The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
See this picture of bombed out Ukraine? THIS is what control for the sake of control looks like. What Putin’s bombs did to these buildings, COVID fascism did to our economy and liberty. In principle, it’s the same. Statism and the people who support statism are destroyers — of buildings, and of spirits as well. I personally blame not just the tyrants like Putin, Biden and company, but also those who support those tyrants and (in Biden’s case) actually voted for him. If you don’t now admit you were wrong to vote for him, or any Democrat, then YOU are the ones responsible for everythiCng that’s happening, and everything yet to come.
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Tom Bell : “Ukraine is becoming the new Covid: The trendy issue that people use to virtue signal with, even though they haven’t made the effort to understand all its nuances.”
Yes. But war with Russia accomplishes two things important to the leftist statists who still dominate us. One, it raises the price of gas. Environmentalists want gas high so people will stop using it and use battery or solar power instead. Two, war with Russia will provide an excuse to impose more controls on the population. Starting with the military draft, and moving on to rationing, and the like. Leftists LOVE controls and sacrifice. Not their own sacrifice, of course. Wealthy, elite and connected leftists will not be doing the sacrificing — the rest of us will. They will PRETEND to sacrifice, as they did with masks.
All in all, war with Russia looks like a great deal for the leftists and the hopelessly moronic idiots who applaud them.
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Zuckerberg is mad at Putin for blocking him. The fascist has angered the fascist. Let them destroy each other.
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“United We Stand; Divided We Fall” (Aesop)
Unfortunately, when we stand for DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE things — like freedom vs. slavery, reason vs. insanity — then we’re going to fall anyway. Sometimes it’s best to cut your losses.
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“Wars are the second greatest evil that human societies can perpetrate. (The first is dictatorship, the enslavement of their own citizens, which is the cause of wars.)”
We elect leaders to protect us, our families and our communities. We elect leaders to act responsibly with our tax dollars, to make our lives better, and to uphold our Constitution. The Biden Administration has done none of this.
Below is an inventory of major actions taken by the Biden Administration that have hurt America. Not one action makes America better – Not one!
1. Our elections are sacred and the cornerstone of our republic. If they are stolen our republic is nothing. It’s over.
Biden’s first major act against America was to steal the 2020 Election. You may not agree with this but the majority of Americans do.
We elect leaders to protect us, our families and our communities. We elect leaders to act responsibly with our tax dollars, to make our lives better, and to uphold our Constitution. The Biden Administration has done none of this.
Below is an inventory of major actions taken by the Biden Administration that have hurt America. Not one action makes America better – Not one!
There is ample evidence for this. Just last week a former Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin called for serious consideration be given to decertify the 2020 election after months of investigation. Every day we uncover more and more evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. This was the Biden gang’s first big anti-American act.
2. The Biden gang imprisoned and targeted their political opponents without trial or human rights. This is third-world stuff.
Hundreds of Americans are in the DC Gulag (see inventory here) unjustly held with unjust indictments, some were beaten in jail and denied basic human rights, some without court dates for crimes they never committed, based on what many now believe was another government set-up. This abuse led one man to his suicide just last week. Four Trump supporters were killed, two of them women, on January 6 in the nation’s capital.
3. The Biden gang next supported a tribunal to attack, harass and punish anyone close to their political opponent, President Trump.
As soon as the election was stolen and Biden was installed, his enemies put together an entirely unconstitutional impeachment and then a special committee to punish, harass and punish anyone close to President Trump. These people don’t care about what the people think because they believe they can steal all future elections which will keep them in power.
The impeachment of Trump was after he was in office. This was not only based on lies, but it was not within our laws. Next, the same Trump haters put together a Jan 6 Committee with the sole purpose of harassing Trump supporters and those who worked for the President. The people on the gang all hate President Trump because he loved America.
These third-world animals are after blood. They are not independent or objective. They aren’t after the truth. They only search for lies to punish Trump and others who love this country.
4. The Biden gang shut the oil and gas pipelines, restricted drilling, targeted the entire energy sector in the US causing massive price hikes. Today, thanks to Democrats and their insane policies, America is once again dependent on other countries for our energy.
Biden’s first acts were to shut down the Keystone Pipeline. For the first time in nearly a century, America was energy independent before Biden took over. As a result, Biden doubled the price of gas on the average American consumer, aided foreign entities like Russia and the Saudis, and left the US dependent on others for our energy. This was after President Trump left the country energy independent based on his safe and smart energy policies with cheap gas for the Average American consumer.
5. Biden handed over $84 billion in equipment and arms to the Taliban who then took 13 soldiers’ lives.
Who could forget the insane acts of the Biden gang in departing Afghanistan? He hands over billions to a terrorist regime, some of the most sophisticated military equipment on earth. He then had the Taliban cover for our troops in Kabal which led to 13 soldiers’ needless deaths. He abandoned those who helped us in that country, some who fell from the sky trying to escape the Taliban. This surrender was needless and significantly damaged the US with our allies. It showed that you could no longer trust or count on Biden’s America to protect them.
6. The regime opened the Southern US border, ignoring the Constitution.
The first thing Biden-Obama did after stepping into office was to open the southern border wide open. To do this his team ignored all the laws in place that protected America from unwanted intruders. This was no problem, all Biden had to do was hire a person who lied about everything and claimed what was so was not. They found this guy in Department of Homeland Security Head Alejandro Mayorkas.
7. The Biden regime next implemented policies to spend the US into bankruptcy.
For the first time in US history, the national debt surpassed $30 trillion. This proves the current administration cares little about America’s future. When will this ever be paid back?
9. The Biden regime backed policies that forced young children and all Americans to wear masks. Democrats still force children to wear masks.
The masks it turns out were more about compliance than health. Children have literally zero risk of dying from COVID yet were forced to wear masks in schools. This abuse was backed by Biden goons. It showed allegiance and compliance with the regime.
Joe Hoft is the twin brother of TGP’s founder, Jim Hoft, and a contributing editor at TGP. Joe’s reporting is often months ahead of the Mainstream media as was observed in his reporting on the Mueller sham investigation, the origins of the China coronavirus, and 2020 Election fraud. Joe was a corporate executive in Hong Kong for a decade and has years of experience in finance, IT, operations and auditing around the world. The knowledge gained in his career provide him with a unique perspective of current events in the US and globally. Joe’s weekday radio show at Realtalk933.com has received rave reviews. He has ten degrees or designations and is the author of four books. His new book: ‘The Steal – Volume One: Setting the Stage’ is out now. It addresses the stolen 2020 Election and those activities that led up to November 3, 2020 – please take a look and buy a copy.
Duty — defined as mindless allegiance to some external value, like country or collective — is NOT a virtue. No matter what you’re told, or what you think … you’re WRONG.
Think about the Russian brutality in Ukraine. Without the idea of duty to country and collective, Putin would not be able to get young Russians to invade Ukraine and essentially destroy their fellow country men.
The opposite of duty is independent thought. Independent thought is a virtue. If it’s war you oppose, you ought to be the strongest advocate of independent thought. A Russian culture dominated by independent thought would not have elevated a Putin, much less carried out Putin’s evil invasion of Ukraine.
Yet the leftists who run American government and culture — while generally against military force and wars — are the strongest proponents of duty you will find. Look at their disgraceful behavior during the faux “pandemic.” Take the shot, wear a mask, shut down all opposing thought, or even questions — or else. All of this was premised on the idea of duty. The leftists mean duty to the Party, i.e., to the leftist celebrities, billionaires and pseudo-intellectuals who dominate everything in our society.
It doesn’t really matter whether it’s duty fostered by Putin, or duty fostered by Joy Behar, Mark Zuckerberg and Rachel Maddow. It’s all sick, it’s all evil and it’s all MINDLESS.
If you are a Putin, a Stalin, a Hitler — or even a hapless Biden — you simply cannot do anything irrational and evil without the help of people who subscribe to the idea of duty. If you want to defeat evil, then you first have to uphold the idea of independent thought and individualism. These are what once made America great. For a brief shining moment of human history, individualism rose above blind duty, and look what it accomplished.
Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Rehoboth Beach DE). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram.
If WWW III is to be a conventional war, the draft WILL return. Leftists who cheered forcing vax and mask mandates will watch their snowflake children get coerced into fighting a bloody war in Europe to … save freedom? What freedom?
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Support Ukraine? Sure. But if more Americans stood up to tyrants in our own country, Ukraine would have been a safer place today.
For centuries, the United States stood and fought for freedom. This made the rest of the world safer for freedom. Now, the majority of us hunker down and wait for Master Governor or Master President to tell us what we may, or may not, do. It goes way beyond any “pandemic.” The world has noticed. Russia in particular. You can light the colors of the Ukrainian flag all you wish. But by letting freedom go in our own country, you’ve hurt yourself — as well as the rest of the world. Enjoy.
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How to stay serene in the midst of insanity? Don’t try to change it. You can’t stop it. You CAN refuse to participate in it, sanction or enable it IN ANY WAY. That’s how you stay sane.
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Clay Travis, @ClayTravis on Twitter: “Apple has stopped selling their products in Russia after the Ukraine invasion. Does this mean Apple would pull out of China and stop making & selling its products there if China invaded Taiwan? Love to hear someone answer this question at Apple.”
Don’t hold your breath.
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote on Twitter, after Biden’s “state of the union” speech: “No apology from Biden tonight for Democrat mandates and shutdowns that hurt so many. When I’m governor, we will keep schools open, not closed; educate kids, not indoctrinate them; empower parents, not bureaucrats; and prepare studnets for the workforce, not governemnt dependnecy!”
Even better: Let’s arrest, prosecute, convict and punish all Governors, mayors and Presidents who did this to us. If we don’t, they’re going TO DO IT ALL AGAIN. AND AGAIN. And they will ultimately do even worse things to us, since they know we will never punish them.
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“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” [Unknown]
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“The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or, what is most important of all, the banker of the backer.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
Communists in the Party have ditched their masks. They are on to something new. Be very afraid.
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Joe Biden in the White House seems like a basis for declaring a state of emergency.
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State of the Union? What Union?
Millions of us want a DIVORCE.
Go to hell, DemComs.
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If it’s evil to drill for gas in North America, why is it NOT evil to let brutal Putin drill for gas in Russia, ship it to us and fund his brutality through our purchase of it?
Ask your leftist friends to explain.
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Facebook has sent me notice that I’m REQUIRED to adopt their “safety” program called “Facebook Protect.” It’s not optional. I have to be “protected” whether I want to be, or not. How novel. The reason given? Because I have a large number of followers and — they say — I must therefore be protected. My questions: WHO is being protected here — and from whom? Why does this protection have to be forced? I wonder if people with leftist points of view are getting the same thing?
Ominous.
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State of the Unition?
Look at gas and grocery prices. The real estate bubble. Idiots still wearing masks. Censorship on social media. Criminals running free, crime skyrocketing. Tyrants from Canada to Russia flourishing.
There’s your state of the union!
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Speaking of ominous, this is one of the best books EVER: The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff. (The original subtitle was: The End of Freedom in America) Why? Because it explains the deepest philosophical and psychological origins of dictatorship, and how such trends observed by the author in America in the 1970s and 1980s were slowly evolving into–well, exactly what we have today. It seemed surreal to read this book in the 80s or 90s, but today it almost seems tame.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 