I haven't read through all the comments, but I'll throw in a couple of things to the mix:
1) We don't have a republic. We have oligarchy. 2) Did I miss it, or is there no mention of the Federal Reserve Act? You know, where our sovereignty was usurped by some private bankers and our coinage became fiat currency? Serious and MAJOR fuckup there, letting that happen. 3) Yes, the govt., the govt., for sure-- and what about the oligarchs who OWN it? IE, they OWN all the "representatives," who, once in office, forget all about the fact that they represent THE PEOPLE, not the corporate interests... 4) Just a little note about the NDAA: Not only did they vote in the legality of PROPAGANDA by the govt., but the removal of Habeas Corpus, one the bedrock absolutes for a Free Society, and which enables the govt., by simply calling you an "enemy combatant," can break into your home without a warrant, arrest and detain you without a telephone call or an attorney, and spirit you away in the dead of night, exact rendition of you to some far-away country, and torture and/or kill you, and nobody need ever know. In short, the US Govt. can "disappear" anybody it chooses. 5) Let's not let Israel or England off the hook, either... These two countries, and the the US are the hegemon of the world, aided and abetted by the other three slave countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Excluding Israel, these are the "Five Eyes." Anglo Saxon Domination.
And has anyone else ever heard of the Act of 1871 that made the USA... A CORPORATION!! That's right. Blew my mind, I just found this out a few days ago!
So... Here's a couple of videos, one is Nov. '22 the other is a really good explanation of how this happened from 7 years ago... None of this will probably surprise a lot of you, but it DOES explain a lot!
Did I miss it, or is there no mention of the Federal Reserve Act? You know, where our sovereignty was usurped by some private bankers and our coinage became fiat currency? Serious and MAJOR fuckup there, letting that happen.
I understood what you were saying. I actually mentioned it as the lynchpin of everything that followed because once the money is fake the entire economy is doomed to follow.
Yep, especially when you couple that with military hegemony and well, fuckery.
:P
I'd say we can/must secede, since the Fed Reserve Act AND the Act of 1871 making the USA a Corporation are both Fraudulent and therefore not binding on the Citizenry. It's time to address these things, I do believe.
One of the things you realize over time is that very few politicians think, from day to day, about rights, or checks and balances, or the proper structure of government. They can't be trusted to prioritize abstractions.
Dec 31, 2022·edited Dec 31, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander
I said it before and I’ll say it again. I wish I had been reading you or been your neighbor to find out what you thought about the USA Patriot Act. I can remember being so pious at the time thinking that we were attacked and surely everyone else including our sainted government wouldn’t do anything that would encroach on our God given freedoms. How naive and childlike so many of us became. I consider myself one of the really foolish and at the top of the list.
There are so many people who subscribe here that seem mountains above my understanding of things. I mean just when I think I’ve got a handle on what I think is happening to our way of life, something pops up and slams us and it’s coming from the increasingly powerful people that we have let lead us up the garden path.
Shame on the people that have let this happen: meaning, We The People.
Ironic that a corporate rail road lawyer as Commander in Chief is responsible for 2 million dead in the US and by prosecuting this war against the states who did not wish to remain his subjects abolished the Constitution and destroyed the Republic. Now all of us are enslaved.
But the Union is together, and now the issue is "settled" -- states can't leave!
(I've always loved how people say the issue has been resolved because the abusive husband made his wife stay in the relationship 150 years ago, so now Washington state is forced to remain in the Union no matter what idiotic things our government does.)
A few years ago I asked local liberals if we were stuck in the US no matter what idiotic things Trump did, and they were (obviously) on the side of being able to leave. Probably they've changed their mind by now. (But will flip back as soon as there's a Republican president)
I wonder though if this belief will hold true. In other words would a Federal government dare use overwhelming military force if a state voted to dissolve it's ties without arming for self defense?
Writ small within states there are movements to create new states or join with existing States. Some in Oregon wish to join Idaho. San Bernardino county in California is considering exiting California and going it alone. The times may have changed.
Yep! We're smack in the middle of the Cascadia movement. And the overall point is that if you're not allowed to leave, then staying doesn't mean anything at all.
The spirit of the State is not the bureaucrat politician but in the people and their laws. We are as Aristotle said political. Except there is no spirit of place. Our concrete hive urban jungles curse the human spirit by being ugly. O our times are hideous because there is no passion. Secession is passion and this passion is healthy. Healthy minded people say in our human freedom we reject illegal laws and political corruption and mass murder under totalitarianism.
Yes, the federal government is a malignant tumor that feeds off fear to eat away at our freedom; however, it is ironic that you quote Lincoln, a corrupt railroad lawyer and first dictator of America who trampled upon constitutional rights (see “Lincoln Unmasked” by Thomas J. DiLorenzo).
I currently support the Convention of States, along with Texit as a backup plan. I encourage everyone here to consider either (or both), and am open to anyone else's suggestions.
The COS can only vote on the specific items that brought forth the COS. Nothing new can be added. Another COS would have to be called and voted on to add anything. Come join the 19 of us that want to try and help out.
Thanks for clarifying this better than I did! It seems like a practical way to address some of the overreach! My Plan B is Texit ( even though I don't live there), as it may provide a refuge if COS fails. Am happy to consider any other actionable items.
Happy New Year, fellow simulators (is there another term folks use?)
Ought we assemble by bio-regions and infrastructure? Ought we assemble by predetermined boundaries not reflecting our lived experience? What are we saying with "We the People." Who is this composition?
What has prevented terrorist attacks is attitude, specifically on international flights. The airline has to learn that security has nothing to do with technology; it's all about behavior. Encourage secure behavior, discourage non-secure behavior. Two airlines have learned that lesson: El Al, and British Airways.
I fundamentally changed the security of a private airline that provided service to a wealthy royal family in the Middle East. They wouldn't screen "important" people, which was industrial-strength stupidity. From Morocco to India, assassinations were all carried out by close friends and security forces. The airfield was protected by foreigners; all hangars were hard-sided, which results in more damage to aircraft and people than using soft-sided buildings which don't have roofs that, if bombed, don't rain debris down on the interior. The aircraft had no locks on the doors, and they would be parked wherever convenient, with no one ever checking on them. Criteria for stewardesses were pretty and younger than 25; by the time I left it was 30 was the minimum age and all had gone through professional security training. The list goes on forever.
Both because you so obviously and fervently belive that your are special and different in how your nation and state was and is constituted, and that you think it was or is new, different or somehow unique.
I'd say that romantic notion, rather than the pragmatic cynicism (NB: cynicism in the philosphocial sense) evident in the actions of the revolutionairies - inspired and partly funded and aided by foreign powers set against Britain as they were - is the greater danger.
Not the ideals espoused, but the romanticism involved in thinking them existing beyond human agency and action, a belief that is always evident when americans and to a lesser extent brits write about the concept of rights. You only ever have what rights you yourself can enforce - if someone else is enforcing and safeguarding them, by treaty and threat of force, what you have is not rights but privileges, prerogatives or allowances, which is fine too but is not the same as rights.
Your founders didn't put down those "self-evident" rights (only) because they were principled but because those rights would give them the greatest leeway to prosper and profit: pragmatic. They wrote the text the way they did, almost wholly in the imperative, out of cynicism: humans are violent, selfish and greedy if they can get away with it and rationalise and justify it (also the main reason objectivism and libertarianism never gets off the ground: both lack that pragmatic cynicism).
Thus, the basest urges must be curbed by the actions of those cherishing the utility of the ideals, starting with themselves to set an example for others to follow.
If you made it this far, you hopefully notice that I agree with your views in the main. I just find the ever-present notion of the USA being special or an exception tiresome in the extreme, partly because there's such a strong element of that among many swedes too; we/theyf eel that our nation was great because ours is/was a great nation, as if by nature, as if not centuries of labour, war, and harsh strictures and order mercilessly imposed on wrongdoers.
That notion of exceptionalism is very dangerous because of that. It leads to passive romantic nostalgia instead of pragmatic pro-activeness. Like quarterback who once did four touchdowns in a game, but now is a flabby, overworked underpaid has-been who'd rather revel in glories past than pick himself up: that glorious past now serves not as inspiration to excel and do better, but as a balm and a panacea on the anguish of living in reality.
Early Americans were exceptional and deserved that recognition. As you suggested, the founding fathers were selfish: they designed a government that would exist solely to protect property, but they understood that in order for their rights to be preserved, everyone's rights had to be protected by government, and that those rights included life, liberty, and property. Ayn Rand later described their morality as rational self-interest. Today, however, more people subscribe to the morality of self-sacrifice, many because they were bribed by a state corrupted by taxation and fiat issuance, and some because they were taught to in government-run schools.
If you made it this far, you hopefully notice that I agree with your views in the main. I just find the ever-present notion of the USA being special or an exception tiresome in the extreme, partly because there's such a strong element of that among many swedes too; we/theyf eel that our nation was great because ours is/was a great nation, as if by nature, as if not centuries of labour, war, and harsh strictures and order mercilessly imposed on wrongdoers.
-----------
While there may be nothing exceptional about America these days, in 1776 these ideas were revolutionary. Freedom is a new idea.
The U.S. is the only nation founded on rational thought, instead of ethnic and tribal proximity. Our founding absolutely was exceptional, but we haven't lived up to the amazing legacy we were bequeathed. Instead, we now believe that "American exceptionalism" is the magic amulet that will shield us from the consequences of our failure to follow the Constitution and freedom.
Yes, after the civil war and before 1913, America was exceptional and the whole world knew it. Millions emigrated to it, not because of social programs (there were none) but because it was exceptionally free and the government's job was to preserve that individual freedom.
I question your statement that the United States was exceptional after the civil war. By that time, all non-Muslim nations had ended slavery. The American Civil War resulted in states' rights being reduced and those pinheads in Washington, DC suddenly had the power to control everything from a central location.
What you wrote may well be true, but that doesn't change the fact that from 1865-1913 (an adult lifetime for most young people who survived the civil war) the US didn't interfere in other countries' squabbles, was on a gold standard, had no income tax, and prohibited central banking.
After the Civil War, the US decided to become a protector of its own "interests," by invading and basically overthrowing a bunch of other countries... which continues even now...
That is the true horror. The self-defined elite are so certain of their superiority that everybody agrees with them, except for the few who are ignorant, stupid or malignant.
Dec 31, 2022·edited Dec 31, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander
The greatest danger to America is not just any Americans but ignorant Americans.
Our founders had the advantage of seeing government invested in a single person (the monarchy). They understood that those who hunger for power are the ones we should never trust with it. In a way, the fact that slavery existed when the US was founded helped wisen them up even more. If you remove the rose-colored glasses of the history books, many in the north elite were anti-slavery *not* because they found anything particularly egregious in the exploitation of black bodies, or any bodies really. Just look at how they treated northern factory workers, particularly children. They had no problem running many of them through textile machines. Many of those in the debates over slavery were primarily concerned with gaining an upper hand financially. If they could destroy the "free labor" in the South, they would destroy the edge the old-money south had. Economics has always been seen (whether it is or not) something of a zero-sum game ironically among those who have the most in our society. But the fight over slavery demonstrated to them early on the way one group would maneuver to increase their own power and wealthy by abusing lawmaking to impoverish another group. (Which is not to say good hearted abolitionists were not in abundance, but just like those who exploit the "climate crisis" or "sensitivity training," the ones who make the most money aren't the true believers but the opportunists.) For that reason, we got the blessing of a decentralized system with strong states rights, at least at the beginning.
But two hundred years later, people have forgotten that government is made up of opportunists who would really rather not make an honest living, opportunists (whether we're talking about a monarchy, a ruling elite class, or a bunch of bureaucrats) who see the masses as resources, burdens, and obstacles, and for that reason you can trust them with nothing. That was obvious when there was a king. It was obvious when northern industrialists were trying to deprive the southern plantation owners of their source of labor. And now it's being done in the guise of supporting the "democracy" in Ukraine or "managing the pandemic" or battling the "climate crisis." At every turn, the elite and the behemoth bureaucracy suck more and more autonomy and wealth out of the "peasants" and the "peasants" keep asking for more. It's frankly disturbing.
Very disturbing. If only they would have put Congressional term limits in the Constitution. They were focused on a President not becoming a lifelong monarch and couldn't forsee lifelong, greedy, callow Congress people. Such a shame.
It's always too easy to place blame on a faceless, soulless institution, but seldom useful. "The government" gets away with as much as we allow. This government was elected by half the country, plus a few, and they dont want a republic. That majority, plus a substantial portion of the minority who also support and often advocate tyranny -- for others, not themselves -- are the problem. Its not up to us. But we can regain the government and restore the republic, if we convince a few of our family, friends and neighbors. Those who complain that we can't vote our way out of this mess don't understand the complexity of the alternatives. This is an information war, for now. We need to focus on winning. But voting is never enough. We need to participate before and after elections. We can't do it from the couch, or the keyboard, or checking a few boxes every two years.
Constant vigilance is the price of freedom. - Thomas Jefferson
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
This is profoundly true and also scares the hell out of me. Because we have seen in the last 2 years what a large portion of Americans will submit to. Well beyond what I previously thought possible.
While the Victoria Nuland administration has been a disaster, it is worth noting that virtually every major war since WW II was started by the CIA. We are likely to see an all-out invasion of Russia and an attempt at regime change in Moscow at any moment. Jingoistic Americans from the uniparty will applaud and support our attempt to control the world.
Good post!
I haven't read through all the comments, but I'll throw in a couple of things to the mix:
1) We don't have a republic. We have oligarchy. 2) Did I miss it, or is there no mention of the Federal Reserve Act? You know, where our sovereignty was usurped by some private bankers and our coinage became fiat currency? Serious and MAJOR fuckup there, letting that happen. 3) Yes, the govt., the govt., for sure-- and what about the oligarchs who OWN it? IE, they OWN all the "representatives," who, once in office, forget all about the fact that they represent THE PEOPLE, not the corporate interests... 4) Just a little note about the NDAA: Not only did they vote in the legality of PROPAGANDA by the govt., but the removal of Habeas Corpus, one the bedrock absolutes for a Free Society, and which enables the govt., by simply calling you an "enemy combatant," can break into your home without a warrant, arrest and detain you without a telephone call or an attorney, and spirit you away in the dead of night, exact rendition of you to some far-away country, and torture and/or kill you, and nobody need ever know. In short, the US Govt. can "disappear" anybody it chooses. 5) Let's not let Israel or England off the hook, either... These two countries, and the the US are the hegemon of the world, aided and abetted by the other three slave countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Excluding Israel, these are the "Five Eyes." Anglo Saxon Domination.
And has anyone else ever heard of the Act of 1871 that made the USA... A CORPORATION!! That's right. Blew my mind, I just found this out a few days ago!
So... Here's a couple of videos, one is Nov. '22 the other is a really good explanation of how this happened from 7 years ago... None of this will probably surprise a lot of you, but it DOES explain a lot!
And it will Piss. You. Arf.
Okay, here's the history lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NYuxL78JKY
And here's the Civics lesson: https://rumble.com/v1ycpk0-how-to-save-america-reinhabited-republic.html
Rock n Roll in 2023.
Did I miss it, or is there no mention of the Federal Reserve Act? You know, where our sovereignty was usurped by some private bankers and our coinage became fiat currency? Serious and MAJOR fuckup there, letting that happen.
----------
You missed it. ;)
Oh, sorry!!!
And I didn't mean YOU made a serious and MAJOR fuckup, I meant our GOVT did!!!
Sorry, Commander!
I understood what you were saying. I actually mentioned it as the lynchpin of everything that followed because once the money is fake the entire economy is doomed to follow.
Yep, especially when you couple that with military hegemony and well, fuckery.
:P
I'd say we can/must secede, since the Fed Reserve Act AND the Act of 1871 making the USA a Corporation are both Fraudulent and therefore not binding on the Citizenry. It's time to address these things, I do believe.
Property taxes might be the first place to begin!
Yes, Timothy……excellent timing.
Thank you for agreeing with me, Denise! (Sorry, just saw your op.)
Comment allez vous?
SimCom…….I want you to have an incredible New Year…….
You have given so many of us so much this last year……
From all the research you do………
To your obsession with your ridiculous critters……
Namely Gangster and then, there’s the new kid on the block, she, Bonnie, who lives in a Jeep.
Thank you! Update coming soon!
Texas won't fall.
Regarding death of Benedict, false pope, Globalist, protector of chip rapists... From a Catholic, my take;
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kPIdRJlzERo
Hey John……Happy New Year!
As spring arrives
Huh?
I can only say, I have no idea ... Partial thought I didn't finish....
Ah. Now it makes sense!
Happy NEW YEAR DENISE!
may we utterly destroy the NWO this year!
Now, *that's* a better response, John!
Killing commies ,Timothy.
"Kill a Commy for your Mommy." I must have been encouraged to scream that statement a thousand times in basic training. Ah, the good old days.
✌😂😂😂
Hear, hear!
There's a larger album of 15 photos of the Kelo site in New London, Conn., at https://www.flickr.com/photos/drs/albums/72157622484527758
The Flickr page says only 88 views of the album in 13 years!
One of the things you realize over time is that very few politicians think, from day to day, about rights, or checks and balances, or the proper structure of government. They can't be trusted to prioritize abstractions.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. I wish I had been reading you or been your neighbor to find out what you thought about the USA Patriot Act. I can remember being so pious at the time thinking that we were attacked and surely everyone else including our sainted government wouldn’t do anything that would encroach on our God given freedoms. How naive and childlike so many of us became. I consider myself one of the really foolish and at the top of the list.
There are so many people who subscribe here that seem mountains above my understanding of things. I mean just when I think I’ve got a handle on what I think is happening to our way of life, something pops up and slams us and it’s coming from the increasingly powerful people that we have let lead us up the garden path.
Shame on the people that have let this happen: meaning, We The People.
We were trained to listen to "authority." For decades we were groomed.
Time to Break Those Chains!! ^_^
You are so right Denise- Shame on We the People for throwing our precious legacy away with both hands!
But don’t be so hard on yourself. These people are so evil that they used the best in us to hide their bad intentions.
Heyjude, Oh, God………you just made me feel so good. I can’t express to you just how glad I am that you said that.
Happy new year
Thank you!
Happy New Year to you too!
Ironic that a corporate rail road lawyer as Commander in Chief is responsible for 2 million dead in the US and by prosecuting this war against the states who did not wish to remain his subjects abolished the Constitution and destroyed the Republic. Now all of us are enslaved.
But the Union is together, and now the issue is "settled" -- states can't leave!
(I've always loved how people say the issue has been resolved because the abusive husband made his wife stay in the relationship 150 years ago, so now Washington state is forced to remain in the Union no matter what idiotic things our government does.)
Wouldn't Washington state WANT to stay with tge idiotic government since they're communist, too? --- I think I got lost somewhere. 😕
A few years ago I asked local liberals if we were stuck in the US no matter what idiotic things Trump did, and they were (obviously) on the side of being able to leave. Probably they've changed their mind by now. (But will flip back as soon as there's a Republican president)
I'm not sure we'll see another Republican president (not a RINO) again in my lifetime. (I'm kinda old.)
That's right; Trump started the destruction of the neo-con RINOs in the Republican establishment in 2016.
We continue that work today.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/the-greatest-political-cartoon-ever
Nooooooooo....
I remember that one! 😊
We CAN leave, because of the Act of 1871... It's FRAUD. Ba-boom.
I guess nobody gets this... Okay, whatever.
I think we can leave because that's how voluntary association works. *shrug*
Okay, I just thought from what you said above that you thought...
Dec 31, 2022
Author
But the Union is together, and now the issue is "settled" -- states can't leave!
I think we are having communication issues, LOL.
Were you sort of "quoting" someone? Being sarcastic? It's all good, I just know some people think it's ILLEGAL for states to secede...
Yeah I was being sarcastic/pointing out how stupid it is to think the idea was 'settled' with anything more than 'we have more guns than you.'
SimCom……do you in Washington have the Recall Vote?
I don't believe so.
I wonder though if this belief will hold true. In other words would a Federal government dare use overwhelming military force if a state voted to dissolve it's ties without arming for self defense?
Writ small within states there are movements to create new states or join with existing States. Some in Oregon wish to join Idaho. San Bernardino county in California is considering exiting California and going it alone. The times may have changed.
Yep! We're smack in the middle of the Cascadia movement. And the overall point is that if you're not allowed to leave, then staying doesn't mean anything at all.
The spirit of the State is not the bureaucrat politician but in the people and their laws. We are as Aristotle said political. Except there is no spirit of place. Our concrete hive urban jungles curse the human spirit by being ugly. O our times are hideous because there is no passion. Secession is passion and this passion is healthy. Healthy minded people say in our human freedom we reject illegal laws and political corruption and mass murder under totalitarianism.
Right ON.
Yes, the federal government is a malignant tumor that feeds off fear to eat away at our freedom; however, it is ironic that you quote Lincoln, a corrupt railroad lawyer and first dictator of America who trampled upon constitutional rights (see “Lincoln Unmasked” by Thomas J. DiLorenzo).
Long-time readers will know I'm not a huge fan of Lincoln's PR, but the quote is $$$$$$$
Fantastic essay, SC!
I currently support the Convention of States, along with Texit as a backup plan. I encourage everyone here to consider either (or both), and am open to anyone else's suggestions.
Part of me worries what kind of BS a CoS would end up with.......
The COS can only vote on the specific items that brought forth the COS. Nothing new can be added. Another COS would have to be called and voted on to add anything. Come join the 19 of us that want to try and help out.
Thanks for clarifying this better than I did! It seems like a practical way to address some of the overreach! My Plan B is Texit ( even though I don't live there), as it may provide a refuge if COS fails. Am happy to consider any other actionable items.
Happy New Year, fellow simulators (is there another term folks use?)
I get their (COS) letters.
I think the current thinking is rather narrow (so things don't spin out of control). I want to say - term limits and balance budget amendments.
I think it's well overdue that we take OUT this govt., since it is our DUTY to remove any govt. that defies and defiles the Constitution.
In real estate its location but in politics its timing.
Ought we assemble by bio-regions and infrastructure? Ought we assemble by predetermined boundaries not reflecting our lived experience? What are we saying with "We the People." Who is this composition?
Yeah, good question.
I'd say let's start with the Patriot movement and Substackers! :)
TBSA "I will need you to pull your pants down sir.", has never prevented a single terrorist attack.
What has prevented terrorist attacks is attitude, specifically on international flights. The airline has to learn that security has nothing to do with technology; it's all about behavior. Encourage secure behavior, discourage non-secure behavior. Two airlines have learned that lesson: El Al, and British Airways.
I fundamentally changed the security of a private airline that provided service to a wealthy royal family in the Middle East. They wouldn't screen "important" people, which was industrial-strength stupidity. From Morocco to India, assassinations were all carried out by close friends and security forces. The airfield was protected by foreigners; all hangars were hard-sided, which results in more damage to aircraft and people than using soft-sided buildings which don't have roofs that, if bombed, don't rain debris down on the interior. The aircraft had no locks on the doors, and they would be parked wherever convenient, with no one ever checking on them. Criteria for stewardesses were pretty and younger than 25; by the time I left it was 30 was the minimum age and all had gone through professional security training. The list goes on forever.
I used to work for Public Safety in Canada, where, inter alia, we ran the prisons.
And guess what, everyone gets screened going in or out. Doesn't matter how "important" they are. Anything less is security theatre.
Excellent post. Thanks!
American exceptionalism is always worth a laugh.
Both because you so obviously and fervently belive that your are special and different in how your nation and state was and is constituted, and that you think it was or is new, different or somehow unique.
I'd say that romantic notion, rather than the pragmatic cynicism (NB: cynicism in the philosphocial sense) evident in the actions of the revolutionairies - inspired and partly funded and aided by foreign powers set against Britain as they were - is the greater danger.
Not the ideals espoused, but the romanticism involved in thinking them existing beyond human agency and action, a belief that is always evident when americans and to a lesser extent brits write about the concept of rights. You only ever have what rights you yourself can enforce - if someone else is enforcing and safeguarding them, by treaty and threat of force, what you have is not rights but privileges, prerogatives or allowances, which is fine too but is not the same as rights.
Your founders didn't put down those "self-evident" rights (only) because they were principled but because those rights would give them the greatest leeway to prosper and profit: pragmatic. They wrote the text the way they did, almost wholly in the imperative, out of cynicism: humans are violent, selfish and greedy if they can get away with it and rationalise and justify it (also the main reason objectivism and libertarianism never gets off the ground: both lack that pragmatic cynicism).
Thus, the basest urges must be curbed by the actions of those cherishing the utility of the ideals, starting with themselves to set an example for others to follow.
If you made it this far, you hopefully notice that I agree with your views in the main. I just find the ever-present notion of the USA being special or an exception tiresome in the extreme, partly because there's such a strong element of that among many swedes too; we/theyf eel that our nation was great because ours is/was a great nation, as if by nature, as if not centuries of labour, war, and harsh strictures and order mercilessly imposed on wrongdoers.
That notion of exceptionalism is very dangerous because of that. It leads to passive romantic nostalgia instead of pragmatic pro-activeness. Like quarterback who once did four touchdowns in a game, but now is a flabby, overworked underpaid has-been who'd rather revel in glories past than pick himself up: that glorious past now serves not as inspiration to excel and do better, but as a balm and a panacea on the anguish of living in reality.
On that note, Happy New Year!
Early Americans were exceptional and deserved that recognition. As you suggested, the founding fathers were selfish: they designed a government that would exist solely to protect property, but they understood that in order for their rights to be preserved, everyone's rights had to be protected by government, and that those rights included life, liberty, and property. Ayn Rand later described their morality as rational self-interest. Today, however, more people subscribe to the morality of self-sacrifice, many because they were bribed by a state corrupted by taxation and fiat issuance, and some because they were taught to in government-run schools.
If you made it this far, you hopefully notice that I agree with your views in the main. I just find the ever-present notion of the USA being special or an exception tiresome in the extreme, partly because there's such a strong element of that among many swedes too; we/theyf eel that our nation was great because ours is/was a great nation, as if by nature, as if not centuries of labour, war, and harsh strictures and order mercilessly imposed on wrongdoers.
-----------
While there may be nothing exceptional about America these days, in 1776 these ideas were revolutionary. Freedom is a new idea.
I'd say these ideas are STILL revolutionary, since we don't really have them! I'd say they vanished altogether in 1871.
100% agree.
The U.S. is the only nation founded on rational thought, instead of ethnic and tribal proximity. Our founding absolutely was exceptional, but we haven't lived up to the amazing legacy we were bequeathed. Instead, we now believe that "American exceptionalism" is the magic amulet that will shield us from the consequences of our failure to follow the Constitution and freedom.
It wasn't the failure of the PEOPLE, in my opinion, it was a USURPATION, by corporate and banking interests, typical of so many failed republics...
And when the the usurpation is SECRET, well... look how long it's taken the few of us who see this to see it! To see it CLEARLY...
(Reality has a nasty way of asserting itself)
Yes, after the civil war and before 1913, America was exceptional and the whole world knew it. Millions emigrated to it, not because of social programs (there were none) but because it was exceptionally free and the government's job was to preserve that individual freedom.
I question your statement that the United States was exceptional after the civil war. By that time, all non-Muslim nations had ended slavery. The American Civil War resulted in states' rights being reduced and those pinheads in Washington, DC suddenly had the power to control everything from a central location.
What you wrote may well be true, but that doesn't change the fact that from 1865-1913 (an adult lifetime for most young people who survived the civil war) the US didn't interfere in other countries' squabbles, was on a gold standard, had no income tax, and prohibited central banking.
Have you forgotten the Philippines? Cuba? Hawaii?
After the Civil War, the US decided to become a protector of its own "interests," by invading and basically overthrowing a bunch of other countries... which continues even now...
Filburn and Kelo are ripe for a Court to reverse, we hope. Not sure how we end the Patriot act and reverse the entire Homeland Security mafia. And whats the deal that the vaccines are a military project? https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/discussion-with-sam-dube-and-lara
https://bailiwicknews.substack.com/p/american-domestic-bioterrorism-program
A rather good reference that also ties in with Sasha's reporting https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/discussion-with-sam-dube-and-lara
The USA PATRIOT Act is easier to stop in theory, because it still gets voted on from time to time. In practice, our Congress blows.
No guts. Do they not now understand the public has become more aware of the abuses?
I'm not sure that they CARE that the public has become more aware of the abuses.
That is the true horror. The self-defined elite are so certain of their superiority that everybody agrees with them, except for the few who are ignorant, stupid or malignant.
Which one are we? 😉
I'm told by progressives that I'm all three; otherwise, I would know not to disagree with them.
A beautiful and obvious death of our country that everyone is experiencing and no one sees.
Beautiful? Sorry, don't understand what you mean there. But agree with obvious death everyone is experiencing but no one sees.
The greatest danger to America is not just any Americans but ignorant Americans.
Our founders had the advantage of seeing government invested in a single person (the monarchy). They understood that those who hunger for power are the ones we should never trust with it. In a way, the fact that slavery existed when the US was founded helped wisen them up even more. If you remove the rose-colored glasses of the history books, many in the north elite were anti-slavery *not* because they found anything particularly egregious in the exploitation of black bodies, or any bodies really. Just look at how they treated northern factory workers, particularly children. They had no problem running many of them through textile machines. Many of those in the debates over slavery were primarily concerned with gaining an upper hand financially. If they could destroy the "free labor" in the South, they would destroy the edge the old-money south had. Economics has always been seen (whether it is or not) something of a zero-sum game ironically among those who have the most in our society. But the fight over slavery demonstrated to them early on the way one group would maneuver to increase their own power and wealthy by abusing lawmaking to impoverish another group. (Which is not to say good hearted abolitionists were not in abundance, but just like those who exploit the "climate crisis" or "sensitivity training," the ones who make the most money aren't the true believers but the opportunists.) For that reason, we got the blessing of a decentralized system with strong states rights, at least at the beginning.
But two hundred years later, people have forgotten that government is made up of opportunists who would really rather not make an honest living, opportunists (whether we're talking about a monarchy, a ruling elite class, or a bunch of bureaucrats) who see the masses as resources, burdens, and obstacles, and for that reason you can trust them with nothing. That was obvious when there was a king. It was obvious when northern industrialists were trying to deprive the southern plantation owners of their source of labor. And now it's being done in the guise of supporting the "democracy" in Ukraine or "managing the pandemic" or battling the "climate crisis." At every turn, the elite and the behemoth bureaucracy suck more and more autonomy and wealth out of the "peasants" and the "peasants" keep asking for more. It's frankly disturbing.
Very disturbing. If only they would have put Congressional term limits in the Constitution. They were focused on a President not becoming a lifelong monarch and couldn't forsee lifelong, greedy, callow Congress people. Such a shame.
I agree. They did not see Congress being filled with "professional" lawmakers.
Have you heard about the Convention of States? https://conventionofstates.com/
It's always too easy to place blame on a faceless, soulless institution, but seldom useful. "The government" gets away with as much as we allow. This government was elected by half the country, plus a few, and they dont want a republic. That majority, plus a substantial portion of the minority who also support and often advocate tyranny -- for others, not themselves -- are the problem. Its not up to us. But we can regain the government and restore the republic, if we convince a few of our family, friends and neighbors. Those who complain that we can't vote our way out of this mess don't understand the complexity of the alternatives. This is an information war, for now. We need to focus on winning. But voting is never enough. We need to participate before and after elections. We can't do it from the couch, or the keyboard, or checking a few boxes every two years.
Constant vigilance is the price of freedom. - Thomas Jefferson
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
― Frederick Douglass
This is profoundly true and also scares the hell out of me. Because we have seen in the last 2 years what a large portion of Americans will submit to. Well beyond what I previously thought possible.
While the Victoria Nuland administration has been a disaster, it is worth noting that virtually every major war since WW II was started by the CIA. We are likely to see an all-out invasion of Russia and an attempt at regime change in Moscow at any moment. Jingoistic Americans from the uniparty will applaud and support our attempt to control the world.
Don't be scared. Be resolute. Encourage everyone you meet to be resolute. Overcoming fear is the only way to win.