Category Archives: Politics

The Time is Perfect to Decentralized D.C.

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Much has been written about the pandemic-driven favorable aspects, promise, and implications of virtual working compared to traditional in-person interfaces. We are all woke to the now known to be unnecessary complications, inconveniences and costs of physical offices, urban crime, commuting, and virus-transmitting.

Much less has been written about virtual management’s implications for decentralizing the federal government and putting the decision-makers physically among the decision-affected — real instead of virtual reality.
How about considering the following departmental tectonic shifts: Interior to Wyoming, Utah, or Colorado; Agriculture to Iowa, Nebraska, or South Dakota; and Commerce to Florida or Louisiana?

Regulators of the environment could literally step out their back doors and visit a forest, see a farm, soybean, cornfield, or cow; or visit a vibrant multicultural economy on the hemisphere’s doorsteps.

Relocating individuals could cash in on D.C.’s inflated housing prices and boost their quality of life with bigger homes and maybe even a back 40, or at least a backyard. Fourth of July parades in clean, healthy open air and Eagle Scouting could be reborn.

Sub-Cabinet-level relocation possibilities are equally endless: Fisheries to New England, FDA to the university-rich Research Triangle in North Carolina, and the FAA to an actual hub such as Nashville, St. Louis, or even Chicago.

The movement even lends itself to a catchy slogan, “Decentralize D.C.,” which fits nicely on a bumper sticker.

Carlisle Johnson, American Thinker

Author’s credits: Emisoras Unidas (ABC Radio affiliate), Canal Antigua TV, VOA (radio and TV), American Thinker, BBC4, El Periodico, Cincinnati Enquirer, Guatemala Post, Atlantic, Washington Times, Mexico News Daily, St. Petersburg Times (comments). MarriottGolden

Despairing America: The Astonishing Psychological Cost of Lockdown

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Recently, a series of special health alerts and reports have come out warning of growing numbers of people and a country at the breaking point. Sadly, little of that information has reached the public.

American people are crying out for help and dying − not from a virus with an “infection fatality rate” of 0.15-0.2% across all age groups, and 0.03 to 0.04% in those under 70 years old. (This means, 99.96% of nearly everyone who gets the virus lives.) No, the desperation and distress are in response to the government’s unprecedented mandates and lockdowns.

Masking, isolation, business closures, shuttered churches, ended normal school classes, seniors confined secluded in nursing homes, people left to die alone in hospitals, sporting events ended, music silenced, jobs and livelihoods destroyed. American life has been cancelled – from Easter to Memorial Day, 4th of July to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now New Year’s..

Many people have lost everything and now face losing their country. The level of despair is palpable. Growing numbers have lost the ability to cope.

What would happen as a result of these unprecedented government mandates was well known. They cannot say they didn’t know or that it wasn’t anticipated.

Aftermath of Covid-19 “Pandemic” Declaration

Local and state governments acted in lockstep, issuing sweeping mandates in March with predicted devastating impacts on the economy. The 95 million Americans not in the labor force at the start of the year jumped by more than 10 million the first month after the emergency mandates. With the continued lockdowns and emergency orders, joblessness has accelerated, with the greatest impact on women and lower income workers. Over 40% are not expected to regain their jobs. This November, more than 100.6 million Americans were not working, 9.2 million more compared to this time last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Texas has had the second greatest number of business closures in the nation, after California, since March, according to the latest Yelp Local Economic Impact Report. More than 8,900 Texas businesses have closed permanently and another 5,300 are closed temporarily and barely hanging on. Even in Lubbock, for example, which had enjoyed stable low unemployment levels for years, unemployment rates shot up over 350% in April after Mayor Dan Pope’s emergency orders. Still today, the percentage of Lubbock residents without jobs is more than double what it had been the entire year before.

Every month of the economic shutdown has cost the U.S. economy $1.1 trillion, according to leading economists. Not only is this the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, according to Goldman Sachs, but high unemployment and job uncertainty, which peaked at 25% across the country, are expected to continue. Unemployment levels were predicted to persist at around 8% through 2021.

The public is finally coming to realize that even this forecast is optimistic − there is no end in sight in the government’s plans to never allow the country to return to normal. Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned it would last two years, some academics have advocated for mandates to continue years until the virus is completely eradicated, and World Economic Forum stakeholders are saying that normal life (without masking, social distancing and other restrictions) won’t be permitted until after 2022, even after lockdowns are lifted.

“A thriving economy, of the kind that we are now throwing away, is the source of our security and the foundation of our children’s future. We would do well not to sneer at it. Poverty kills too. And when it does not kill, it maims, mentally, physically and socially.” − Lord Sumption

Being without work and job insecurity have long been recognized as risk factors for depression, anxiety, suicide, substance abuse and premature death. Unemployment is associated with an average 60% increase in mortality. There’s also a large body of research showing isolation and loneliness lead to worsening mental and physical health and premature death. Isolation and loss of close social contact raises risks of heart attacks and strokes, and increases death from all causes by 50%. Social isolation itself is increasingly contributing to cruel growing deaths among locked down elderly, by an estimated 20%, who simply don’t want to go on and have lost the will to live. It’s a form of punishment for felons, after all.

As mental health experts wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, government mandates have created the perfect storm for increased suicides: economic stress from loss of jobs, loss of savings from stock market declines, closed businesses and schools, social isolation and loneliness, loss of community and religious services and activities, unknowns with loss of control over political mandates, and health worries, including people unable to access medical care as mandates restricted care for non-Covid patients.

According to the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care with Well Being Trust, the collective impact of the government’s emergency mandates will be even more devastating. “Massive unemployment, mandated social isolation for months and possible residual isolation for years,” along with the uncertainty and fear being created about a virus, is exacerbating the deaths of despair. Looking at the projected levels of unemployment from 2020 to 2029, they estimated 27,644 additional suicides if the shutdowns ended right away, to 154,037 suicides if the economic recovery is slower.

Public Health Crisis – Suicides

In a study published in Lancet Psychiatry, University of Zurich psychiatrists examined more than a decade of data from 63 countries and found a 9-fold higher number of suicides associated with unemployment.

In August, Kaiser Family Foundation researchers reported stress symptoms had nearly doubled since March, including difficulty sleeping, eating disorders, increased drinking and substance abuse, and worsening of chronic health conditions. Also in August, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s MMWR reported that since the pandemic, representative surveys across the country revealed that over 30% of Americans admitted suffering from anxiety or depression, 13.3% had started or increased use of substances trying to cope with the stress; and more than one in ten had seriously considered suicide in the previous 30 days.

Suicides and drug overdoses have soared across the country. Even children have become collateral damage of the government mandates. Suicides and drug overdoses have far exceeded deaths from Covid-19 among young people, CDC Director Robert Redfield reported this summer.

Cook Children’s hospital in Fort Worth, for example, reported a disturbing spike in suicide attempts among children, with 29 patients in August alone – one child suicide patient a day, more than double typically. By October, 192 kids had been admitted for attempting suicide – this compares to 88 patients in 2015. As children struggle from the isolation, missed social connections and fears, “kids are getting to the point where they’re becoming more hopeless,” said Kia Carter, MD, the hospital’s medical director of psychiatry.

A study by specialists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston just published in the journal Pediatrics reported the results of more than 9,000 risk screenings done at their pediatric Emergency Department. They found significantly higher rates of suicide ideation and suicide attempts during this pandemic among ages 11-21, as compared to the same period last year.

Significant increases were specifically seen during the months when Covid-related stress and community responses were heightened, they reported. Suicides had already grown to become the second leading cause of death among young people 10-17 years old, with ER visits for suicide attempts among children increasing 92% between 2007-2015.

New Mexico, as an example, has endured some of the most stringent and unrelenting lockdown measures in the country by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. It’s a state that can ill afford the crippling measures. It has long ranked at the bottom of nearly every index from economy, jobs, schools performance, and illicit drugs problems; and highest for crime (more than twice the national average) and violence. It has also long had the highest rates of suicide deaths in the country, twice the national average, according to CDC data.

Yet New Mexico officials have been pretty silent about the consequences of Grisham’s policies on rising drug overdoses and suicides, even among kids. One tragic story was recently leaked to the news of an eleven year old in Hobbs who took his life, leaving a journal describing how he was going mad from stay-at-home orders and wanted to be able to go to school and play with his friends.

Nor have the public schools been outspoken about what’s happening among students. At the October 8 Board of Directors meeting of New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority, Julie Garcia, with Poms & Associates, a risk prevention insurance company that’s had NMPSIA’s contract since 1986, said in her loss prevention update that there had been several suicides in the past several months concerning school children. She was asked specifically if anyone had reached out to the Farmington schools about the athlete suicides, lamely replying with an offer of two mental health first aid trainers.

But the growing suicides among New Mexico’s youth were exposed in a December 8, special suicide report from the state’s Legislative Finance Committee. It revealed that suicides are a larger cause of death among 15-24 year olds than any other age group in the state. Suicide rates among these young people more than doubled from 13/100,000 in 2014 to 29.5/100,000 in 2017.

The pandemic lockdowns have exacerbated suicide risks, the analysis said. Already this year, there have been seven suicides in children under 15 years old, compared to five in 2019, along with increased numbers among ages 15-24. The report disclosed that there had been seven suicides among New Mexico’s student athletes this year, as well as two youths from Hobbs and another two in San Miguel County. Worse, it reported that according to the Public Education Department’s budget reporting, the state’s public schools had been allotted an additional $12 million this school year for guidance counselors, counselors and psychologists – money that has been left unspent.

Public Health Alert – Overdoses

This past week, the CDC took the unusual action of issuing an emergency Health Alert Advisory. Its most recent data revealed 81,230 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during the 12 months ending in May.

“This is the largest number of drug overdoses for a 12-month period ever recorded.”

Since emergency mandates were enacted in March, the CDC stated, drug overdoses have skyrocketed – the largest increase occurring from March to May, “coinciding with the implementation of widespread mitigation measures for the Covid-19 pandemic.” The drug overdose crisis is accelerating with the pandemic declarations, it said. This is after overdoses had declined 4.1% between 2017 and 2018.

The primary driver is synthetic opioids – illicit fentanyl – a deadly street drug. Western states have had large increases in availability of illicit fentanyl in the streets, and had the largest increases in overdose deaths, confirmed in clinical toxicology drug tests, the CDC stated. Ten Western states have had a 98% increase in illicit drug overdoses, but all 38 jurisdictions with data have recorded significant surges in deaths since the government Covid-19 pandemic mandates.

The Overdose Mapping and Application Program, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area initiative that collects data from ambulance teams, hospitals and law enforcement, sounded the alarm in May. It reported that overdoses had increased 20% between January and April compared to last year, with the greatest spike occurring in March.

The Washington Post reported that compared to last year, overdoses had jumped 18% in March and were continuing to increase: 29% in April and 42% in May. Calling it “Cries for Help,” they wrote that “as the pandemic has pushed massive doses of fear, uncertainty, anxiety and depression into people’s lives, it has cut off the human connections that help ease those burdens” of isolation, hopelessness, and distress.

A December 9 Issue Brief from the American Medical Association chronicled disturbing reports of drug overdoses across the country – with more than 40 states reporting increased drug deaths. By September, Cortland County in Texas, for example, had recorded a 200% increase in overdose deaths in less than two years. Drug trafficking gangs are increasing profit margins by cutting expensive heroin with cheaper synthetic substances like fentanyl or brorphine, said law enforcement officers, who are seeing growing evidence of illicit drugs.

Overdose deaths far exceed deaths to Covid-19 in cities across the country. A reported 173 deaths associated with Covid-19 have been reported in the San Francisco area this year. In contrast, a record 621 have died of drug overdoses, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In November alone, 58 died in their streets, sidewalks, alleyways and parks – two a day. Officials at the city’s Drug Overdose Prevention and Education Project believe that these numbers are still a major undercount since they are self-reported.

In nearly every report of skyrocketing suicides and drug overdoses seen with the government’s pandemic measures, proposals by stakeholders call for more money and more mental health programs…while ignoring the most obvious root of the problem. If leaders really cared about people, the clearly rational and ethical thing to do would be to fully end the unsupportable government mandates. Continuing pandemic mandates is not just destroying people’s lives and livelihoods. It is killing people.

Sandy Szwarc, BSN, RN is a graduate of U.T. Austin and a researcher and writer on health and science issues for more than 30 years.

It’s Free

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One of the most misused words in the English language is “free,” as in “it’s free.” Whether it’s the free samples of stuff at Costco, or the free pens and refrigerator magnets they give away at your local bank or car dealership, or the free hip replacement your mother-in-law just received, we use the term freely, so to speak, without ever considering it’s true meaning.

When we say “it’s free,” what we really mean is that someone else is paying for it—voluntarily or involuntarily. And this is a very important distinction. Because one is morally defensible, while the other is not. One involves a clear violation of private property rights, enshrined in the Seventh Commandment, while the other does not. The Seventh Commandment states, “Thou Shalt Not Steal Thy Neighbor’s Goods.” This is the clearest affirmation of private property rights ever handed down. By The Man Himself. And it’s etched in stone. You can’t take someone else’s things, period. And just because you take something from someone and turn around and give it to someone you believe is deserving doesn’t justify it either. The Seventh Commandment is everything the Good Lord ever had to say about “social justice,”–about what is mine and what is thine.

The free samples of some new pineapple/anchovy salsa being handed out by the nice ladies in latex gloves at Costco are not really free. They are either being paid for by Costco, or the company that makes those dreadful concoctions. So while Costco is erroneously saying, “Try these free samples,” what they really should be saying is, “Try one of these dreadful concoctions that we or the producer are paying for.” The same with the pens and refrigerator magnets at your local bank or car dealership. And the customers are likewise incorrect when they proudly tell their spouses, “These pens were free, Honey.”

So, while the merchants and customers are misusing the word free in these examples, if only because it’s convenient; the actions in both cases are not immoral. Neither action involves breaking the Seventh Commandment nor anyone’s private property rights. Both the salsa and the pens and refrigerator magnets are owned by the parties giving them away. The owners can dispose of them as they wish. But, in any event, they are not free. Someone had to pay for them.

In the case of your mother-in-law’s hip replacement, however, it is neither free nor morally acquired. The new hip wasn’t free; it was clearly paid for by somebody else, in this case the taxpayer. And it was not morally acquired, since it involved a breach of the Seventh Commandment and private property rights. The money to pay for her new hip came out of her neighbor’s pocket, the very party the Seventh Commandment (and the United States Constitution) was designed to protect. The money to pay for the hip was taken from her neighbor by a third party, an intermediary we customarily call the government. Third Party intervention, however, does not legitimize the violation of the Seventh Commandment nor the very private property rights protected by the Seventh Commandment. If a highwayman robs you at gun-point and tells you they are going to give all your money to the needy, it doesn’t make it right. It’s still a violation of that pesky Seventh Commandment.

Both the hip replacement and the act of that thoughtful highwayman involve a breach of the Seventh Commandment and the private property rights protected by the Seventh Commandment. In either case, the ends do not justify the means. Nor is the hip replacement free. But if you ask your mother-in-law how much she had to pay for the hip replacement, she would in all likelihood and without a second thought say, “It was free.” What she really should have said was, “My neighbor paid for it, and they didn’t even ask him for permission.”

So the next time you’re about to casually say, “It’s free,” think again. Because, rightly or wrongly, it really means somebody else is paying for it.

The Artful Dilettante

The Nobility of Savages

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As part of wokedom’s fantasy-ridden fascination with indigenes, sports teams, such as the Redskins and Braves, race to change names. (For Washington’s team, the Federal Folders has been suggested.) Outraged conservatives see the changes as nauseating prissiness by historically illiterate ninnies. It is every bit of this. Still, the teams should be renamed. What civilized nation would name teams after murderous, torturing stone-age savages? Which the Indians were.

Yes, I know. Quite. Today one shouldn’t refer to torturing stone-age savages as torturing stone-age savages. No, the Indians were contemplative, spiritual beings at one with nature, living simply and nobly, like a pudding of Buddha and Henry David Thoreau.

I recommend to those imbrued with this dreamy understanding of Native Americans a couple of books, Over the Earth I Come, by Duane Schultz, a history of the entirety of the Sioux uprising in Minnesota of 1862, and Dakota Dawn, by Gregory Michno, of the first week. These recount the deaths of some 800 settlers, almost entirely civilians, at the hands of the noble, contemplative Sioux. It was not a rebellion against Federal troops of men, but butchery of families, usually defenseless. War parties went from farm to farm, killing men, women, and children.

In one act of contemplation, they nailed children to a door and slowly vivisected them to death in front of their parents, who themselves were then tortured to death. Teenage girls were staked to the ground, raped by a dozen or two of braves, then hacked to death.

Tidbits: Children deliberately burned alive in flaming cabins. Children shot, quickly if they were lucky, otherwise left to die in agony. Whole families tomahawked in their cabins, girls taken prisoner for later amusement.

These things actually happened, over and over, not as isolated incidents. The descriptions are from original accounts by those who were there. If you think I am inventing, or exaggerating, read either of the books mentioned above. The links go to Amazon. Both are by historians, not by lying heartless racist conservative Trump-loving just-like-Hitler and so on. Both comport closely with many accounts I have read by men (usually) captured or even raised by Indian tribes. These spiritual beings were of the Stone Age by literal definition and were most assuredly savages by any definition.

If the events in these books are judged inadequate, Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, by Thomas Goodrich, provides accounts of similar grotesque torture by Western Indians. For example, a cavalry unit found a man who had been staked to the ground, disemboweled, and later burned to death.

Why the grotesque torture? Because the Indians enjoyed it. They took prisoners for the specific purpose, making village celebrations of the procedure. American soldiers took seriously the admonition, “Save your last bullet for yourself.” Gunga Din all over again.

Torture as amusement was not restricted to a few tribes. The Iroquois were famous for gruesome technique, being artists of the genre. Captured by the Indians, by Herman Lehmann consisting of fifteen accounts by captives, provides many examples.

Why did the natives erupt in Minnesota and on the plains? Easy. Because the settlers followed the policy usual across the continent of lying to the Indians, breaking treaties, pushing them out of the best land, killing off the buffalo on which they depended and sometimes massacring whole villages. The whites placed avaricious and incompetent officials over them, forced them onto reservations, and allowed corrupt traders to exploit them mercilessly. Ask and ye shall receive, says an old book. Whether this justifies disemboweling a pregnant woman and nailing her almost-infant to a tree—this was done—may be argued. It happened.

Contrary to Kevin Costner’s “Dances with Wolves,” the Sioux tribe was feared by even other savage Indian tribes. Minnesota tried hanging most of them, but Abraham Lincoln would only allow Minnesota to hang 38.

Another book of contemplation and oneness with nature is the Thomas Goodrich book, including first-hand accounts of Custer’s error in judgement. The Indians acted like…Indians. I won’t multiply horrifying examples.

Nobody doubted that the plains Indians were superb warriors, the best horsemen on the continent. They were not stupid. They were loyal to their tribes and sometimes enrolled captive whites into their tribes as equals. Yet east and west they were unspeakably cruel, for example tying prisoners naked to poles and keeping them alive for hours while burning the with flaming branches.

Women’s rights? In many tribes, perhaps all, they were treated almost as slaves, doing the physical work of the villages. Captured white women were beaten and passed among the braves as sexual toys, sometimes being pregnant when released in one way or another. An Indian woman caught in adultery might have her nose cut off while the man suffered no penalty.

All of this is well, multitudinously, and voluminously documented. Again, it would be easy to sicken the reader with example after example.

All of the foregoing is written to illustrate the absurdity of painting the Indians as woodland philosophers and oppressed innocents. Oppressed, yes, innocents, no. The whites often behaved as savagely as the Indians, suggesting we should rename the Cowboys and Forty-Niners. Anyone doubting this might read of the Sand Creek Massacre in which American soldiers attacked a village that had been promised peace, killing men, women, and children. For example, using a toddler for target practice. The link is to a Wikipedia entry and, while long is worth reading if you believe the Disney fantasy of brave, honest settlers bringing principle and Christian morality to an exceptional new nation. There were plenty of massacres by whites, including by later-President Jackson.

Sand Creek bits and pieces:

“I saw the bodies of those lying there cut all to pieces, worse mutilated than any I ever saw before; the women cut all to pieces … With knives; scalped; their brains knocked out; children two or three months old; all ages lying there, from sucking infants up to warriors … By whom were they mutilated? By the United States troops ..”

— John S. Smith, Congressional Testimony of Mr. John S. Smith, 1865

“Fingers and ears were cut off the bodies for the jewelry they carried. The body of White Antelope, lying solitarily in the creek bed, was a prime target. Besides scalping him the soldiers cut off his nose, ears, and testicles-the last for a tobacco pouch ….”

“Before Chivington and his men left the area, they plundered the teepees and took the horses. After the smoke cleared, Chivington’s men came back and killed many of the wounded. They also scalped many of the dead, regardless of whether they were women, children or infants. Chivington and his men dressed their weapons, hats and gear with scalps and other body parts, including human fetuses and male and female genitalia.”

The impenetrably woke and the hyperpatriotic will insist respectively that these things didn’t happen, and that anyway they were isolated incidents. But they did, and weren’t. Few things die harder than illusion.

Fred Reed, UNZ Review

We Don’t Need to Accept the “New Normal”

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Listening to the media today, one sometimes hears the phrase “new normal.” The dictionary defines normal as “conforming to a norm or standard.” That means it is society that determines what is normal and what is not, depending on what is happening in the country.

As we begin 2021, with the usual hope and optimism, we must reflect on the year which has just passed, for 2020 also began on an extremely positive note. The economy was roaring, factories and jobs were coming back to America, the stock market was doing well, and unemployment among minorities and women was at the lowest rate ever recorded. Then “the plague” struck at the end of January, and subsequently, our world came crashing down around us; a situation which was only aggravated by George Floyd’s death.

All of us have seen and heard things during this past year that would have been unimaginable in 2019, but which today are almost a daily occurrence. We call these transformative events “the new normal.”

Examples of the new normal are all around us and affect all aspects of our lives. Defunding the police while crime skyrockets is the new normal. Prisoners being released back on the streets, while hairdressers and restaurant owners are fined and sometimes jailed, is the new normal. Big tech and mainstream media shutting down all voices opposing their agenda, while extolling the virtues of democracy and free speech, is the new normal. A CNN reporter describing demonstrators as “peaceful protesters,” while behind him the skyline burns, is the new normal. Closing down all restaurants, houses of worship, and small businesses while allowing protesters to burn, riot, and loot in the name of “social justice” is the new normal. Prisoners in certain states receiving the COVID vaccine while vulnerable seniors must wait is the new normal. The latest COVID Relief bill, which included only a paltry sum in relief for tens of millions of desperate Americans, while granting billions in foreign aid, is the new normal.

Apparently, our elected representatives in the House and the Senate believe the Sudanese national debt and the education of women in Pakistan are more important than their constituents. The late publisher William Randolph Hearst addressed this very issue nearly a century ago, on May 7, 1924, when he wrote: “The day when this nation ceases to shape its foreign policy primarily for the safety and welfare of the American people will be the day on which its national doom is sealed – and its international doom too.” These are only a few of the many examples of the new normal that assault and numb our senses daily.

If there is one issue that stands out in terms of importance, it would be defunding or re-imagining the police, for no civilized society can function without order, safety, and security. It is no accident that the “peaceful protesters” have made the police the number one target for vilification. This is especially true in blue states and cities where state and local governments, along with radical district attorneys, have acquiesced to all the protesters’ demands, refusing to prosecute them for their crimes and allowing them free rein to do exactly as they wish. This has resulted in their states and cities sliding even further into chaos and anarchy, as their tax base continues to move away in ever-increasing numbers.

Any normal person would stop and re-think their failed strategy but not these people. If anything, they double down on their ideology. Some might conclude they are irrational, but there is a method to their madness. It is a method that has been used before.

During the heyday of the Cultural Revolution in China, mobs of Red Guards rampaged through the streets of Beijing and other Chinese cities unencumbered by any police restraint. They assaulted anyone they deemed counter-revolutionary. Bloodied and beaten, with placards hung around their necks denouncing them for their crimes, these hapless individuals were hauled before a forum called a “struggle session” where various individuals, sometimes even their own children, would take turns denouncing them for every imaginable offense, up to, and including, “thought crimes.” The actual number of people killed during the Cultural Revolution is unknown, but it is believed to be in the millions. The purpose of all this was twofold. The first was to solidify Mao’s position as absolute ruler of China. The second was to cow an entire population into submission and obedience through fear, terror, and intimidation. It is a very effective tactic. Every single totalitarian state throughout history has used similar methods to ensure its continued rule.

The U.S. is on the verge of becoming a country in decline, ceding to China the position of dominant world superpower. One could say that this is part of the ebb and flow of history. Every single great civilization from the Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans in ancient times to the Aztec, Inca, and Mayan civilizations in our own hemisphere has gone through this process. Even the once-mighty British Empire, which at one time controlled a third of the world, and of whom it was said, “The Sun Never Sets On,” has withered away into near obscurity.

If you were to “time warp” back to Moscow in 1990 and tell the first Russian you met that within a year his country would implode, he would look at you as if you were crazy. The collapse of a great civilization can occur slowly over time as it did with Rome and Britain, or it can happen suddenly, as with the Soviet Union. Great civilizations go through an aging process and right now, ours is looking very old.

However, aging doesn’t mean dead. We can buck the historic trend. It’s true that we have forgotten the ideals that once made us great, and replaced the “old normals” of liberty, individual responsibility, equality, and unity with the “new normals” of identity politics, wokeness, cancel culture, and critical race theory.

In a speech on May 14, 1920, over a century ago, President Warren G. Harding warned the nation that: “America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.” It’s time again for Americans to assert normalcy and restoration. And then, yes, America can and will be great again.

Caren Besner is a retired teacher who has written articles published by American Thinker, Sun-Sentinel, Dr Swier, News With Views, The Front Page, The Published Reporter, Washington Examiner, The Algemeiner, Jewish Journal, Independent Sentinel, Jerusalem Post, Arutz Sheva, San Diego Jewish World, The Times of Israel, The Moderate Voice, IsraPost, The Jewish Voice, Joo Tube, The Florida Veteran, and others.

2020, 2021 & the Prospect of a Post-Republic, Post-Constitutional America

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Well, here’s the thing: If we DON’T oppose the Electoral College, then 75 million Americans will now be disenfranchised forever with no possibility of putting dissenters in office. It’s over. We are under one-party rule, forever. And if Biden supporters and RINOs carry the day, they will have 75 million REALLY PISSED OFF AND PERMANENTLY NONCOMPLIANT subjects to contend with. Sorry lefties. But when you practice fraud and deceit, as we know you’re about to do in Georgia again, you create a lot of problems for yourself. This will be a war, and there’s no getting around it. Not with rigged elections. We will not roll over and accept a dictatorship.

It will take a lot more than turning the calendar page for 2021 to be better than 2020. In order for 2021 to be better, the vast majority of us will have to embrace rationality over feelings; common sense and reason over the herd; resistance over compliance; independent thought over the mindless ravings of celebrities; personal responsibility over victimhood; and unapologetic freedom over tyranny. In other words: THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF EVERYTHING MOST OF US DID IN 2020.

George Orwell wrote that abuse of language led to dictatorship. “War is peace, slavery is freedom”. Ayn Rand went deeper, and said that the obliteration of concepts–the uniquely human method of cognition–would bring us dictatorship. And what do we see today? Exaggerated hysteria — mass obsessive-compulsive disorder — falsely labeled “science”. Government propagandists falsely called “doctors”. The imposition of an open-ended totalitarian regime worse than what Orwell or Rand projected as a way to “be safe”. When you wipe out the capacity for rational thought, you create the basis for tyranny. Well done, tyrants. You have turned America into a dystopian mecca of mask-wearing morons. Good luck with the results.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

What is the Meaning of New Year’s ?

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The meaning of most holidays is clear: Valentine’s Day celebrates romance; July Fourth, independence; Thanksgiving, productivity; Christmas, good will toward men. The meaning of New Year’s Day–the world’s most celebrated holiday–is not so clear. On this day, many people remember last year’s achievements and failures and look forward to the promise of a new year, of a new beginning. But this celebration and reflection is the result of more than an accident of the calendar. New Year’s has a deeper significance. What is it?

On New Year’s Day, when the singing, fireworks and champagne toasts are over, many of us become more serious about life. We take stock and plan new courses of action to better our lives. This is best seen in one of the most popular customs and the key to the meaning of New Year’s: making resolutions.

On average each American makes 1.8 New Year’s resolutions. When the rest of the world is taken into account, the number of people making resolutions skyrockets to hundreds of millions. From New York to Paris to Sydney, interesting similarities arise as shown in two very common resolutions: people wanting to be more attractive by losing weight, and to be healthier by exercising more and smoking less. They want to do things better, become better people.

New Year’s Day is the most active-minded holiday, because it is the one where people evaluate their lives and plan and resolve to take action. One dramatic example of taking resolutions seriously is the old European custom of: “What one does on this day one will do for the rest of the year.” What unites this custom and the more common type of resolutions is that on the first day of the year people take their values more seriously.

Values are not only physical and external. They also can be psychological. Many New Year’s resolutions reveal that people want to better themselves by improving psychologically. For example, look at your own resolutions over the years. Haven’t they included such vows as: be more patient with your children, improve your self-esteem, be more emotionally open with your wife? Such resolutions express the moral ambitiousness of a person wanting to improve his self and life.

What then is the philosophic meaning of New Year’s resolutions? Every resolution you make on this day implies that you are in control of your self, that you are not a victim fated by circumstance, controlled by stars, owned by luck, but that you are an individual who can make choices to change your life. You can learn statistics, ask for that promotion, fight your shyness, search for that marriage partner. Your life is in your own hands.

But what is the purpose of making such goals and resolutions? Why bother? Making New Year’s resolutions (and doing so even after failing last year’s) stresses that people want to be happy. On New Year’s Day many people accept, often more implicitly than explicitly, that happiness comes from the achievement of values. That is why you resolve to be healthier, more ambitious, more confident. You want to enjoy that sense of purpose, accomplishment and pleasure that one feels when achieving values. It is happiness that is the motor and purpose of one’s life. It is New Year’s, more than any other day, that makes the attainment of happiness more real and possible. This is the meaning of New Year’s Day and why it is so psychologically important and significant to people throughout the world.

If people were to apply the value-achievement meaning of New Year’s Day explicitly and consistently 365 days each year, they would be happier.

So every day, fill your champagne glass of life to the brim with values–and drink deep to your life and the joy that it can and should be.

Happy New Year. Happy life.

Scott McConnell, Capitalism Magazine

Don’t Vote

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In her 1957 masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand introduced us to a powerful concept which she called “the sanction of the victim.”  This concept is defined as “the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the ‘sin‘ of creating values.”  As Rand explains through the character of her hero, John Galt, “Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us,” and, “I saw that evil was impotent…and the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it.”   In Rand’s view, morality requires that we do not sanction our own victimhood.  This concept may be original in the thinking of Ayn Rand and is foundational to her moral theory: she holds that evil is a parasite on the good and can only exist if the good tolerates it.

The sanction of the victim takes many forms, on the individual level in our personal relationships, and in the social or public realm in our relationship with the State.   In Rand’s Atlas Shrugged it primarily takes the form of unearned guilt and the need to acknowledge and show kindness towards our tormentors and those who would exploit us.  Ultimately, the sanction of the victim is used by our exploiters as the weapon of our own destruction.  The victim becomes an accessory to the crime.

On the personal level, among countless situations, the sanction of the victim would apply to the beaten wife, the verbally abused husband, and the parents of mooching offspring that refuse to grow up and leave home (excluding the handicapped and emotionally disabled).  An ever-growing percentage of our youth now choose to remain at home with their parents indefinitely.  The parent-victims have been played like a violin by their offspring, conditioned to believe they are financially and emotionally helpless, incapable of surviving independently.  The parents are terrified of the unbearable guilt they would carry if they were to send them packing.  The parents’ acceptance and acquiescence constitute the sanction of the victim.  Consequently, the parents become the victims of their own cowardice.

The sanction of the victim in the public or political realm expresses itself in two principal forms: participation in popular democratic processes, including elections, and acknowledging, approving, and extending respect and kindness toward our political exploiters (i.e. elected officials, their many toadies, and the supportive media).

Participating in the political process in all its forms constitutes the sanction of the victim. Again, you are an accessory to the crime, a victim of the crimes in which you are an active, but ignorant participant.  You are in effect abating the crimes of the political elite.  All of these things send the wrong message to the criminals and reprobates that comprise the political class.   Voting, attending political rallies, and perhaps worst of all, sending them money, constitute the sanction of the victim.  We are telling the political class, “We approve of your system.  Even though you’re robbing us blind and crushing our Constitutional liberties, we still like you.  Even though you’re corrupt beyond words, you are nevertheless lovable thugs, and we could not begin to fathom or contemplate life without you.

So how do we beat these people?  Democracy and every form of representative government based on popular consent with constitutional constraints is the god that failed.  We are told that political apathy and disengagement is to blame.  I disagree.  Disengagement is the solution, not the problem.  The sanction of the victim only reinforces the problem, whether it’s a bad marriage or a corrupt, tyrannical government.

Here is the Three-Step Program for defanging the snake.

DON’T VOTE.  As political satirist P.J. O’Rourke said, “Don’t vote, it only encourages them.” Elections change nothing systemically.  They only decide who gets to pick your pocket and hold the boot over your neck.  What difference would it have made if slaves had been allowed to elect their plantation overseers?  When you vote you’re doing the same thing.

When has there ever been an election that gives you the choice of A, B, or none of the above?  Hmmm?  Never.  Wouldn’t it be great to live in a voting district with no legislator, no congressman, no senator, no one to suck up to?  Yes, but you don’t have that option.  But you can refuse to be part of the whole scam by not voting.  So don’t vote.  Look, you’re being used like a cheap condom.  Furthermore, the odds of you casting the deciding vote are far less than the odds of your winning the Big Lotto.  In fact, the odds of your being involved in a fatal car accident en route to the polling place are far greater than the odds of casting the deciding vote.  When you vote, you are sanctioning the system, its leaders and their crimes.

Voting is just a bad habit.  Like all bad habits, it is self-defeating.  Moreover, it serves to reinforce the bad habits of your tormentors.  I gave up voting and smoking over 30 years ago.  Both healthy choices, and among the most liberating and empowering I had ever made.

I remember a popular saying when I was young: Imagine if they held a war and nobody showed up.  Well, imagine if they held an election and nobody showed up.  Talking about sending the political class a message !

STOP TREATING POLITICIANS WITH KINDNESS.  What do politicians crave more than power?  Attention.  Attention is their drug of choice.  Indeed, politicians must seek the affirmation and approbation and applause of those whom they would never invite into their homes, have a beer with, or call their friends.  In other words people like you and me.  They have nothing but scorn and contempt for us.  And besides, they’re corrupt beyond words.  So what do we do?  We cram into public auditoriums to catch a glimpse of their faces and suck up their lies like a cat does a saucer of warm milk.  We reach out to grasp their hands as though they were the healing hands of a divine savior.  If you came home from work to find a burglar carrying your possessions out of your house, would you shake his hands and wish him well?  No, you’d call the cops, maybe even beat him up.  Why do we treat politicians any differently when they steal our money every day?  If we started denying politicians the attention and approval they so crave, maybe they’d consider getting an honest living.

A few years ago, on my way to work, our district congressman was shaking hands with us commoners at a Metro station in his district.  Half asleep, I shook his hand and actually wished him well.  Not five seconds later, I realized what a dumb-ass I was—shaking hands with a common criminal, a guttersnipe, a reprobate, a predator, a public parasite.  There I was, extending my best wishes to high-ranking political leader who bore direct responsibility for the mess we found ourselves in.  Would you shake hands with a cat-burglar, a serial rapist, a pedophile?  No, of course not, so why would you shake hands with a politician?

So, take the pledge.  When a politician reaches to shake your hand, act like the person has a communicable disease (what we used to call the “cooties”).  Take your hand back as quickly as possible, and say something pithy like, “No, thank you. When you sleep with dogs, you get fleas.  Don’t ever try to shake my hand again.”  If more of us started treating politicians with the disdain and contempt they deserve, they might begin to consider a more respectable line of work.

3-REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROCESS AT ANY LEVEL.  A good friend of mine is constantly urging me and everyone else he knows to “get involved.  It’s the only way we can fix things.”

As Sherman Potter would say, “Horsehockey !”  What sort of track record does popular participation have compared to apathy and disengagement?  None.  Politicians have always used elections and every form of democratic process to sanction and justify the criminal enterprise we call government.  It just gives them cover.  Government is, and has always been, nothing more than an organized crime syndicate, a protection racket sanctioned by the many forms of popular approval—which Ayn Rand called the sanction of the victim.

So, stay home, focus on your beautiful family, your kids’ Little League and soccer games.  Spend quality time with your friends.  Work at your hobbies, do crossword puzzles, listen to a symphony, read a good book, take your spouse and kids to the movies.  Watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.  Return the ladder you borrowed from your neighbor seven years ago.  Clean out your fridge, there’s probably stuff in there since you were in grammar school.  Take your grandkids to the playground.  Have a glass of champagne with your breakfast cornflakes.  Tell your kid to rake the leaves while you nap in a hammock.  Go to church, bake brownies, take your dog for a walk; mow the lawn; clean out your gutters; weed the garden, shovel the snow in your driveway.  Be at peace with your Maker, whatever you imagine him to be.  But whatever you do, avoid politicians like stray dogs.

The Artful Dilettante