Abraham Lincoln, in his Lyceum address, speaking (unknowingly) of the Mar-a-Lago raid of 2022:

“By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained. — Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose…

By such things, the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it; and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few too weak, to make their friendship effectual. At such a time and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric, which for the last half century, has been the fondest hope, of the lovers of freedom, throughout the world.”

The arbitrary, political attack on former President Trump’s home yesterday is, some people say, like another 9/11.

In a way, it’s worse. 9/11 was an attack on the United States by outside forces — by religious fanatics and the governments who supported them (mostly covertly).

Yesterday’s attack was from OUR OWN GOVERNMENT. It proves what some of us have been claiming for months — that the United States government, including the core of the federal authority at the Department of Justice, now operates on politics and politics alone.

In such an environment, nobody is safe.

Not once you’re on the government’s radar as politically incorrect. Once you are, they can make up any legal charges they want. They’re doing it to President Trump, and they are not going to stop — because, so long as we accept the moral and even legal legitmacy of this occupation government using its immense power to act against anyone who criticizes them, there’s no defending yourself within that corrupt system. Once the system is itself run by amoral, immoral outlaws, there’s no recourse any longer to the rule of law itself.

Constitutionally, legally and existentially … we are all adrift, all alone. Unless you pledge total allegiance and totalitarian devotion to the regime in power. That’s how most of the world already works, and how most of the world always did work. America was different. Now we know: America no longer is any different. Not in principle and, increasingly, not in practice. As for the “in practice” part — they’re just getting started. Watch what they do to Trump next, and watch what happens when they go after the citizenry itself, starting with these 90,000 new IRS agents.

9/11 showed Americans how vulnerable their republic, their system and their way of life were. The events of that day did not destroy individual rights, the United States Constitution and our freedom, but those events did show how we could lose those things more easily than we realized.

The events of yesterday brought to a climax and showed, beyond any doubt now, that our republic and our Constitution are already gone. We are not in a position of having to defend them. We are in a position of having to bring them back.

Michael J. Hurd

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections. Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”

– President Donald Trump 8/8/22 [Newsmax photo]

The Biden regime’s DOJ, who has raided Trump’s home, is a gang of legalized, occupying fascist thugs. The only solution is defeat them, or break with them. We are no longer America.

The FBI invasion of Trump’s home is an act of war against all citizens who don’t support American fascism.

Ever read Sinclair Lewis’ book, “It Can’t Happen Here?”

Guess what: It IS happening here. A former President’s house has been invaded for openly political reasons.

If America’s federal government has degenerated into a banana republic, then maybe it’s time for rational and decent, freedom-loving people to EXIT.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) promised on Monday to launch a full-throated investigation into Attorney General Merrick Garland and the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s home.

Even if we could believe this career politician, it’s too late for that. Something worse than a gang of mobsters has taken over the apparatus of what used to be the American republic. We are at war. Or we will be, once freedom loving states, cities and counties exit this rotten system. We are occupied by rotten, irredeemably evil barbarians with no concern for any law but their own power. We let them take over, and it’s no different than if we had let Hitler take over back in the 1940s.

The proper response to a lawless, evil police state? Defiance, disobedience, disrespect and self-defense.

Now do you see why they’re arming the IRS and increasing its size 700 percent?

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “surprise” trip to Taiwan last week should be “Exhibit A” as to why interventionism is dangerous, deadly, and dumb. Though she claimed her visit won some sort of victory for democracy over autocracy, the stopover achieved nothing of the sort. It was a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military conflict with zero benefits.

As Col. Doug Macgregor said of Pelosi’s trip on a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, “statesmanship involves advancing American interests at the least cost to the American people. None of that is in play here. … Posturing is not statesmanship.”

Pelosi’s trip was no outlier. Such counterproductive posturing is much celebrated by both parties in Washington. Neoconservative Senators Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham were thrilled with Pelosi’s stop in Taipei and used it as a springboard to push for new legislation that would essentially declare war on China by declaring Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally.”

The “one China” policy that, while perhaps not perfect, has kept the peace for more than 40 years is to be scrapped and replaced with one sure to provoke a war. Who benefits?

Foolishly taking the US to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine is evidently not enough for Washington’s bipartisan warmongering class. Risking a nuclear war on two fronts, with both Russia and China, is apparently the only way for Washington to show the rest of the world it’s serious.

The Washington Post’s neoconservative columnist Josh Rogin accurately captures the mindset in Washington DC with a recent article titled, “The skeptics are wrong: The US can confront both China and Russia.”

For Washington’s foreign policy “experts,” those of us who don’t believe a war with both Russia and China is a great idea are written off as “skeptics.” Count me as one of the skeptics!

During the Cold War there were times of heightened tension, but even in the darkest days the idea that nuclear war with China and the Soviet Union could be a solution was held only by only a few madmen. Now, with the ideological struggles of the Cold War a decades-old memory, such an argument makes even less sense. Yet this is what Washington is selling.

The US fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine and Nancy Pelosi provoking China nearly to the point of war over Taiwan is meant to show the world how tough we are. In reality, it demonstrates the opposite. The drunken man in a bar challenging everyone to a fight is not tough. He’s foolish. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose from his display of bravado.

That is interventionism at its core: a foolish policy that provokes nothing but anger overseas, benefits no one in the US except the special interests, and leaves the rest of us much poorer and worse off.

There may be plenty to criticize about China’s government and policies. They are far from perfect, particularly in protection of civil liberties. But have we already forgotten that our own government shut down the country for two years over a virus, and then forced a huge number of Americans to take an experimental shot that is proving to be as worthless as it is dangerous? Let’s look at the log in our own eye before we start lobbing missiles overseas.

Ron Paul

TRUMP will run again. Will he win? Probably not. Fraud will triumph. Why not? Absolutely nothing has been done about it. All hell will break loose as America’s tyrants clamp down harder and economic conditions worsen.

If Trump does win (unlikely, but possible), all hell will break loose for a different reason, especially in the cities.

Brace yourselves. You’re living in interesting times. Tyranny cannot be defeated peacefully. Patriots will wake up to this, I believe, after Trump is cheated out of a second election.

Reason and virtue will triumph eventually, but not easily.

Those are my predictions. What are yours?

On Facebook, one reader replies:

Arizona had a record turnout for the primary amongst Republicans. Both moderate Democrats and independents are growing sick and tired of the Democrats leftist Behavior. If enough people go to the polls, they can’t cheat the win. That’s what happened in 2016, because they did not expect that many people to vote for him. They ramped it up in 2020 because they knew. But if 100 million people vote for Trump in 2024, they cannot cheat their way out of that. It would be unbelievable beyond measure.

Dr. Hurd replies:

I hope that’s true but America has a LOT of stupid people and the massive numbers needed to combat fraud probably don’t exist. Most of the younger population will never, ever vote non-left, even into their 30s. They are brainwashed and ignorant.

Another reader writes:

I wish Trump would rally for DeSantis instead of running himself, but that will not happen. Instead I predict that DeSantis will run in the primary and stands a good chance of defeating Trump there, (Trump is most vulnerable for stupidly handing over his Presidency to Fauci/Birx in 2020 and to this day congratulating himself for being THE V-Pusher, as if it’s a great thing). Trump will do everything he can to destroy DeSantis.

So who wins? Gavin and Pete.

Dr. Hurd replies:

I agree DeSantis won’t win either. Because of fraud. And yes, Biden won’t be around and Gavin and Pete will be perfect to expand and entrench the tyranny. Patriots will realize it’s hopeless, and all hell breaking loose will arguably be preferable to now. Peaceful secession is the only option, but leftists now firmly in control of the U.S. military will not permit it.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

One of the more interesting things I encounter from time to time is people who tell me that certain sounds make them feel uncomfortable and angry. A bit of research introduced me to the term “misophonia”: a debilitating situation where a “trigger stimulus” (some sort of sound) becomes intolerable and generates feelings of rage. The sufferer endures mental anguish until he or she escapes from the sound.

The word misophonia was new to me, though I am familiar with a similar term, hyperacusis. Whatever you call it, it’s a very real problem for some people. When I tell clients that there is actually a name for what they’re feeling, they are immensely relieved that “it’s not just me.” That gratification is a good thing, but it’s also important to remember that the validity of something is not proven simply by reference to the experiences of others. “Others” can be wrong, and often are.

It’s premature to label this as a “condition” rather than a psychological phenomenon. To call it a condition suggests that it’s a biological dysfunction that a pill or surgery will cure. I can find no scientific evidence that misophonia is a biological or physical condition.

Interestingly, when I say that to a client, they often reply, “You’re denying the existence of my annoyance.” But I’m not. I truly believe that they are annoyed by noises that don’t bother most people. But at the same time, there’s no empirical basis for transforming this annoyance into a medical condition. This is the same intellectual confusion (or dishonesty) at work with much of psychiatric labeling. Psychiatric conditions are usually descriptive in nature, i.e., various behavior patterns such as “oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD), “attention deficit disorder” (ADD) and a host of other important-sounding acronyms. Even bipolar manic-depression, where objective differences can be found in a person on medication versus off medication, contains intervening psychological variables.

Sadly, rushing to label something as a disease is good politics. Politics determines much of what passes for “science” today, since most research is supported by government grants. This isn’t to deny that any given scientist might indeed be concerned only with the science, but the fact remains that many projects receive funding only if they’re deemed “worthy for society” by some congressman or presidential administration. Many powerful people – huge drug companies come to mind – have a vested, financial interest in prematurely labeling things “conditions.”

Yes, it’s good to have a name for something, but it’s also psychologically healthy to remember that there’s no basis for making it one’s entire identity. In the case of hyperacusis, I suggest that the client avoid trigger situations that are easy to avoid. For example, some people don’t like the noises they hear around them in movie theaters, so they purchase a nice entertainment system and enjoy their movies at home. It makes sense to take advantage of every opportunity to avoid things that get on your nerves.

At the same time, it makes no sense to avoid everything on principle. When something is worth the price of putting up with the noise, baby steps can help to desensitize oneself over time.

A website dedicated to misophonia states that sufferers are often “forced into a life of isolation, shrinking away from the general population … not by choice but out of necessity for their sanity. …Often relationships are destroyed due to misunderstandings and misdirected negativity.” Good grief! This attitude of helplessness doesn’t do anyone any good. To say these people have no choices is ridiculous. Yes, perhaps there is an as-yet unknown sensitivity in the hearing. But, as the website clearly states, at this point there is no medical diagnosis or cure.

Is telling people they’re helpless any better than suggesting they take responsibility for deciding what’s worth it to them? Seems obvious that the only professional help that makes sense is to encourage people to better manage their daily lives.

Michael J. Hurd, Life’s a Beach