – John 15:15

So even if we become physical slaves in some future state here on earth, we have a Brother and a Friend who knows what it is like to be oppressed and misunderstood. May He give you peace in the middle of this government induced virus that will be used to hide all their financial, judicial and ethical sins of the past 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200+ years.

Peace out

-SF1

“Land of the Free”? Not So Fast – the Trend-line is Not Linear!

1938 USA Communist Party Convention -Abraham Lincoln as centerpiece

Like most people my age, #60+, I can remember a time when we all were a LOT more free. Rifles in the pickup trucks, shooting guns near suburban neighborhoods, playing outside ALL day with the parents not really knowing where their kids were at. This was all “normal”.

Also during this time, it was the college campuses that allowed and even encouraged thinking and expressing one’s own thoughts no matter how popular they might be. Anti-government speech was not just tolerated, it was at the heart of what it meant to be an American, the Spirit of ’76!

Well those days are long gone, and the transition to where we are today was not a linear one at all. At first there was some minor deviation, but in the past 5-10 years, the college campuses are more group-think than ever, where the narrative of the day is king, where thought police thrive.

This is not the first time this has happened, but it does seem to be the first time it has happened without a war in the past 150 years, but it does have some similarities to a time in American history over 220 years ago where the thought police surfaced, when the “Land of the Free” enacted the Alien and Sedition Act in 1798 which …:

made it a federal crime to publish any false, scandalous or malicious writing – even if true – about the president or the federal government

You see, freedom of speech is a natural, God-given right that governments can and will take away. In the “Land of the Free” in 1798, there were many who took issue with this course change that occurred only 22 years after the thirteen American colonies sought independence from the British Empire. When Thomas Jefferson became president, he and his administration repealed this act. However, one this course change is embedded in a nation’s/empire’s DNA, there is no going back:

Abraham Lincoln arrested Northerners who challenged the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson arrested Americans who challenged World War I. FDR arrested Americans he thought might not support World War II. LBJ and Richard Nixon used the FBI to harass hundreds whose anti-Vietnam protests frustrated them.

In our own post 9/11 era, the chief instrument of repression of personal freedom has been the government’s signature anti-terror legislation: the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act permits FBI agents to write their own search warrants and gives those warrants the patriotic and harmless-sounding name of national security letters (NSLs). This authorization is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that that security can only be violated by a search warrant issued by a neutral judge and based upon probable cause of crime.

To most libertarians, this is where we are today, where the government has successfully transitioned the US Empire to a static point where the “Land of the Free” is no more. However, there is yet another effort that has been made in the past five years or so to continue the transition towards a totalitarian state, and this one comes from the corporate side of Lincoln’s dream of mercantilism, where government and big corporations become two wings of the same bird.

– Murray Rothbard on Mercantilism

As Rod Dreher of Russian Insider indicates in this article, “A Russian Woman Working as a College Professor in the US Writes About the Sovietization of Amerika”, it seems that it is the former citizens of the old USSR are the most sensitized to this trend the most while typical Americans see this as no big deal, much like the Germans in 1930’s Germany as the Nazi’s came to power.

Clarissa [not her real name] is a college professor who emigrated to the US from Russia as a young woman, a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union. She is yet another ex-Soviet bloc person who is extremely anxious about the emergence of soft totalitarianism here. Of course she can’t use her real name, because she fears professional retaliation. It should tell us something that not a single academic from a former communist country that I interviewed for this book was willing to speak using their own name — this, in the Land of the Free. Why not? Because they were afraid of facing professional consequences for speaking out against identity politics and the “social justice” regime.

I am pretty sure if I were to chart out freedom in the USA, we are now at an all-time low as both the government and corporate America are actively seeking out dissenters to the latest narratives. The tools are in place to “take out” people professionally both in social media attacks:

Totalitarianism is something that takes away from people the unbearable burden of freedom. It allows many people to hound and persecute with impunity. That is pleasant in many senses. There was a practice in the Soviet Union where people would be told to get together in groups at work and write letters to the newspaper to denounce famous poets or artists. We see that today in Twitter. People love that because it allows a little person to completely destroy somebody who has done something great.

.. as well inside universities and corporations with diversity and sensitivity training in the workplaces:

All your co-workers are enemies. Either they can get you in trouble, or they are out to destroy you with an accusation. It destroys all sorts of uncontrollable communities – friendship, families, church communities. When you set people against each other, they are much easier to control. This is what it was like under totalitarianism.

So one might think I just need to be more careful about what I share in certain social circles. But that is not how this works, to see how any flavor of totalitarianism actually works, we need to learn from those who lived there:

… wokeness in corporate America is a weapon used by white-collar professionals to weed out competitors for increasingly scarce jobs. She said, “People find ideological purity tests useful to weed out people who compete for jobs you cover. Progressive forces are completely allied with globalist capitalism.”

She also said that people have no idea how vulnerable they are to this mindset, because of social media. “You will not be able to predict what will be held against you tomorrow. You have no idea what completely normal thing you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you. This is what people in the Soviet Union saw. We know how this works. This is why people like me are so upset today.

One would think that at least the church might be a place where one can be real in this regard. Anyone who understands the 1st century church, it was the underground Christians in the Roman Empire that actually turned the then-known-world upside-down NOT with violence or revolution, but with love of their neighbor where .. :

[NOTE: It seems that true “diversity” does not focus on division based on race, sex or anything else. A true team sees each unique God-created individual as part of the crew that can help to keep the ship afloat.]

Well, a note of caution, most of the churches today, especially ones with government registration in place (501c3), are part of the corporate woke-ness effort underway in this country. Most of the church of today bears little resemblance to the church in the generation after Jesus was killed by religion and empire.

Until this trend is reversed, the ‘circle of trust’ is going to get mighty small. Take your time in knowing who your friends are, it is better to be lonely than to be a fresh target for either empire or corporate-elite.

Peace out

-SF1