“There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“It’s easy to run to others. It’s so hard to stand on one’s own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It’s easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It’s simple to seek substitutes for competence–such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.”

“It’s easy to run to others. It’s so hard to stand on one’s own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It’s easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It’s simple to seek substitutes for competence–such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.”

In a development of precisely no interest to the Main Stream Media, the antiwhite Southern Poverty Law Center ($PLC to VDARE.com) lost its founder, Morris Dees, longtime chairman Richard Cohen and several other top officers in a 2019 coup reportedly related to internal racial tensions and a sexual harassment scandal.Michelle Obama’s former Chief Of Staff Tina Tchen (who got Jussie Smollett off the hook) was brought in to smooth things over, which seems to have resulted in the 2020 appointment of another childless first generation Chinese immigrant, Margaret Huang, right, [Tweet her] as the new President and CEO. Huang celebrated the election by tweeting “Now the hard work begins – we must eradicate racism and white nationalism”—a.k.a. white identity. Something else the SPLC is eradicating from its website: any pretense that it was ever critical of black supremacism.

There’s precedent for this: in 1919, Vladimir Lenin gave a famous speech to a crowd of Soviet troops in Sverdlov Square, Moscow. In the foreground was Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev. During Joseph Stalin’s government, the photograph was edited to remove Stalin’s former rivals.

Similarly, as radical as the SPLC has always been, it’s now even more radical. It is erasing its own past in order to intensify its attack on the Historic American Nation—exactly like its Communist forbears.

The BLMania has made many companies and organizations “go Woke,” and commit to “furthering racial equity” in hiring, by giving away millions to non-white pressure groups, or shaming themselves for insufficient “anti-racism.” Needless to say—especially under the embarrassing circumstances—this trend reached the SPLC. Recently, it announced it would retire its “Black Separatist” category of “hate groups” because even the most anti-white black separatism isn’t “hate;” it’s “valid anger against very real historical and systemic oppression.” The SPLC explained that “groups formerly designated as Black Separatist will be characterized by antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ, male supremacy and whatever additional ideological categories most accurately describe their offending beliefs.”

The SPLC has already started to purge its website of anything that suggests “a false equivalency of equal hate on both sides.” [ Equity Through Accuracy: Changes to Our Hate Map, by Raven Hodges, SPLCenter.org, October 8, 2020]More changes are likely to come.

As recently as March 9, 2020, the SPLC had an “extremist file” on black nationalism, but explained that white nationalism is worse:

T]hey should not be seen as equivalent to white supremacist groups – such as the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazis – in terms of their history of violence and terrorism. And, unlike white hate groups, they have made virtually no inroads into the mainstream political realm and have virtually no supporters among elected officials. [Black Nationalist | Southern Poverty Law Center, Archive.org Link]

The SPLC called the Nation of Islam (NOI) “a leading example of a black nationalist group,” but said nothing about former Congressman and Bernie Sanders surrogate Keith Ellison, his ties to NOI, and his past call for a black ethnostate. However, the dossier did mention NOI’s anti-whiteness:

[T]he Nation of Islam [is] led by Louis Farrakhan. He has never backed away from the group’s fundamental tenets, espoused by the group’s previous leader, Elijah Mohammed, that white people are inherently evil — that they are “blue-eyed devils.”

Farrakhan has described Catholics and Jews, who he said practice a “gutter religion,” as preying on blacks. . .. In addition, he said, “White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.”

Despite its extreme bias, until a few months ago, the SPLC was willing to criticize groups for being anti-white, however mildly. A version of the extremist file on black nationalism from February 22, 2018, included this:

Although the Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes that much black racism in America is, at least in part, a response to centuries of white racism, it believes racism must be exposed in all its forms. White groups espousing beliefs similar to black nationalists would be considered clearly racist. The same criterion should be applied to all groups regardless of their color.

The same explanation was included in an earlier version of the SPLC’s extremist file on black separatism, saved by the WayBack Machine on September 8, 2015, but with an additional quote:

Although the Southern Poverty Law Center recognizes that much black racism in America is, at least in part, a response to centuries of white racism, it believes racism must be exposed in all its forms. White groups espousing beliefs similar to black nationalists would be considered clearly racist. The same criterion should be applied to all groups regardless of their color.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “Violence begets violence; hate begets hate; and toughness begets a greater toughness. It is all a descending spiral, and the end is destruction — for everybody. Along the way of life, someone must have enough sense and morality to cut off the chain of hate.”

But the two quotes above are now gone. The SPLC edited or deleted the pages they appeared. Now, you can only find them on the WayBack Machine.

But the sentiment expressed in those quotes was not uncommon in the SPLC’s past. In 1998, Senior Fellow Mark Potok said this:

[Louis] Farrakhan describes Catholics and Jews, who he says practice a “gutter religion,” as preying on blacks. He regrets the “tone” of a principal subordinate who calls for slaughtering white South Africans, but agrees with the message. He calls for racial separatism and inveighs against interracial relationships.

If a white group espoused similar beliefs with the colors reversed, few would have trouble describing it as racist and anti-Semitic. We hesitate with a group like the Nation of Islam because we recognize that its racism is largely a response to white racism.

But as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “Violence begets violence; hate begets hate; and toughness begets a greater toughness. It is all a descending spiral, and the end is destruction — for everybody. Along the way of life, someone must have enough sense and morality to cut off the chain of hate.”

If we seek to expose white hate groups, we cannot be in the business of explaining away the black ones. [The Spreading Flood of Hate, March 15, 1998]

That passage has not been deleted—yet. I imagine that it slipped through the cracks, and will be deleted in due time, given the pattern of edits and deletions. [Archive.is link]

For example, there is no longer a “black nationalist” category at all. All groups categorized as such are now lumped in with “black separatist,” presumably because “separatist” sounds less threatening. The “separatist” category is on its way out. But for now, the URL for the extremist file on “black nationalists” now redirects automatically to the extremist file on black separatism. Put this URL in your browser:

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/black-nationalist/

And hit the return key. It almost immediately becomes:

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/black-separatist/

The change was made in late March or early April, as shown by this “digital snapshot” from the WayBack Machine.

groups listed are the same, as you can see from past versions of the extremist file on black nationalism, available through the WayBack Machine here. Where the URL for the black separatist extremist file “redirects” to once it is gone, remains to be seen.

Whether “nationalist” or “separatist,” the examples of anti-white racism from the Nation Of Islam, and explanations about how extremist groups of all races must be held to account, are gone. The dossier on separatists is now brief and vague. It mentions the “Covington Catholic” incident with no context and ends by blaming President Trump for fueling black separatism. Here it is in full:

The Black separatist movement is a reaction to centuries of institutionalized white supremacy in America. Black separatists believe the answer to white racism is to form separate institutions—or even a separate nation—for Black people. Most forms of Black separatism are strongly anti-white, antisemitic and anti LGBTQ. Some religious versions assert that Black people are the biblical “chosen people” of God.

Top Takeaways

The activity among Black separatist groups in 2019 did not change much from last year. As in years past, Black separatists had no influence on mainstream politics or policy, unlike the white nationalist movement. Despite a few incidents that garnered national news attention, these groups continued to operate on the fringe of society, and as a reaction to institutionalized white supremacy.

Key Moments

In January 2019, Black Hebrew Israelites were in the national news after confronting students from Covington Catholic High School and Nathan Phillip, a Native American activist and Omaha elder, during the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, D.C. The following May, Facebook permanently banned Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, citing his antisemitic rhetoric.

What’s Ahead

With the onset of the 2020 presidential election season, it is likely Black separatist groups will become more active in both online and offline spaces. If the charged political environment produces more racist rhetoric from the Trump campaign, it will only add fuel to these groups’ recruitment pitches.

Specific examples of anti-white racism are gone, including the fact that the Nation of Islam’s theology is axiomatically anti-white. And there is no more mention of the SPLC’s duty to combat racism from all sides.

Stalin would approve.

Chris Roberts [Email him] writes for American Renaissance. You can follow him on Twitter @RobertsAmRen.

Sometimes, the bad guys win. In fact, brutality, enslavement and dictatorship have been the NORM of human history. Soviet Russia? Hitler’s Germany? Mao’s China? Those are just the high profile examples. Millions and millions were slaughtered, whether in concentration camps or via economic policies like those being proposed by our Democratic Party right now. That’s just a fact.

By all the available evidence, the bad guys are winning in America. It goes beyond the election fiasco, although the election fiasco has dramatized and crystallized it.

There’s a saying: Evil triumphs only when the good are silent. It’s true. Up to now, the good have been silent. With rare (and heroic) exception, they don’t resist. They don’t fight back. They roll over, let it happen, and ask, “What can you do?” That’s not the spirit that fought and won the American Revolution and brought the Declaration of Independence — the declaration of man’s rights — to life.

In order NOT to be silent, you must first find the words to speak. You must know what ideas you’re up against. The bad guys all say some version of the same thing: Your life does not belong to you. When they attack capitalism, they’re not attacking rich people. Most of the people attacking capitalism are rich themselves! They’re attacking freedom. Not THEIR own freedom. They’re already set. It’s YOUR freedom they’re attacking.

When your neighbor, your cousin, your sibling or anyone else votes for Biden, he’s voting for socialism. He’s voting for the idea that your life doesn’t belong to you. Yes, Biden offers only a watered down, demented and incoherent version of that idea. But make no mistake: That’s his goal. And then there’s “The Squad” — AOC, and the others now rising to the top of the Democratic Party. That includes Kamala Harris, by the way, who WILL be President before long, on our current course. They are quite explicit about it. They might as well be saying: “Your life does NOT belong to you. It belongs to US.” They’ll try to make you feel guilty. “If you don’t go along with us, you’re a racist.” Racist? What does the desire to be FREE have to do with race? That right belongs to all races. The American Constitution settled that 150 years ago. This has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with FREEDOM. Equal individual rights for all.

The Republican Party is, putting it mildly, an imperfect defender of those rights. Donald Trump was better than most, because he really loves freedom, on the whole, and because he was never a Republican. But the bad guys (apparantly) got control anyway. How? Specifically, through COVID. Which means: Through making most of us terrified. We cowered under the fear of getting a virus with a 99 percent survival rate. Is it rational to try and avoid getting that virus? Of course. I have always been a proud germophobe. But decisions on what steps to take should have been left up to the individual — not the state. And NOT the federal government, either, as Joe Biden now aims to do with endless lockdowns and mask mandates enforced in your kitchen and bathroom. To say nothing of the confiscatory taxes, massive regulations, outlawing of fossil fuels (meaning: outlawing of civilization as we know it) and all the coming disasters coming, since the good guys just roll over. Especially with Democrats taking control of the U.S. Senate which, on their present course, they will do in Georgia, with their virtually open acknowledgement of cheating to come.

In short, for bad guys to be defeated, good guys have to speak out. Stop being silent. Speak loudly and clearly, wherever you can. Speak through your actions and your resistance. Study Martin Luther King. Study Gandhi. Not so much their ideas as their practices and tactics, in standing up to injustice. Arm yourself well, intellectually and literally.

To defeat evil, you have to know WHY evil is so bad. The biggest thing about the evil people in our culture today is they’re saying the precise opposite of what Thomas Jefferson insisted all those years ago: That YOU are sovereign over your own life. That YOUR life belongs to YOU … and to nobody else. The corporate, educational, media, government and intellectual elites totally deny this. When they say “reset”, they aim to reset you — as if you’re a button or an inanimate object.

Your life belongs to you, no matter what anybody says. It’s not “selfish and bad” to think so. Once you believe this, and act every moment like you do, then you will defeat evil.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Thanksgiving is normally a time of family festivities, when relatives and good friends come together for a fine meal, catching up with what has been happening in everyone’s life, and a general good cheer. A month later Christmas and New Year’s brings an end to the old year and the start of another. But things are very different this time around because of the coronavirus and the government response.The Pilgrims left to us as a legacy of individual freedom, limited government, and the prosperity that only can come from the competitive liberty of the free and voluntary marketplace.
[Click to Tweet]

Government regulations restrict or ban other than minimal sized groups gathering in one place. Everyone is cautioned or commanded to wear face masks and stay at least six feet apart. And the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) strongly recommends that people not travel for Thanksgiving, and instead isolate at home with no one else or only with the smallest number of others.

The idea that people should be free and at liberty to make their own best judgments on such matters without the heavy-handed control and command of the government seems to be a thing of the past – at least for now. We far too willingly and easily allow our self-responsibilities and our self-governance to be taken away and transferred to the decision-making of political paternalists who presume to know how we should act, with whom, and for what purposes.

Political Paternalism Thwarts Self-Responsibility

But don’t we need government to take on these duties and responsibilities for us, since we oftentimes seem irresponsible and thoughtless in our actions in general, and certainly in the company of others? But even if this may sometimes be so, how shall people be expected to learn how to act more wisely in terms of themselves and others, if the need and opportunity to act in more thoughtful and responsible ways are increasingly narrowed or taken away by government agents telling us, instead, what to do and not do, and where and when?

In one of his famous essays, the 19^th century British social philosopher, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), suggested that less responsible people can only hope for a benevolent dictator to guide them until they have matured enough for self-rule. His British contemporary, the historian, Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859), replied that such a prescription reminded him of the fool in the old story who said that he would not go into the water until he knew how to swim. If you wait under paternalism until you are ready for self-responsibility, you will never have learned the lessons through the necessities of everyday life by which the ability for more mature and thoughtful decision-making are acquired.

Now we are facing an acceleration of such paternalism with a new incoming presidential administration in Washington, D.C. starting in January 2021 that proposes and promises even more political paternalism at ever-increasing costs. These increasing costs will come not only in the form, perhaps, of higher taxes and increased business regulation and more income redistribution, but in the rising cost of less personal liberty of choice and decision-making in more corners of our lives.

Embracing or Avoiding the Word, “Socialism”

The use of the word “socialism” is being bandied about in the face of these prospective political changes in the United States. There are some more radical “progressives” who say that we should embrace it and not be afraid. Others are afraid of it, not because they don’t support a more and bigger government, but due to the fact that it carries a negative connotation that some of those holding or running for political office do not want as an ideological albatross around their neck when facing the voters.

Others use “socialism” as a word of criticism and condemnation. But sometimes some of those using it in this fashion, it turns out, are conscious or unwitting advocates, themselves, for a larger orbit of activist government policies without thinking a bit that some of what they take for granted or propose are also aspects or variations on the socialist theme.

Few are the voices, I would suggest, who really understand that a free society is one with a lot less, indeed, a far more minimal, government than most people realize or can conceive as feasible because they have lived so long under forms of political paternalism that they cannot imagine life without it. (See my book, For a New Liberalism [2019].)

The Plymouth Colonists Practiced Plato’s Communism

It is not surprising, then, how few Americans really know and appreciate the meaning and relevance of Thanksgiving in terms of its origin in the history of the Puritans – the “Pilgrim Fathers” – who came 400 years in November 1620 to the New World, landing at what today we know as Plymouth, Massachusetts. Desiring to turn their back on what they saw and considered as the material corruption of the Old World, they wanted to erect a New Jerusalem that would not only be religiously devout but be built on a new foundation of communal sharing and social altruism.

Their goal was the communism of Plato’s Republic, in which all would work and share in common, knowing neither private property nor self-interested acquisitiveness. What resulted is recorded in the diary of Governor William Bradford, the head of the colony. The colonists collectively cleared and worked the land, but they brought forth neither the bountiful harvest they hoped for, nor did it create a spirit of shared and cheerful brotherhood.

The less industrious members of the colony came late to their work in the fields, and were slow and easy in their labors. Knowing that they and their families were to receive an equal share of whatever the group produced, they saw little reason to be more diligent in their efforts. The harder working among the colonists became resentful that their efforts would be redistributed to the more malingering members of the colony. Soon they, too, were coming late to work and were less energetic in the fields.

Collective Work Equaled Individual Resentment

As Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony explained in his old English (though with the spelling modernized):

For the young men that were able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without recompense. The strong, or men of parts, had no more division of food, clothes, etc. then he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labor, and food, clothes, etc. with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignant and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc. they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could husbands brook it.

Because of the disincentives and resentments that spread among the population, crops were sparse and the rationed equal shares from the collective harvest were not enough to ward off starvation and death. Two years of communism in practice had left alive only a fraction of the original number of the Plymouth colonists.

Private Property as Incentive to Industry

Realizing that another season like those that had just passed would mean the extinction of the entire community, the elders of the colony decided to try something radically different: the introduction of private property rights and the right of the individual families to keep the fruits of their own labor.

As Governor Bradford put it:

And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end . . . This had a very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted then otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little-ones with them to set corn, which before would a ledge weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The Plymouth Colony experienced a great bounty of food. Private ownership meant that there was now a close link between work and reward. Industry became the order of the day as the men and women in each family went to the fields on their separate private farms. When the harvest time came, not only did many families produce enough for their own needs, but also they had surpluses that they could freely exchange with their neighbors for mutual benefit and improvement.

In Governor Bradford’s words:

By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God. And the effect of their planting was well seen, for all had, one way or other, pretty well to bring the year about, and some of the abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.

Rejecting Collectivism for Individualism

Hard experience had taught the Plymouth colonists the fallacy and error in the ideas that since the time of the ancient Greeks had promised paradise through collectivism rather than individualism. As Governor Bradford expressed it:

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst the Godly and sober men, may well convince of the vanity and conceit of Plato’s and other ancients; — that the taking away of property, and bringing into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.

Was this realization that communism was incompatible with human nature and the prosperity of humanity to be despaired or be a cause for guilt? Not in Governor Bradford’s eyes. It was simply a matter of accepting that altruism and collectivism were inconsistent with the nature of man, and that human institutions should reflect the reality of man’s nature if he is to prosper. Said Governor Bradford:

Let none object this is man’s corruption, and nothing to the curse itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.

The desire to “spread the wealth” and for government to plan and regulate people’s lives is as old as the utopian fantasy in Plato’s Republic. The Pilgrim Fathers tried and soon realized its bankruptcy and failure as a way for men to live together in society.

They, instead, accepted man as he is: hardworking, productive, and innovative when allowed the liberty to follow his own interests in improving his own circumstances and that of his family. And even more, out of his industry result the quantities of useful goods that enable men to trade to their mutual benefit.

Giving Thanks for the Triumph of Freedom

In the wilderness of the New World, the Plymouth Pilgrims had progressed from the false dream of communism to the sound realism of capitalism. Whether our family gatherings this Thanksgiving be small or almost nonexistent due to the regulations and intimidations of government, we need to recall and remember the lesson to be learned from that first Thanksgiving.

Too many in the halls of higher education, from the bully pulpits of social and mass media, or from those newly elected in 2020 or already running for the elections in 2022, are making calls for the collectivism that those first Plymouth colonists learned to reject. It is 400 years, this year, since those Pilgrims arrived in America in November 1620 and began that failed “experiment” in socialism within the Plymouth colony.

It is time to take their experience to heart and celebrate not the collectivism with which they began their start in the New World, but the spirit of liberty, private property, self-responsibility, and freedom of enterprise which they and those who came to America in the following centuries left to us as a legacy of individual freedom, limited government, and the prosperity that only can come from the competitive liberty of the free and voluntary marketplace.

This article was originally published at The American Institute of Economic Research.

This post was written by: Richard M. Ebeling

Dr. Richard M. Ebeling is the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel. He was formerly professor of Economics at Northwood University, president of The Foundation for Economic Education (2003–2008), was the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College (1988–2003) in Hillsdale, Michigan, and served as vice president of academic affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation (1989–2003).

ADVENT MESSENGER

News and commentary from a Biblical world view on current events, top stories, social trends and political and religious events.

June 24, 2020 by Andy Roman

There are some misguided people who are trying to use Jesus to support their communist revolution in America. Some try to compare Jesus with the leader of a mob who was advocating for a violent insurrection against the Roman Empire, like Antifa or Black Lives Matter. There is a false narrative that is gaining momentum that basically says that Jesus was persecuted and killed by the Roman government because He was a threat to their power, similar to how rioters and protesters, like Jesus, are allegedly being targeted today.

The Tweet above has gone viral and it basically says that Jesus actively participated in the destruction of property. Then the Tweet below posted by National Public Radio (NPR) says that Jesus was a man of color who was killed by law enforcement for creating an “insurrection” against the Roman Empire. The message is to try to put Jesus on the side of the protesters and rioters to legitimatize their movement.

It is amazing that pastors and laity completely ignore what the Bible actually says about Jesus.  If you are going to make a statement about the death of Christ and the events that led to His condemnation, it makes perfect sense to get your information from the Bible. Jesus was NOT killed because He was an insurrectionist who threatened Rome’s power. That is a convenient way to interpret the death of Christ if you are a Jesuit/Marxist revolutionary trying to overthrow the Constitution of a nation.

The Bible says that Pilate couldn’t care less about Jesus. Pilate actually interviewed Jesus and also sent him to King Herod for examination. The testimony of the Bible says that none of these men, rulers in Judea, were able to corroborate the false claims made by the Jewish mob that Jesus was an insurrectionist:

“Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him: No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him.” Luke 23:14-16.

You will notice how Pilate basically clears Jesus from any charge of insurrection against Rome. Next, the Roman Governor says for the “third time” that Jesus was an innocent man. Rome did not care about Jesus and viewed Him as nothing more than a Jewish preacher. It was the LAWLESS MOB that demanded His crucifixion. It was the mob that wanted Jesus dead. This is a very powerful point in the gospel narrative:

“But they (mob) cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. And he (Pilate) said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. And they (mob) were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.” Luke 23:21-24.

Why did Pilate finally authorize the execution of Jesus? This is a very important point. Did Pilate order the execution of Christ because he found Jesus guilty of being a threat to the Roman Empire? No. Was it because Jesus was burning buildings and calling for an uprising against Rome? No way.

Pilate authorized the death of Jesus because the crowd demanded it. It was the lawless and rioting mob that wanted to murder the Son of God. The mob shouted hour after hour, “Crucify him,” and Pilate finally surrendered to the crowd. Pilate violated Roman law by crucifying Christ. The Jewish mob also violated Jewish law by crucifying Christ.

This is exactly what we are seeing today. We have WEAK politicians giving in to the mob. So if there are lessons we can learn from the current situation we are seeing in the United States, it is that we cannot have a mob ruling the streets. There is an absolute imperative for our nation to uphold the rule of law because we cannot have a lawless mob tearing society apart. We cannot have mobs attacking innocent people on the street or pulling them out of their cars and beating them.

Jesus’ execution was not carried out because everyone was respecting the rule of law. No. It was done in defiance of the rule of law. Jesus died because the mob was supplanting law and order. Jesus’ death is an example when the ruling authority bows to the mob. This is what happens when we give the violent mob whatever they want. You end up executing the Messiah. You will end up eliminating peace, justice and righteousness. This is the real lesson.

But we have these left-wing activists, sympathizers and revolutionaries who twist the Bible to support their revolutionary causes. The word of God, which completely refutes their liberal beliefs, is twisted to try to make it mean the exact opposite of what the text actually says. If they would only read the full context, they would be surprised to discover that they are the ones in violation to the clear teaching of God’s word.

Gangs of terrorists are pulling down statues of conquistadors, presidents, historical figures, the Founding Fathers and even war heroes who fought to free the slaves (Ulysses Grant). Compounding this problem are state and local officials who allow this to happen. Today we have lawless mobs rioting in the streets while authority figures refuse to enforce the laws.

This is what happens when the military, politicians and police literally bends a knee to a criminal mob. No one takes the law seriously anymore. 

Every time you see this happen, it is a sign that law and order will soon disappear. It is one thing to have crowds tearing down monuments on the streets. But as long as law enforcement officers do nothing to stop them, that’s the beginning of the end. This means the collapse of civil society. Whenever the government refuses to do its job while mobs are roaming the streets, we welcome chaos and anarchy into our lives. Then you have armed citizens called “vigilantes” and “militias” who go out and try to defend the statutes. What do you think is going to happen? This is the perfect way to start a civil war.

This is not about ending police violence anymore. It is about ending the so-called “oppressive” system of American capitalism and replacing it with a Marxist-Leninist political system. Make no mistake. The Civil Rights Movement has been hijacked by communist revolutionaries. It all started with riots and looting. Then they wanted to eliminate law enforcement. Then they began destroying public statutes and monuments. Now the mob is telling us that it is time to start attacking churches.

A white Jesus according to Black Lives Matter is a symbol of white supremacy and racist propaganda. Next they will target the Bible and God’s moral law. This is a war on Western civilization. The current crisis has nothing to do with ending racism. This is about tearing down the foundations of Western civilization along with our Judeo-Christian values. Christianity is the foundation of the foundation, and this is what is next. There was never any doubt about it.

“From the very beginning of the great controversy in Heaven, it has been Satan’s purpose to overthrow the law of God. It was to accomplish this that he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator; and though he was cast out of Heaven, he has continued the same warfare upon the earth … In rejecting the truth, men reject its Author. In trampling upon the law of God, they deny the authority of the Lawgiver” (Great Controversy, p. 583).

“Would we know the result of making void the law of God? The experiment has been tried. Terrible were the scenes enacted in France when atheism became the controlling power. It was then demonstrated to the world that to throw off the restraints which God has imposed is to accept the rule of the cruelest of tyrants. When the standard of righteousness is set aside, the way is open for the prince of evil to establish his power in the earth” (Great Controversy, p. 584).

The growth of our Leviathan state in the West has taken place under the auspices of democracy. The words of Ronald Reagan in 1975 come to mind: “If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism.” Reagan seemed to intuit the power of the democratic lexicon to disguise totalitarian ambitions.

Long ago, in a paradoxical move to welcome popular sovereignty to the table of legitimate governing theories, Jean-Jacques Rousseau conceived of democracy in such a way that it could never be anything but anti-democratic.

Rousseau’s democratic ideal, which is paradigmatic of the Western elite’s notion of “democracy,” assumes that a hypothetical General Will, exists over and above the people’s actual, historically manifest will, evidenced in its traditions, religious beliefs, local customs, associations, and voting preferences. Recall the rationalization of the left that Trump’s supporters had voted “against their own self-interest.” Those who have inherited the mantle of Rousseauean “democracy” claim to be the real arbiters of the people’s interests and will.

This ideological way of conceiving of democracy may appropriately be called democratism.

Woodrow Wilson had insisted that the task of a true democratic statesman is to “rightly interpret the national thought” and then “boldly insist upon it.” Consent is but an administrative hurdle to be overcome by the powerful and visionary leader. “It is the power which dictates, dominates: the materials yield,” Wilson had said. The materials, of course, being the people.

The response of Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter’s, Jack Dorsey, to accusations that their social media juggernauts had been practicing censorship, is that they are helping to “increase the health of the public conversation” by flagging “hateful” or “misinformed” speech. Zuckerberg and Dorsey would agree with Wilson and many, many other avowed democrats that democracy must be protected from the unenlightened bigots who would destroy it.

The Bush Doctrine, which entangled us in the endless wars in the Middle East, is another example of the democratist ideology at work. The Bush Doctrine was premised on the belief that clearing away old ways of life through military intervention and cultural and educational programs would allow the good people of the Middle East to express their natural desire for democracy. Beneath a people’s apparent will is another, conflicting will that is its true will.

Elites and political leaders whose vision may not be palatable to the electorate find ways to couch their ambitions in democratic language. Historically, they have found workarounds within U.S. constitutionalism and the political apparatus, but we’re starting to see flagrant lawlessness and even the pretense to democracy abandoned. In 2016, one democratist, a scholar at Georgetown University, came right out and argued “Against Democracy” in his titular work. He summarizes the democratist position, stating that an elite “epistocracy” ought to rule while the rest of us enjoy “NASCAR and Applebee’s.”

One of the paradoxes of democratism is the belief that undemocratic, even violent means are necessary to accomplish peaceful, democratic ends. Real democracy is just over the horizon, we are promised, if only we will cede the power to the enlightened ones. When their efforts fail, they blame backward and unenlightened forces in society and call for expanding training and education, for increased efforts to stamp out “hate,” and for more informed “dialogue.” In short, they call for greater propaganda efforts to discredit and wipe out the views of their opponents.

Our tendency to think of liberalism and democracy as antithetical and resistant to ideology seems to have prevented our taking seriously the possibility that a variant of democracy—democratism—has itself become a domineering political ideology. Many implicit assumptions underlie seemingly intuitive and self-evident words such as “democracy,” “freedom,” and “equality.” Yet as abstractions, these words have become Trojan horses for their opposites.

Is it too much to imagine that a faction of Democrats decided not to leave something as important as the U.S. presidential election to an unreliable electorate? If there was indeed widespread election fraud, as the Trump campaign and others maintain, then its orchestrators would no doubt justify their actions in terms of “safeguarding our democracy” from the likes of Donald Trump and his constituents. This is precisely how Dorsey and Zuckerberg and so many other democratists respond when confronted with their decidedly undemocratic actions.

Claiming to speak on behalf of the people and democracy, democratism has proven a source of great power for its perpetuators. The tremendous wealth and influence that our public “servants” amass during and after office signals the fraudulent nature of our democracy, which seems to have become something of an oligarchy with a hereditary component.

The first step toward renewing our political system is exposing the democratist ideology. It is becoming clear by now that what has passed for so long as “democracy” and the so-called “rules-based” liberal order is anything but democratic, and the rules it’s based on are synonymous with the democratist ideology.

Emily Finley holds a Ph.D. in Politics from The Catholic University of America and is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University. She is the managing editor of Humanitas, a journal of politics and culture, published by The Center for the Study of Statesmanship.

The left-wing news media didn’t just poison the information environment with their incessantly negative coverage of President Trump going into the 2020 election. They also refused to give airtime to important arguments of the Republican campaign — both pro-Trump and anti-Biden — which meant millions of voters cast their ballots knowing only what the media permitted them to know about the candidates.

To measure the true effect of the media’s censorship on the election, the Media Research Center asked The Polling Company to survey 1,750 Biden voters in seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), six of which (all but North Carolina) were called for Biden (survey details below). We tested these voters’ knowledge of eight news stories — all important topics that our ongoing analysis had shown the liberal news media had failed to cover properly. We found that a huge majority (82%) of Biden voters were unaware of at least one of these key items, with five percent saying they were unaware of all eight of the issues we tested.

This lack of information proved crucial: One of every six Biden voters we surveyed (17%) said they would have abandoned the Democratic candidate had they known the facts about one or more of these news stories. A shift of this magnitude would have changed the outcome in all six of the swing states won by Joe Biden, and Donald Trump would have comfortably won a second term as president.

Here’s what we found:

■ Burying Biden’s Bad News: The media’s censorship of Biden’s scandals had the strongest impact on this year’s election. According to our survey, more than one-third of Biden voters (35.4%) were unaware of the serious allegations brought against the Democratic nominee by Tara Reade, a former staffer who said Biden sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

If they had known about Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations, 8.9% told us they would have changed their vote — either switching to Trump or a 3rd party candidate, not voting for any presidential candidate, or not voting at all. By itself, this would have flipped all six of the swing states won by Biden (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), giving the President a win with 311 electoral college votes.

Even more Biden voters (45.1%) said they were unaware of the financial scandal enveloping Biden and his son, Hunter (a story infamously censored by Twitter and Facebook, as well as ignored by the liberal media). According to our poll, full awareness of the Hunter Biden scandal would have led 9.4% of Biden voters to abandon the Democratic candidate, flipping all six of the swing states he won to Trump, giving the President 311 electoral votes.

The ticket’s left-wing ideology was another issue barely mentioned by the national press. A GovTrack analysis found Biden’s running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, had the most left-wing record of any Senator in 2019 (even more than self-described socialist Bernie Sanders). Our poll found that 25.3% of Biden voters said they didn’t know about Senator Harris’s left-wing ideology. If voters had the complete story, it would have led 4.1% of Biden voters to change their vote, flipping Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to Trump. The result would have been a Trump victory, with 295 electoral college votes.

Hiding Trump’s Successes: The liberal media also prevented many Biden voters from learning about record-breaking positive economic news in the months leading up to the election. The five pre-election jobs reports from June 5 to October 2 showed a record 11,161,000 jobs were created in the extraordinary snapback from the pandemic recession. Yet a large number of Biden voters (39.4%) said they didn’t know about this achievement. If they had, 5.4% said they would have changed their vote; this would have swung Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to Trump, who would have won with 295 electoral votes.

On October 29, the government reported a huge jump in economic growth — 33.1% on an annual basis, double the previous record. Yet nearly half of Biden voters (49.0%) said they had no idea about this record-breaking achievement. Armed with that information, 5.6% said they would have changed their vote, swinging Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and a total of 295 electoral votes to Trump.

We saw the same effect when it came to foreign policy. The President and his team made history by brokering peace agreements with Israel and several of her Arab neighbors — one reason Trump received three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet 43.5% of Biden voters had no idea about these historic agreements. The information would have led five percent of overall Biden voters to change their vote, putting Trump in front in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, for a total of 295 electoral votes.

Energy independence was another Trump success. The President took action to start long-stalled pipeline projects and expand drilling offshore and in the Arctic, and it paid off with America becoming a net exporter of oil for the first time in September 2019. More than half (50.5%) of Biden voters said they did not know about this important accomplishment, either. If the information was known by all, 5.8% of Biden’s voters say they would have changed how they voted. This would have changed the outcome in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, putting Trump in front with 295 electoral college votes.

One important issue that did get a lot of coverage in 2020: the coronavirus pandemic. But what made the news every night was criticism of the President and his administration. Lost in the blistering barrage of bad news were successes such as Operation Warp Speed, which even before the election was well on track to deliver 300,000,000 doses of a safe vaccine as soon as next year.

Our poll found 36.1% of Biden voters said they did not know about the administration’s key role in promoting vaccine research through Operation Warp Speed. If they had, 5.3% told us they would have abandoned Biden, flipping Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, giving the President 295 electoral votes.

■ Putting It All Together: Looking at all eight of these issues together, our poll found that a total of 17% of Biden’s voters told us they would have changed their vote if they had been aware of one or more of these important stories. This would have moved every one of the swing states into Trump’s column, some by a huge margin. The President would have trounced Biden in the electoral college, 311 to 227.

Pennsylvania, 15% of Biden voters said they would have defected. Using the reported vote totals as of noon on November 19, this would have reduced his total by 518,204 votes, flipping the state to Trump. In Michigan, the percentage who would have left Biden was 14%, deducting 392,966 from his tally and flipping that state, too.

In Georgia, 15% of Biden’s voters say they would have defected based on full information, taking 370,838 votes out of his column, and putting Trump comfortably ahead. In Arizona, 21% say they would have changed their vote, deducting 351,150 from Biden’s column and putting Trump in front there, too.

In Wisconsin, Biden would have lost 13% of his voters, taking away 211,987 from his column. In Nevada, the percentage of those who would have left Biden was 18%, or 126,627 voters. Such a shift would have put both of those states in Trump’s column, too.

[In the final state we polled, North Carolina, 21% of Biden’s voters say they would have changed their minds, deducting 563,703 votes from his total and significantly bolstering Trump’s margin of victory in that state.]

It’s important to note that not all of these voters would have switched to President Trump, of course (although about 6% of Biden’s voters say that’s exactly what they would have done). Just by choosing to abandon Biden, these voters would have handed all six of these states, and a second term, to the President — if the news media had properly informed them about the two candidates.

The most basic principle of our electoral system is that our leaders are chosen by the people themselves. But if the people are given systematically one-sided information, with crucial facts omitted, then the real power to choose has been stolen from them.

This unique study of the media and voters suggests that’s exactly what happened in 2020.

For this report, The Polling Company conducted a national survey of 1,750 individuals living in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin who reported voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

The survey was conducted entirely online, between November 9-18, 2020. The poll has an accuracy of +/- 2.34% at a 95% confidence interval.

Rich Noyes, Newsbusters

Despite the mounting tension in the South, the main focus of potential revolutionary conflict was still Massachusetts. The British authorities, ever more attracted to a hard line, were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the timorousness and caution of General Gage, who had actually asked for heavy reinforcements when everyone knew that the scurvy Americans could be routed by a mere show of force from the superb British army. Four hundred Royal Marines and several new regiments were sent to Gage, but the king, one of the leaders of coercion sentiment, seriously considered removing Gage from command.

There were a few voices of reason in the British government, but they were not listened to. The Whiggish secretary of war, Lord Barrington, urged reliance on the cheap and efficient method of naval blockade rather than on a land war in the large expanse and forests of America. And General Edward Harvey warned of any attempt to conquer America by a land army. But the cabinet was convinced that ten thousand British regulars, assisted by American Tories, could crush any conceivable American resistance. Underlying this conviction—and consequent British eagerness to wield armed force—was a chauvinist and quasi-racist contempt for the Americans. Thus, General James Grant sneered at the “skulking peasants” who dared to resist the Crown. Major John Pitcairn, stationed at Boston, was sure that “if he drew his sword but half out of the scabbard, the whole banditti of Massachusetts Bay would flee before him.” Particularly important was the speech in Parliament of the powerful Bedfordite, the Earl of Sandwich, first lord of the Admiralty, who sneeringly asked:

Suppose the colonies do abound in men, what does that signify? They are raw, undisciplined, cowardly men. I wish instead of…fifty thousand of these brave fellows, they would produce in the field at least two hundred thousand; the more the better; the easier would be the conquest…the very sound of a cannon would carry them off…as fast as their feet could carry them.

There was another reason, it should be noted, for Sandwich’s reluctance to use the fleet rather than the army against the enemy. While the army was to dispatch the Americans, Sandwich wished to use the fleet against France, with which he hoped and expected to be soon at war.

Accordingly, the Crown sent secret orders to Gage, reaching him on April 14. The Earl of Dartmouth rebuked Gage for being too moderate. The decision had been made; since the people of New England were clearly committed to “open rebellion” and independence of Britain, maximum and decisive force must be slammed down hard upon the Americans—immediately. While reinforcements were under way, it was important for the British troops to launch a preventive strike, by moving hard before an American revolution could be organized. Therefore, Gage decided to arrest the leaders of the Massachusetts provincial congress, especially Hancock and Sam Adams. As in so many other “preventive” first strikes in history, Great Britain itself precipitated the one thing it wished most to avoid: a successful revolution. Interestingly enough, the Massachusetts radicals were at the same time rejecting hotheaded plans for a first strike by rebel forces, who would thus be throwing away the hard-forged unity of the American colonists.

Adams and Hancock were out of town and out of reach, near Concord; so Gage decided to kill two birds with one stone by sending a military expedition to Concord to seize the large stores of rebel military supplies and to arrest the radical leaders. Gage determined to send out the force secretly, to catch the Americans by surprise; that way if armed conflict broke out, the onus for initiating the fray could be laid on the Americans. Gage also used a traitor high up in radical ranks. Dr. Benjamin Church, of Boston, whom the British supplied with funds to maintain an expensive mistress, informed on the location of the supplies and the rebel leaders. (Church’s perfidy remained undetected for many more months.) Gage learned from Church, furthermore, that the provincial congress, under the prodding of the frightened Joseph Hawley, had resolved on March 30 not to fight any armed British expedition unless it should also bring artillery. By not sending out artillery, Gage figured that the Americans would not resist the expedition.¹

Gage, however, immediately encountered what would prove a major difficulty in fighting a counterinsurgency war by a minority ruling army against insurgent forces backed by the vast majority of the people. He found that, surrounded by a sullen and hostile people, he could not keep any of his troop or fleet movements hidden. The rebels would quickly discover these movements and spread the news.

On April 15, the day after receiving his orders, Gage relieved his best troops of duty, gathered his boats, and on the night of April 18 shipped seven hundred under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to the mainland, from which they began to march northwest to Lexington and Concord. But the Americans quickly discovered what was happening. Someone, perhaps Dr. Joseph Warren, sent Paul Revere to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock. Hancock, emotional, wanted to join the minutemen, springing to arms; but the sober intelligence of Sam Adams reminded Hancock of his revolutionary duty as a top leader of the American forces, and they both fled to safety. Revere was soon captured, but Dr. Samuel Prescott was able to speed to Concord and bring the news that the British were coming.

As news of the British march reached the Americans, the Lexington minutemen gathered under the command of Captain John Parker. Rather absurdly, Parker drew up his handful of seventy men in open formation across the British path. When Major Pitcairn, in charge of six companies of the British advance guard, came up to confront the militia, Pitcairn brusquely ordered the Americans to lay down their arms and disperse. Parker, seeing his error, was more than willing to disperse but not to disarm. In the midst of this tense confrontation, shots rang out. No one knows who fired first; the important thing is that the British, despite Pitcairn’s orders to stop, fired far longer and more heavily than necessary, mercilessly shooting at the fleeing Americans so long as they remained within range. Eight Americans were killed in the massacre (including the brave but foolish Parker, who refused to flee), and eight wounded, whereas only one British soldier was slightly wounded. The exuberant and trigger-happy British troops cheered their victory; but the victory at Lexington would prove Pyrrhic indeed. The blood shed at Lexington made the restraining resolution of Joseph Hawley obsolete. The Revolutionary War had begun! Sam Adams, upon hearing the shooting from some distance away, at once realized that the fact of the open clash was more significant than who would win the skirmish. Aware that the showdown had at last arrived, Adams exclaimed, “Oh! What a glorious morning is this!”

The British troops marched happily on to Concord. This time the Americans did not try any foolhardy open confrontation with the British forces. Instead, an infinitely wiser strategy was employed. In the first place, part of the military stores were carried off by the Americans. Second, no resistance was offered to the British entry into Concord, thus lulling the troops into a further sense of security. While the British were destroying the remaining stores, three to four hundred militiamen gathered at the bridge into Concord and advanced upon the British rear guard. The British shot first, but were forced to retreat across the bridge, having suffered three killed and nine wounded. The despised Americans were beginning to make up for the massacre at Lexington.

Heedless of the ominous signs of the gathering storm, Colonel Smith, commanding the expedition, kept his men around Concord for hours before beginning to march back to Boston. That march was to become one of the most famous in the annals of America. Along the way, beginning a mile out of Concord, at Meriam’s Corner, the embattled and neighboring farmers and militiamen employed the tactics of guerrilla warfare to devastating effect. Knowing their home terrain intimately, these undisciplined and individualistic Americans subjected the proud British troops to a continuous withering and overpowering fire from behind trees, walls, and houses. The march back soon became a nightmare of destruction for the buoyant British; their intended victory march, a headlong flight through a gauntlet. Colonel Smith was wounded and Pitcairn unhorsed. The British were saved from decimation only by a relief brigade of twelve hundred men under Earl Percy that reached them at Lexington. Still, Americans continued to join the fray and fire at the troops, despite heavy losses imposed by British flanking parties.

Despite the British reinforcements, the Americans might have slaughtered and conquered the British force if (a) they had not suffered from shortages of ammunition, (b) the British had not swerved into Charlestown and embarked for Boston under the protecting guns of the British fleet, and (c) excessive caution had not held the Americans back from a final blow at the troops on the road to Charlestown. Even so, the deadly march back to Boston was a glorious victory, physically and psychologically, for the Americans. Of some fifteen to eighteen hundred redcoats, ninety-nine were killed and missing, and 174 wounded. The exultant Americans, who numbered about four thousand irregular individuals that day, suffered ninety-three casualties. Insofar as these individuals were led that day, it was by Dr. Joseph Warren and William Heath, appointed a general by the Massachusetts provincial congress.

Events could not have gone better for the American cause: initial aggression and massacre by the arrogant redcoats, then turned to utter rout by the aroused and angry people of Massachusetts. It was truly a tale for song and story. As Willard Wallace writes,

Even now, the significance of Lexington and Concord awakens a response in Americans that goes far beyond the details of the day or the identity of the foe. An unmilitary people, at first overrun by trained might, had eventually risen in their wrath and won a hard but splendid triumph.²

Above all, as Sam Adams was quick to realize, the stirring events of April 19, 1775, touched off a general armed conflict: the American Revolution. In the immortal lines of Emerson, penned for the fiftieth anniversary of that day:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Murray N. Rothbard, from his four-volume tour-de-force, “Conceived in Liberty”

Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness—to value the failure of your values—is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.

Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires—so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal’s lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them.

In psychological terms, the issue of man’s survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of “life or death,” but as an issue of “happiness or suffering.” Happiness is the successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure, of death. Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss.

But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism, is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments.

In psychological terms, the issue of man’s survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of “life or death,” but as an issue of “happiness or suffering.” Happiness is the successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure, of death. Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss.

But while the standard of value operating the physical pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is automatic and innate, determined by the nature of his body—the standard of value operating his emotional mechanism, is not. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgments.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. If a man values productive work, his happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his life. But if a man values destruction, like a sadist—or self-torture, like a masochist—or life beyond the grave, like a mystic—or mindless “kicks,” like the driver of a hotrod car—his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. It must be added that the emotional state of all those irrationalists cannot be properly designated as happiness or even as pleasure: it is merely a moment’s relief from their chronic state of terror.

Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment—so he is free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences.

The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. It is by experiencing happiness that one lives one’s life, in any hour, year or the whole of it. And when one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself—the kind that makes one think: “This is worth living for”—what one is greeting and affirming in emotional terms is the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself.

But the relationship of cause to effect cannot be reversed. It is only by accepting “man’s life” as one’s primary and by pursuing the rational values it requires that one can achieve happiness—not by taking “happiness” as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance. If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good. To take “whatever makes one happy” as a guide to action means: to be guided by nothing but one’s emotional whims. Emotions are not tools of cognition; to be guided by whims—by desires whose source, nature and meaning one does not know—is to turn oneself into a blind robot, operated by unknowable demons (by one’s stale evasions), a robot knocking its stagnant brains out against the walls of reality which it refuses to see.

Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams announced Monday that “more than 750,000 Georgians have requested their ballots” for the Senate runoff election taking place on January 5.

“More than 750,000 Georgians have requested their ballots for the January 5 runoff elections,” Abrams wrote. “Have you? Request yours today and let’s get it done… again.”

Once again, the fix is in. The fix was always mail-in ballots. It’s the most ingenious evil since 9/11. If we lose the Trump presidency AND the U.S. Senate because of mail-in cheating, then it’s either dictatorship or civil war as Democrats take over. Or a civil breakup. I will not surrender my individual rights to a regime run by criminals, and I have a feeling that millions and millions of disenfranchised Americans agree.

More evidence: Politico conducted its 2020 Voter Priorities Survey and results show that a vast majority of Trump voters believe the election results are not valid and that illegal voting and fraud took place during the election. Twenty-one percent of Trump voters believe the results are valid and 79 percent believe the election was stolen.

Wow. This will be a real challenge for the Biden regime, should it succeed with its seizure of power. On top of that, millions and millions of Trump voters will know that going forward, elections will be meaningless. I guess the “unity and healing” will have to be coerced and manufactured.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason