Stephen Baskerville, a writer I have followed for many years, explains in the June 2021 issue of Chronicles that it is the US welfare system constructed by the “Great Society” programs, not racism, that explains the plight of many black Americans. Democrat US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned at the time that the welfare system Democrats were putting in place would destroy the black family. As Moynihan predicted, the “war on poverty” decimated the African-American family and created a self-perpetuating underclass of single mothers and fatherless children.

Moynihan spelled it out for his colleagues:

“A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, that community asks for and gets chaos.”

But the welfare bureaucracies set in place were not about to let go of what was valuable to them. Baskerville says the real problem was not waste and “Welfare Queens” living extravagantly at public expense as conservatives complain, but money spent on turning black children into criminals, addicts, dropouts, and rioters, thus creating more problems requiring more government intrusion.

The appearance of radical feminism exacerbated welfare’s destruction of the black family by glorifying female independence and single-mother homes. Barbara Ehrenreich, for example, declared that “Independence, even in straitened and penurious forms still offers more sexual freedom than affluence gained through marriage and dependence on one man.”

Having driven away black fathers with financial bribes to women, the welfare system then shifted costs to fathers. “Deadbeat Dads” were criminalized and imprisoned under child support laws.

Next feminists used “no fault” divorce laws to extend the destruction of the family into the white component of society. “No fault” divorce destroyed marriage as a legally enforceable contract and replaced it with the ability of one spouse to unilaterally end a marriage without any grounds. Baskerville says that this feminist achievement extended family destruction into white middle class ranks. The resulting bitterness among women created more hatred of men and gave rise to the #MeToo movement which has spread chaos and bitterness.

Democrats have succeeded in shifting the blame for the consequences of their work to “white racism,” and feminists have succeeded in demonizing men. Curiously, feminists blame men for taking advantage of the sexual promiscuity of women that feminists advocated. With the relations between races and the relations between the sexes so badly damaged, what hope is there for society?

Hanne Herland’s examination of feminism and its consequences bolsters Baskerville’s. The ease with which ideologies prevail over facts is an unheeded lesson.

How Marxist Feminism Destroyed the Family:

Paul Craig Roberts

The United States of America is not America. One is a political construct of the constitution; the other is the land and property owned by people who call themselves Americans. One is sick, corrupt, illegal and immoral. The other is the land and homes that need to be defended from the other. The United States of America is rabid, irrationally attacking those trying to heal it from the poison in its system.

After watching a little bit of Meet the Press, a clip, I was struck by the way every talking head was aghast at the idea of Republicans, and more accurately, America First Republicans getting involved in politics on the local level, i.e., precinct captains, poll watchers, county clerk offices, district attorney offices, etc. They spoke as if those positions were the property, the territory of Democrats and Democrats alone. Any interference with Democrat offices was a threat to democracy.

It boggles the mind how they see election integrity as a threat to democracy. The same people who fell for the Russia hoax, who used that as a means to undermine the authority and legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency for over two years suddenly weep and moan about the threat to democracy caused by Donald Trump pointing out that crimes were committed during the 2020 election. It’s infuriating. The fact that crimes were committed is not in dispute. There’s video tape of it. There have been indictments in Wisconsin charging several members of the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) with felonies. All because one sheriff did his duty and investigated charges of criminal acts. Where are all of the other sheriffs in the country?

The whole thing has been a mind-numbing question as to why no one will do their job and investigate criminal activity. It’s a simple matter. Sheriffs are the ones to investigate crimes and when they find suspects, they arrest them. Then it goes to the district attorney to file charges and make the case, or not. It doesn’t have to be done at the Attorney General or Secretary of State level, because they’ve often proven themselves to be the criminals. Refusing to indict someone based on race or political affiliation is a crime. Many of the officials who have done that are the ones supported by Soros and his never-ending flow of cash. This is not speculation or hyperbole, it’s in the FEC filings where the money for their campaigns came from. No, it doesn’t say George Soros, one has to look into who is the founder and director or chief funding source for these organizations to get to the truth, but it’s all there.

I know they’re all communists and communists complain that their enemies are doing what they’re actually doing. That isn’t lost on me, but what has driven me mad over the past year or so is why good, red-blooded American sheriffs have not done their jobs. Why? In Lies of Omission, filmed in 2016, Matt Bracken could be seen getting physically upset with why the FBI seemed clueless, had sold out, even the rank and file that Hannity so rapidly defends, but it comes back to the “good cop” myth. If there were a lot of good cops in the rank and file, how is it possible that there are bad cops? Wouldn’t the good cops arrest the bad cops? If one tolerates a bad cop, doesn’t that make the supposed “good cop” either mythical or irrelevant? Yes, it does.

America is sick and in many respects it’s dying. Some might say that it has rigor mortis already, but so far, there has been no dedicated effort to save it, so who knows if it’s dying or dead? Where are the people who simply do their jobs? It’s the same with the military. It’s why they swear allegiance to the republic, to the constitution and not fealty to some president. Yes, the president is the Commander in Chief, but he’s not a god and when the Commander in Chief acts illegally and violates the constitution and the congress is so timid, feckless or corrupt that it won’t do it, it’s the military’s job to rectify it. That comes with some serious consequences when it’s a judgment call, but there is no need for a judgment call. The treason is open and deliberate. James Comey is a great example of how brazen the treason was. They should all be taken into custody for what we know happened during the Obama Administration, but no one will do it. Is it, as Bracken asked, fear? Are they cowards? Why will no one do their job? One sheriff in Wisconsin, so far, has done his job. That’s all he did and why there aren’t thousands is the question that dooms this nation.

It’s not just sheriffs, it’s DAs, it’s Secretaries of State, it’s governors. They say there was no election fraud. It doesn’t matter, there were illegal activities that are not only known, but recorded. I hear it constantly repeated that Bill Barr saw no evidence of voter fraud. I don’t recall the great investigation that Bill Barr did that allowed him to come to that conclusion. I don’t recall the arrests and interrogations. I don’t recall the “persons of interest” being broadcast so that they can be taken into custody or, at least, questioned. No, Bill Barr simply made the statement on television on a friendly (communist) national broadcast. The same way that Biden simply went out and said that OSHA would impose rules that would require vaxx mandates, but it was never followed up by anyone, still every employer, every government official jumped on the bandwagon of forcing vaxx mandates. Nothing was passed in the congress. There were no hearings on the different points of view, different sets of data that spoke to the need or risk of such a mandate, it was just uttered like some oracle from the Big Giant Head.

What bothers me the most is that I know for a fact that there are millions and millions of people just like me, who care about their families, their homes, their freedom and their rights as much as I do. I know that they see the corruption. They see the treason. They see the approaching end of the republic. They’ve studied history as much as I have. Some of them have lived that history and know how this ends and it’s a sad ending, a horrible, detestable ending. I know they’re willing and ready to save it, to put the criminals in prison, to hold them accountable for the lives lost during this insane period in our time that allows for such injustices.

What I can’t figure out is why those millions and millions are not working harder to make those people do their jobs. That’s all it takes. This doesn’t have to be a counter-revolution to get our freedoms back, we just need to make these weaklings do their jobs or take their jobs from them and do them ourselves. In every instance, from the cops who arrested beauticians for opening their salons, to district attorneys who looked the other way when people burnt down their cities, to representatives who refuse to make the government come up with a budget and tell us where and how our money is being spent and how that benefits us, not the world, I don’t care about the world. It’s not the world’s money, it’s our money and I want to know how it’s being spent and if enough of us don’t agree with it, they need to end that program, or disband that department. The Department of Justice seems like a good candidate from all we’ve seen. From Bill Barr refusing to investigate the hundreds of thousands of crimes committed during the 2020 election, to Merrick Garland sending the storm troops after Sherronna Bishop in Colorado for challenging school boards, it’s a useless waste of money to those who actually make it and send it to the treasury. But the only people they seem interested in defending are the criminals, especially illegal alien or communist criminals.

Yes, I know this is all the communist plot, it’s the method they use over and over again, but why are those millions and millions allowing it to proceed apace? Where is the justice for Ashli Babbitt? Why are there still political prisoners being held in inhumane conditions because of a protest on January 6th? That was no insurrection. The day might come when they see a real one, but that wasn’t it. Where are the governors on the border enforcing the law? All we need to do is make the people responsible for enforcing the constitution, even the laws on the books, do it. How we manage that is up to the people. I say that one method is to make sure the people do the jobs they were hired to do or remove them from office. We have no need of laws, if no one will enforce them and we have no need of people entrusted with enforcing them, if they won’t do it.

If those millions and millions won’t do that, won’t take the simplest, easiest steps to save the nation from communist rule; if they would rather fight it out; if that’s the only solution they see, they can count me in, because sitting around watching it crumble before my eyes, watching every rule, every law, every principle of freedom demolished by inaction is more than I can take.

We now live in enemy-occupied territory with a hostile government willing to use the police power of the state to force us to do whatever dictate is spouted from the great oracle in Washington, D.C. They clearly view half to two-thirds of the people of this nation as enemies themselves, otherwise why would they act toward us as they do? Why would they beat in our doors, assault us, vilify us, simply because we care about what our children study in school?

Study any genocide you want, it all starts the same, with one group of people dehumanizing and delegitimizing another group and for the villains on Meet the Press, that’s anyone who believes that America is the most important nation on earth; that its people deserve the benefits of their labor; that our veterans and their care and housing are more important than border jumpers and criminals. Sorry, given the choice, I proudly stand as their enemy.

T.L. Davis

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”

— author unknown, from a Chinese fortune cookie

his rejoinder entitled “What is Citizenship?” Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry repeats and expands upon his original thesis — that people must be forced to fulfill their duty to serve the state, only this time Gobry emphasizes the concept of citizenship to buttress his argument. With citizenship, he says, come duties and obligations to the state.

Interestingly, Gobry doesn’t explain the specific terms of this obligation. Presumably it is an open-ended construct, one that the state no doubt should have the omnipotent power to decide. If the state decides that four years of military service is satisfactory, so be it. If the state instead decides that a lifetime of service shall be necessary, well, that’s just the way life goes sometimes.

Or maybe the majority decides. Since we live in a representative democracy, why not let Congress make the call? After all, they’re Americans too, right?  What’s wrong with Congress voting on how each citizen shall fulfill his obligation to the state by determining how each person is going to best serve the collective?

It’s good that Gobry has clarified that he is not, in fact, a libertarian, because his two articles now help draw clear distinctions between the way that libertarians think and the way that statists think.

As we can see from Gobry’s two articles and, for that matter, Zach Maurin’s article, “America Needs Universal National Service,” statists see society as a great big bee hive, one in which everyone exists to serve the greater good of the hive. We regular people, needless to say, are the workers. Our duty to the collective is to do what we’re told, stay healthy, produce “growth,” and work for the greater good of the hive.

Libertarians look at society totally differently. We believe that every person has the right to live his life the way he wants, so long as his conduct is peaceful. You exist for your own sake and for the sake of your own happiness, as you yourself perceive it. Thus, so long as a person doesn’t initiate force or fraud against others, he is free to make whatever choices he wants as he proceeds from birth to death, even if those choices meet with the disapproval of everyone else in society. For us, that’s what freedom is all about.

Within the libertarian paradigm, people have their own individual set of values. One might, like Gobry, feel a moral duty to serve the state in some capacity. Another might feel a moral duty to serve God. Another might feel the same way about serving others. Some might not feel any sense of moral duty to serve anyone.

But notice that there is one big difference between the libertarian paradigm and the statist paradigm subscribed to by Gobry: force. Under Gobry’s system, it is legitimate for the state to initiate force — even deadly force — against people who do not share the same concept of duty that he has and who refuse to participate in his concept of duty. Under libertarianism, people have the absolute right to determine and pursue their own values without being interfered with by state gendarmes.

The idea that people should be free to decide moral issues for themselves bothers Gobry because of the so-called free-rider problem. He thinks that a society in which people are free to make the “wrong” choices is one that will inevitably decline.

Oh? Really? In my church, there are many people who make donations on a purely voluntary basis. Some of them are extremely large donations. Some people, I would assume, don’t make any donations at all. I don’t know of one donor who has threatened to withhold his support until everyone has been made to fork over a donation. In fact, the minister doesn’t even make financial support a condition of participating in church services. I’m confident the same applies to all other churches in America.

The same holds true, of course, with any charitable endeavor. People choose to support what’s important to them, even if everyone else is choosing otherwise. Very few people structure their charitable giving based on the so-called free-rider problem.

It is difficult to understand where Gobry draws the line with respect to his concept of state-enforced duty. He obviously thinks that military service is a mandatory duty of citizenship. But what if most other people think that educational or religious service is a much more important duty of a citizen? How does Gobry propose to resolve the problem? Surely he wouldn’t say that he himself should be the final arbiter of what duties come with citizenship, would he?

One can only assume that given his devotion to citizenship and the state that Gobry would say, “Let the majority decide. Let Congress vote on the matter.”

So, let’s say that Congress reaches one of its famous compromises. Every American will now be required to serve two years in the military, another two years in a government-approved church, and another two years in a public school, for a total of six years of national service.

Do you see a problem with that type of system? Libertarians sure do. It destroys the concept of freedom in the pursuit of national service.

Where Gobry goes wrong is with his assumption that the state, not the individual, is sovereign. He forgets that we the people have called the government into existence, not the other way around. Federal officials work for us. They have a duty to serve us. They are our servants. They should be grateful to us for having the privilege of serving us.

Citizenship does not change one iota the fundamental relationship of master and servant between the individual and the state. That relationship’s primary function is to identify those people who have the right to vote, a right that enables people to peacefully change administrations. But the right to vote doesn’t entail the right to enslave others by forcing them to serve the state or anyone else.

Gobry cites Sweden as an example of where “shared values” justify forcing people to serve others within the context of a welfare state. Gobry’s statement about Sweden is revealing:

I am fairly confident that if you were to run opinion polls in Sweden  and ask the citizens of that country whether they would be willing to trade higher economic growth for higher inequality, the vast majority of respondents would say “no.” Swedes have decided that they want to live by a certain set of values, and one of these values is  a relatively strong egalitarianism, and to have the kind of society that they want, it is necessary to have the state redistribute a lot of money.

Notice the phrase I have emphasized — “the vast majority of respondents.” What Gobry is saying is that the commitment to the welfare-state way of life isn’t shared by all Swedes, only a majority of them.

What about the minority — those who have a different set of values, perhaps believing that people should be free to accumulate wealth and decide for themselves what to do with it, as libertarians do?

Gobry says, too bad. People with different values need to be forced to surrender them to the will of the majority.

That’s not the way libertarians see it. We believe in fundamental, God-given, natural rights that preexist government, rights that are immune from the will of the majority. Our philosophy is embodied in the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects fundamental rights from majority rule — and not only for citizens but also non-citizens.

What happens when a person says “no” to mandatory military service, mandatory church service, mandatory educational service, or mandatory welfare-state service?

That’s the question that I originally posed to Gobry, a question that he obviously finds very discomforting given his silence on the matter. But the question of coercion goes to the heart of the statist system and every statist should be made to confront it. So I will repeat it: How about it, Gobry: Should the federal gendarmes kill people who forcibly defend their natural, God-given right to live freely or should they instead walk away and leave them alone. What say ye?

Jacob Hornberger, FFF