There Are No Such Things as Constitutional Rights

A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.”

Lysander Spooner (1867). “No Treason: No. 1-”, p.7

In the midst of this fraudulent pandemic, there has been a renewed call to look to the Constitution for answers. This is a smoke and mirrors solution that does not address the real problem. Constitutional rights do not exist, and if they did, those so-called rights would be worthless. Rights cannot be written into law or claimed due to a political document because they would have no merit.

The rights of man are natural, and all rights stem from the single factor of life itself, for if man has a right to life, all other natural rights are inherent as well. A right to life means that one has a right to defend his life. It means that one has a right to support and sustain his life. This means he has a right to property, the highest form of property being self. It means he has a right to move about freely, to work, to protect others, to speak and congregate in order to protect and defend life. All individual and natural rights are inherent due to humanity, not to any other men or documents drafted by men.

This seems simple enough, but Americans seem to clamor for direction and approval by those that wish to rule over them. Instead of accepting that a right to life is natural, and cannot be bestowed by men, people seek approval by some authoritarian class for clarity concerning the legitimacy of something so obvious. This in and of itself destroys the very core of common rights, because having to put into contract or law the guidelines for what is natural is the acceptance that rights do not exist unless sanctioned by a higher body. This is asinine, and the notion of a constitution to spell out what is inherent weakens any position of strength of the individual.

Some have forgotten, and most have no understanding of the history of the Constitutional Convention. This was a coup completed by Hamilton and his followers to create a strong central governing system, where most all power was given to a federal or national government instead of to the individual and the states. Those attending the convention had claimed their task as only to alter and improve the Articles of Confederation, not to scrap the current Constitution of the United States. But there was never any intention of improving upon the current “law of the land,” but only to set up a new federal state with unlimited power. Keep in mind that the Articles of Confederation did not allow for a president, did not allow the federal government any power whatsoever to tax, so it was extremely restrictive of any executive or federal power whatsoever.

So if freedom were desired, why then would a new constitution that gave immense powers to the federal government over states and individuals be so revered by those calling themselves Constitutionalists? Why do any that have read Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the power’s clauses, claim that this document was ever meant to protect the rights of man? How is an unlimited power to tax, to control all commerce, foreign and domestic, to coin and control all money, to provide for the general welfare, to borrow money on the credit of the United States, to declare and prosecute war, to raise and support militaries, and to make all laws necessary to enforce all these powers and more?

The Constitution is a contradiction at every level, as granting these unlimited powers to the federal nationstate, and then at the same time claiming to protect the freedom of the the individual, is not possible. Every single power “granted” in this horrendous document negates any protection of liberty.

So why is this document that was long plotted through conspiracy, that was secretly written and accepted behind locked and closed doors in the dark of night, that erased all protections of liberty then in place in the Articles of Confederation, and that was signed by politicians, many of whom gained much more power in government after its implementation, so revered? Selling the Constitution in the late 18th century was in effect not much different than selling total tyranny over a fake pandemic today.

If the Constitution was meant to protect individual rights and the freedom of Americans, why are the masses of this population being forced into poverty, loneliness, isolation, quarantine and self-imprisonment? Why are medical martial law and martial law being carried out? Why have the businesses of Americans been forcibly closed down? Why have Americans been forced to avoid contact with all others? Why is mass surveillance of everyone the new normal, and constant threats by government of forced vaccination and mandated behavior in place? Why does anyone think this is a free country due the the totalitarian powers authorized in the United States Constitution?

Lysander Spooner explained this perfectly when he said:

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it, In either case, it is unfit to exsist.”

Lysander Spooner (1971). “The collected works of Lysander Spooner”

The Constitution is used, administered, and defined by government, it is interpreted by the Supreme Court, which is made up of nine judges appointed for life also by government. In other words, it is simply a political tool of government used and interpreted to give power to the state, not to its people. It was only intended to fool the people into believing that they had freedom and power only due to a piece of paper drafted by politicians. It is worthless and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the natural rights of man, but in fact is detrimental to liberty because of the assumption that only government can define individual rights through parchment secretly drafted in the dark of night 233 years ago.

We are born with rights and we die with rights, whether any piece of paper exists or not. If rights are claimed to exist because of a constitution , no rights exist at all. The tyranny we face today is because of the Constitution, not in spite of it.

As to the Constitution:

“It was a bloodless coup d’état against an unresisting Confederation Congress….The drive was managed by a corps of brilliant members and representatives of the financial and landed oligarchy. These wealthy merchants and large landowners were joined by the urban artisans of the large cities in their drive to create a strong overriding central government – a supreme government with its own absolute power to tax, regulate commerce, and raise armies.”

~ Murray N. Rothbard–, Vol. 5, [306]

I am Joseph F Barber I am an American Patriot...part of the grassroots movement of bloggers spreading the truth the media will not. A Freelance syndicated writer ,editor and author activist and Blogger,Tradesmen , veteran and PTSD survivor, Gas and diesel Mechanic

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

 Ensure that we understand the fundamental difference between the two definitions of freedom

The Nature of Freedom

The title suggests that there might be something ambiguous about the definition of freedom. Well according to our old friends Merriam and Webster, it is “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.” Sounds about right to me. The freedoms enjoyed by all Americans are – according to our Declaration of Independence – natural rights, inherent to us as human beings, granted to us by Nature or God, and not by the Government, but secured for us by the Government. I’ve emphasized the word to for a reason that will be clear momentarily.

OK what are those rights that I have, my possession of which is characterized by the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint? These are spelled out generally in the Declaration, more specifically in the Constitution – including the Bill of Rights – and in the constitutionally permissible laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. There is no secret here; they include:

Freedom: Absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action

the right to reside where I choose

the right to pursue the vocation I choose

the right to marry, and more generally associate with, whomever I choose

the right to worship as I wish

the right to petition the Government

the right to peacefully assemble

the right to state my opinion

the right to a trial by a jury of my peers if accused of a crime.

There are more of course, but note the common word to. That is not surprising since Webster specifies that a freedom entails a choice or an action – that is, things I choose to do or act upon – which choice or action is free from necessity, coercion or constraint. And so it has been understood – from the time of the American Revolution.

But beginning in the late 1890s, catching fire in the 1910s, and reigniting strongly in the 1930s, 1960s and 2010s, a substantial minority – and increasingly, looking like a majority – of the American people have settled on an alternate definition of the word freedom. 

If I may be permitted the liberty, I would state the new definition as follows: “the presence of security, comfort or guarantees in state or being.”

Now let us follow on this new definition with an exact parallel to the discussion above following the classic definition. 

First, the folks who propound the new definition rarely, explicitly discuss the origin or fount for these rights which are to be accorded to all residents of the USA. They – like Mr. Jefferson – hold them to be self-evident; but they scarcely specify their author, originator, source or justification. Self-evidence seems to be enough – although, alas, what is evident to you may be opaque to me.

Presidential founders of progressivism: Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Obama

Well, what are these rights that I should have that will guarantee my well-being by rendering my state more comfortable and secure? They have been spelled out by the presidential founders of progressivism: Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Obama. They include:

freedom from want (i.e., poverty)

freedom from fear (i.e., anything that makes me afraid); e.g.

freedom from expression of opinions that make me uncomfortable

freedom from prejudice

freedom from unfair competition (esp. from those more skilled or experienced than me)

freedom from violence (e.g., presence of guns)

freedom from superstition (i.e., religion)

freedom from incarceration

freedom from armed government agents (the police, ICE, etc.)

freedom from xenophobia (e.g., about undocumented immigrants).

Note now that the common word is from rather than to. That is because these freedoms do not pertain to an action or choice, but to a feeling or emotion or an external force on one’s person. 

As with ‘freedom to,’ there are more than those delineated above, e.g., 

Freedom from illness or freedom from ignorance. And as with the first set of freedoms, these new freedoms are to be secured or guaranteed by the Government. 

But unlike the first set of freedoms, these are not granted or accorded to us by Nature or God; they are not natural rights in that sense. They are simply rights that just ought to be accorded to all individuals – or more precisely – to all groups living in an advanced society.

By whose authority? 

By the people themselves since the rights are self-evidently manifest to any enlightened member of society. Moreover, unlike the natural rights in the Founders’ society, the rights in the modern, enlightened society may evolve and change over time. 

New rights may be discovered; old rights may be discarded. Finally, the people, via their primary vehicle, the Government, determine what the current set of rights are, and then enforce them also via the Government. Thus, a “Living Constitution!” Which of course implies: Obsolescence of the Declaration and Abrogation of the Constitution.

It’s not my purpose here to compare the relative merits of the two systems. Rather it is to ensure that we understand the fundamental difference between the two definitions of freedom, and to allow the reader to ponder the drastic and overwhelming changes that would ensue if we the people discard the first definition and adopt the second. I will examine some of those changes in a future piece.

I am Joseph F Barber I am an American Patriot...part of the grassroots movement of bloggers spreading the truth the media will not. A Freelance syndicated writer ,editor and author activist and Blogger,Tradesmen , veteran and PTSD survivor, Gas and diesel Mechanic

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Tearing Down the Edifice of American Democracy

 Tearing Down the Edifice of American Democracy

The fact of the matter is that politics—at least how it is practiced in the United States—is more about perception than reality. The nuance associated with lawmaking, the arcane art of manufacturing the rules and regulations that hold society together, are hidden and therefore unknown to the vast majority of those who participate in the electoral processes that are the hallmark of American democracy.

Most Americans have not taken the time to follow a bill as it makes it way through the legislative process. Instead, they may hear about it at its inception, and then, if the bill is adopted, watch as the Executive signs it into law. They get the headline version—what the brokers of “truth” in the media opt to say about the legislation, and not what it really represents:  an amalgam of special interest money sprinkled with a modicum of societal need, want or desire.

Americans get their news like a baby bird gets its meal—waiting for a “mother” figure to digest it and then regurgitate it down their collective throats. They are not informed so much as shaped, the byproduct of a system that is built on manufactured consent derived from half-truths, myths and outright lies.

For politics to work in a nation as large and complex as the United States, there must be a rock-solid foundation upon which everyone operates. This role is served by the Constitution, the document which provides foundational principles that guide everything that follows. Adherence to the Constitution is mandatory if everything else that follows is to have a chance at success.

But even here, the perception of law-and-order masks a grim reality that the rules collectively embraced as “constitutional” are every bit as partisan as the politics Americans pretend are removed from their system of “blind” justice. For a rule to have meaning, it must be widely embraced as viable and fair.

In a system where the final arbiter of the rules is a panel of nine justices whose selection is predicated on the whims of a partisan political elite, the result of many of the most controversial decisions about the very rules that govern society come down to a narrow 5-4 vote, which means that while five justices believe that something is “constitutional”, there are four who do not. If that which divides the two sides is merely an interpretation of legal nuance, then this disparity is irrelevant—the underlying legal principle holds.

But when the deviation is significant, to the point that the difference represents a fundamental disagreement, then the law it portends to uphold itself becomes divisive. When something as supposedly as black and white as constitutional law comes down to a single vote by a highly politicized body, the reality is that the foundation it underpins is far more fragile than anyone realizes.

On top of this shaky foundation of politicized principle Americans have constructed an edifice of governance which is not nearly as solid as they would like to believe. The joists and beams that hold American democracy together are not as flexible as they appear. Like the Supreme Court, they are the byproduct of a bi-polar reality of societal passion contained in the vehicle of two political parties—Republican and Democrat—which must work in harmony if the building is to withstand the storms that periodically sweep across the landscape.

A Unifying Concept

America was born from a revolution which manifested itself from the failure of the British system of colonialism, and further shaped by a Civil War where a divided nation had to be reformed into a union not through an expression of democratic will, but rather prodded along by the tip of a bayonet. In both Revolution and Civil War, it was the perception that the system of governance had failed the people, rather than the reality, that inflamed the masses.

The Pennsylvania farmer who marched to Boston in 1775, like the Pennsylvania farmer who marched on Richmond in 1865, was not versed in the political complexities that defined the side he was fighting for. These men fought for a unifying concept, a belief constructed more from passion than fact. For this concept to succeed, there needed to be a fundamental core of agreement, with the space between the differences that naturally arise when dealing with independently thinking humans kept as small as possible.

It is this space that is the key to the success, and ultimately survival, of the great American experiment in democracy. Here, Newton’s Third Law of Physics applies in full force—for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. American democracy is not a singular entity operating on its own, but rather formed from millions of threads of beliefs and passions that have come together in harmony.

These threads work if they operate on the same—or similar—wavelength, bending this way and that in relative unison. There can be pushing and shoving, but the harmonic holds so long as the resistance is minimal.

Broken Harmony

This notion fails, however, when the threads start to collide significantly—a strong push gets an equally strong pushback. The harmony is broken, and the weave of the threads unravels. So long as the American political parties served as a buffer to the passions and beliefs of their constituent threads, harmony could be sustained. To do this, the parties need to operate from the same sheet of music, directed by the same conductor.

A unifying narrative must be maintained to shape the perception of the people. When competing narratives exist, they must adhere to a similar core concept, or else risk being torn apart by the destructive echo produced by the space between.

The concept of a “stolen election” is the antithesis of the model of a free and fair election that underpins American democracy. For the supporters of Donald Trump, the events of Jan. 6 did not occur in a vacuum but were rather the culmination of what they believed to be a four-year campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the president they voted for and, by doing so, disenfranchising not only their vote, but by extension their role as citizens.

The collapse of the Russian collusion allegations is, today, historic fact. The recent declassification of additional documents related to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation targeting the Trump campaign only reinforce what most Trump supporters had come to firmly believe—that the FBI, working in concert with the Obama administration and sympathetic Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans (John McCain comes to mind), sought to manufacture a narrative that could sustain the perception of Trump-Russian collusion in an effort to prevent Trump from prevailing in November 2016 or, failing that, serve as the basis of undermining his presidency going forward.

The persecution of Carter Paige, the politicization of the Steele Dossier, and the failure of the Mueller investigation have all been well documented, while the issue of legal culpability regarding the various Constitutional abuses associated with these, and other, activities may never be finalized.

In the end, the lack of legal finality misses the point. In the minds of Trump’s many supporters, there was clear and incontrovertible proof that the establishment was conspiring to suborn the victory they had achieved at the polls. The drawn out political drama that was the Democrats’ first effort to remove Trump from office through the vehicle of impeachment only reinforced this conclusion.

Justice or Revenge?

The events of Jan. 6 represent the culminating moment where the disharmony of American politics brought on by the unbridgeable gap between those citizens whom Trump said he had empowered as the guardians of American democracy in his January 2017 inaugural address, and those citizens who had, since 2017, been struggling to undermine Trump, created a harmonic whose echo tore down the edifice of American democracy.

As fervently as the Democrats and their “never Trump” allies in the Republican Party believe that Trump and his supporters represent a clear and present danger to American democracy, so, too, do the supporters of Trump view those who conspired to undo the will of the people as expressed in a free and fair election as enemies of the state.

These perceptions remain valid in the minds of tens of millions of Americans as they watch the second impeachment trial of Trump get underway. Some view the proceedings as necessary justice; others as an act of political revenge. There is no common ground, and no outcome—either conviction or acquittal—will change that.

Joe Biden supporters will have four years to try and repair the institution of American democracy, but for all the rhetoric of unity, the impending second impeachment trial of Trump provides living proof that there remains a deep and dark divide between those who support the 46^th president, and those who continue to support his predecessor—and never the two shall meet.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

 

Thirty-Nine Percent of Republicans Say They'd Support Americans Using Political Violence

 Thirty-Nine Percent of Republicans Say They'd Support Americans Using Political Violence

Nearly four in 10 Republicans believe that political violence may be necessary if elected leaders fail to act, new polling results show.

Hundreds of former President Donald Trump's supporters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6 after Trump said they needed to "fight like hell" to keep him in power. The ex-president and many of his GOP allies had pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that President Joe Biden won the election through widespread voter fraud, which many of his supporters believed.

While some Republican leaders have attempted to distance themselves from the pro-Trump rioters and the former president, polls suggest the GOP base may be more closely aligned with this fringe of the party than they admit.

In the new survey by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), 39 percent of GOP voters said they agreed with this statement: "If elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions." However, the majority (60 percent) of Republicans said they opposed the idea.

Smaller numbers of Democrats and independents also said they believed violence could be necessary. Among Democratic voters, 17 percent agreed with the sentence, while 31 percent of independent voters did as well.

!

Daniel Cox, director of the AEI, described the findings of his institute's survey as "really dramatic" in an interview with NPR. "I think any time you have a significant number of the public saying use of force can be justified in our political system, that's pretty scary," he said.

The survey also showed that half of Republicans still believe incorrectly that Antifa was responsible for the violence at the Capitol, not Trump supporters. While 50 percent of Republicans said Antifa was behind the attack—a belief that is contradicted by all evidence and the statements of those arrested in the aftermath—just 15 percent of GOP voters said they believe Trump encouraged the attack.

More than a dozen of the nearly 200 people charged in the Capitol assault have blamed Trump directly for their actions. They have said they were following the president's commands and believed they were fighting to protect the U.S. An attorney representing Dominic Pezzola, an alleged member of the Proud Boys charged with involvement in the riot, described his client as "one of millions of Americans who were misled by the President's deception" in a Wednesday court filing.

Another recent poll, by CBS News/YouGov, showed that most Republicans appear to be more loyal to Trump than they are to the GOP. The survey found that 70 percent of Republicans would join or consider joining a new political party if Trump formed one. Slightly more (71 percent) of Republicans said that GOP lawmakers voting to impeach or convict Trump for helping to incite the insurrection are "disloyal."

- "Source" -

 Enough with America's 'thank you for your service' culture. It's betrayal, not patriotism.

 Joseph Biden just became America’s fourth post-9/11 “war president.” He now ends speeches with “May God protect our troops.” First lady Jill Biden even penned a children's book titled, "Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops." Their son Beau was a soldier — and his parents suspect toxic “burn pit” exposure on his Iraq tour caused the brain cancer that later killed him. Both Jill and Joe repeatedly foreground military and veteran sacrifices — with good reason. 

But just what is the best way for Americans to honor and respect veterans’ sacrifices?

Responses to this question tend to be as diverse as America itself. There's no single right answer, but there are plenty of wrong ones. One thing has become abundantly clear: America’s “thank you for your service” culture doesn't help veterans — or society.  

Our country’s military is continually misused, and no amount of pyrotechnics, flag-waving, priority airline boarding, discount nachos, bumper stickers or military flyovers can fix that. For two decades, the U.S. government has knowingly sent its service members to self-perpetuating and self-defeating wars. 

That’s not patriotism — that’s betrayal. 

Deception in broad daylight

A more effective alternative to such lobotomized patriotism — and a better way to honor veterans' service — is to get informed about how the troops are used and to dissent whenever the military is not used wisely. Historically, veterans sacrificed plenty to preserve the rights that Americans enjoy. 

Return the favor. Get informed, demand transparency, prevent the squandering of such service. 

But respect for our military must begin before they become veterans — before they’ve sacrificed limbs, lives and mental health supporting bad policy. Because by then, it’s already too late. Instead, respect military service by ensuring that everyone who dons a uniform — beginning the moment when minors approach recruiting tables in high school lunchrooms — has informed consent about what they’re actually signing up for. 

Isn’t it fascinating that many teachers would never expose children to graphic images of dead soldiers in classrooms, but those same students can be misled in broad daylight, at schoolhouses turned de facto recruiting stations? Consequently, American youths could unwittingly become those very dead bodies. 

Informed consent is a critical component of respect.

And if our society believes that images of amputees or dead civilians — and statistics about suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder or drug abuse — are too explicit for underage audiences, perhaps its military should quit recruiting children. 

Therefore, we advocate for our Pentagon and the rest of America’s war-making machine — the ever-euphemistic defense establishment — to adopt a code consistent with the American Medical Association’s ethics opinion on informed consent: “Patients have the right to receive information and ask questions about recommended treatments so that they can make well-considered decisions about care.” The AMA guidance further states that physicians — in our scenario, war doctors — should present relevant information about the “burdens, risks, and expected benefits of all options.” 

Needless suffering, home and abroad

What, then, are some of the recruiting risks worth mentioning? 

For starters, a survey by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan "have caused mental and emotional health problems in 31% of vets — more than 800,000 of them."

In one of the largest surveys available on post-9/11 veterans, “40% of veterans polled had considered suicide at least once after they joined the military” and roughly 20 veterans and active-duty service members committed suicide daily in the past several years  — a truly staggering figure. That’s “more suicides each year than the total American military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq," as a New York Times editorial board member characterized it. 

Divorce, alcohol, drugs, depression, endless “zombie” medication to mitigate endless deployments — the whole nine yards. All of it ought to be raised before any American enlists, but we do not know of a single instance where a recruiter discussed the risks of military service.

Likewise, because it is one of the most traumatic, highly personal elements of combat, recruits should recognize that America’s war on terror has resulted in the deaths, often violent, of more than 100 Sept. 11's worth of civilians from Africa to Central Asia. In the final sense, war offers only needless suffering. Ignorance to its evils is more needless still.

Taken collectively, burdens and risks seem subtle and are more easily dismissed. Most citizens prefer to avert their eyes than view war through honest lenses of fear, apathy, ignorance and guilt. The Pentagon, incidentally, seems quite happy with this arrangement.  

More money, fewer victories

Americans have hardly exercised informed consent for their own defense. So few even comprehend the immensity of Pentagon largesse — the largest segment of the discretionary budget — its tradeoffs, or that it’s more than the next 10 countries combined (many of them U.S. allies). 

Informed consent’s absence extends to the Overseas Contingency Operations account, a slush fund designed by defense hawks to circumvent spending controls imposed on all other government agencies.   

Such consent-free exorbitant expenditures might be excusable if they produced positive results. Only the U.S. military’s win/loss record since World War II is paltry at best: a tortured tie in Korea; losses in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq; and embarrassments in Beirut and Somalia — hardly offset by the “big” wins in small wars like Grenada and Panama. That scarcely justifies such extravagant spending. Yet fearmongering from the military-industrial-congressional complex, and cynically crafted cries to “support the troops,” stifle patriotic dissent.

Demands for informed consent are unlikely to emerge among Americans long trained to quietly capitulate to war industry whims. For now, it might fall on veterans themselves to disavow endless wars — the death and injury caused — and the unsustainable spending underpinning it all.

Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich retired from the Army after more than 35 years of service. He is a graduate of the Army War College and author of "Skin in the Game: Poor Kids and Patriots." Erik Edstrom graduated from West Point and deployed to combat as an infantry officer in Afghanistan. He is the author of "Un-American: A Soldier’s Reckoning of our Longest War." Both authors are senior fellows at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN) — an organization of independent military and national security veteran experts.- "Source" -

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See also Chris Hedges: War Is Betrayal: We condition the poor and the working class to go to war.

Question Everything!

Question Everything! The Dangerous Myth of Patriotism For most Americans, patriotism means love of country.  But I’d like to suggest this “love” is misplaced for three reasons.  First, I’d like to suggest that “country” is an imaginary construct.  Two, I’d like to show how patriotism is misused and abused by the powerful, most infamously by President Donald Trump.  And three, I’d like to suggest a new form of patriotism, the love of the tangible, and by this I mean our fellow human beings. “Country” as an imaginary construct “Imagine there’s no countries,” John Lennon wrote nearly fifty years ago. Generally, citizens of a given country insist they love their nation. But can one truly “love America,” or any other country or nation? For that matter can you love any state, city, town, or sports team? In general semantics, a branch of linguistics which is itself a branch of philosophy, the word is not the thing, the map is not the territory. Canada, France, the Red Sox are only names, concepts, phenomena of consciousness. Or a neurological system in the brain if you adhere to the Western materialist worldview. Think about it: You can’t see, touch, feel, hear, or taste “France.” But you can taste a French pastry made in “France” and see and touch the Eiffel Tower. ”Vive La France” does not mean that French people collectively are going to live a long life. In fact, the concept of France vanishes if there are no longer any human beings left after, say, France is devastated by a massive nuclear attack. Now, one can literally love the beauty of the land that comprises the legal territory of a given country. I love the mountains and the deserts of the Western U.S., the woods of northern Maine, the seacoasts of California.  I love Fourth of July celebrations, the fireworks and cookouts. I even love the old Frank Sinatra song, “The House I Live In” because it names things in America that you can put your hands on, such as the line “the ‘howdy’ and the handshake.” And then the concluding lyric, “that’s America to me.” (Notice there is no insinuation there is an America out there, only the symbolic meaning of the phrase.) Love of country, in short, is nonsensical because a country, a nation, is an abstraction, a conceptual phenomenon, a byproduct of mental processes, that has no existence in the material universe.  Perhaps Lennon’s dream of “imagine there’s no countries” will only become reality when we no longer perceive people as enemies or opponents merely because they live elsewhere or look different. The misuse and abuse of patriotism Politicians and journalists tend to affirm, for obvious reasons, that it’s important to state how much you love America. Not to do so could easily result in your career or ambitions heading south. Still, proclaiming your love of country, whatever country that is, all too often has undesirable and destructive consequences. For instance, it becomes easier to support a government taking the country to war.  Or colossal military budgets in the name of “defending” the “country.” To an unreflective patriot the country is not seen as the sum of its parts but as a reality sui generis, perhaps symbolized by a father figure like Uncle Sam. If I can make a sweeping generalization, among rural chauvinists “country” is part of the “God, Country, and Guns” trinity.  This idea is well captured by the Merle Haggard song from 1970 that “When they’re runnin’ down our country, man/They’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.” President Trump’s recent call for members of the so-called squad, the four progressive Congresswomen of color, to “go back”  to where they came from (a takeoff of “love it or leave it”) is one step away from “I will hurt you if I see you  again.” Obviously, there is no place natural-born U.S. citizens can go back to. And even if they were not citizens by birth, why should they have to leave after having become U.S. citizens?  Trump’s “patriotism” is racist nationalism – and shamelessly so. Patriotism, in the narrow Trumpian usage of that word, demands opponents, sides, an “us versus them” mentality.  And that’s a mentality calculated for division, distraction, and destruction. Real patriotism We humans can’t see national borders from space, but we do see our planet.  Our real “homeland.”  Nevertheless, the false choice of “America: love it or leave it” has recently been revived from the days when protesters against the Vietnam War were denounced as unpatriotic. In truth, they were performing the most patriotic act imaginable, if patriotism is properly defined as love of one’s fellow human beings. In that sense, real patriotism is humanitarianism.  It’s focused on humans and the home where we live, not on constructs that are insensible. False patriotism may remain “the last refuge of a scoundrel,” as Samuel Johnson, the 18th century British social philosopher, observed.  Even so, a literal belief in “my country, right or wrong” could still do us all in some sunny day.  A dangerous myth, indeed. Richard Sahn is a retired professor of sociology.  You may also wish to read his article on sports and reification. - "Source"

 Power to the People 

Embrace home schooling as a way to rescue the next generation and preserve the country.

During the rebellious ‘60s, the slogan “power to the people” became a mantra for the young to protest what they saw as oppression from their elders. Now comes a moment when significant numbers of Americans can exercise real power in ways that will improve the country.

Most people will never attain a level of influence comparable to a president, a member of Congress, a Supreme Court justice, a newspaper editor, or a TV network anchor/reporter, but ultimate power does not reside in any of these institutions or professions. It resides in “we the people.”

The pandemic has given especially parents of young children an opportunity to seize power they already possessed but have never fully exercised. With teachers unions dictating when, or if, public schools will open again, parents are discovering the power of educating their children at home where they cannot only teach the real history of the country (as opposed to the revisionist version now taught in too many schools), but add a moral foundation that secular public schools no longer provide.

According to admissionsly.com, “a go-to site for students for reliable and unbiased information and statistics about education,” in the spring of 2019 (the last period for which figures are available), “grade K-12 students constituted 2.5 million children who opted for homeschooling. If we observe the trend in the last few years, there is an annual homeschooling growth rate by 2 percent to 8 percent.”

That may not sound like much when one considers that 48.6 million K-12 students attend public schools, according to the Census Bureau, but it suggests momentum. The cost of a public-school education increased 3.4 percent from 2017. Given demands from teachers’ unions it is likely to continue climbing. A public-school education now costs, on average, more than $12,000 per student per year.

The Wall Street Journal has taken note of this under-the-radar transfer of power, which is still at an early stage, but appears to be advancing rapidly. It cites three states out of many experiencing increases in home schooling: “In North Carolina, the state’s home-school monitoring website crashed on the first day of enrollment, and more than 18,800 families filed to operate a home school from July 1 to Jan 22 — more than double the school-year before. … In Connecticut, the number of students who left public schools to be home-schooled jumped five-fold this school year to 3,500. In Nebraska, the number of home-schooled students jumped 56 percent to 13,426…”

Combine this with the 5.7 million students attending private schools and one might call it a movement.

Home schooling one’s children is far easier today. Not only are there substantial online resources, many parents are combining their skills and backgrounds with other parents, so that if one is deficient in history or math, another parent with knowledge of these subjects can contribute.

Many of these subjects have been tainted by political correctness and in the case of history, revisionism. It is why the Biden administration has nixed former President Trump’s 1776 Commission, which sought to restore accurate teaching of U.S. history rather than a contemporary version seen only through the lens of slavery and America as a bad nation. Trump called it “patriotic education.”

Conservatives who want to preserve America from what they regard as incremental socialism should embrace home schooling as a way to rescue the next generation and preserve the country.

I have quoted her before, but sometimes repetition is needed for it to sink in. The late Barbara Bush said: “Your success as a family … our success as a nation … depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.”

She understood where real power comes from. Now, if more people will only seize that power and use it.

 The American Animal Farm

George Orwell's tiny little book has never packed a more powerful wallop than it does here and now.

Eric Blair warned us, but we didn’t listen. And today, we’re seeing his nightmarish allegory played out before our eyes. Blair is better known by his pen name, George Orwell, and his Animal Farm, which was published in 1945, has never seemed more relevant.

If you haven’t yet read Orwell’s little masterpiece but are still planning to, you might want to set this article aside. It contains, unavoidably, one spoiler after another.

As historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson writes, Orwell’s little short little novel uses farm animals to replay “the transition of supposedly 1917 revolutionary Bolsheviks into cynical 1930s Stalinists. Thereby, they remind us that leftist totalitarianism inevitably becomes far worse than the supposed parasitical capitalists they once toppled.”

That’s the gist of Hanson’s article — to say that today’s American Left, or the New New Left, as he calls it, has taken on the role of those decades-old Stalinists, completing their final Animal Farm transformation from pigs to men and finishing their long march through our American institutions. What were once young and idealistic ‘60s revolutionaries are today’s reactionaries. Those who once championed free expression are now stomping it out.

As Hanson writes, “The First Amendment was said by them to be sacred, even as the 'free speech movement’ transitioned to the ‘filthy speech movement.’ Leftists sued to mainstream nudity in film. They wanted easy access to pornography. They mainstreamed crude profanity. The supposed right-wingers were repressed. They were the ‘control freaks’ who sought to stop the further ‘liberation’ of the common culture. In those days, the ACLU still defined the right of free expression as protecting the odious, whether the unhinged Nazis, the pathetic old-Left Communists, or nihilistic Weather Underground terrorists. ‘Censorship’ was a dirty word.”

Hanson notes that professors began dropping F-bombs in class, dressing like their students, getting to know them on a first-name basis, and encouraging them to do their own thing. The point of the 1960s, he writes, “was to tear down the rules, the traditions and customs, the hierarchies of the old guys.” He adds, “The targets were supposedly the uptight, short-hair, square-tie, adult generation who grew up in the Depression, won World War II, and were fighting to defeat Cold War Soviet Union.”

Today, however, the downtrodden farm animals have finally ousted Farmer Jones from our Animal Farm, and they’ve absorbed all the institutions of American power: Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Media, Big Business, the academies, K-12 education, pro sports, and entertainment.

“We are now finally witnessing the logical fruition of their radical utopia,” Hanson writes. “Censorship, electronic surveillance, internal spying, monopolies, cartels, conspiracy theories, weaponization of the intelligence agencies, pouring billions of dollars into campaigns, changing voting laws by fiat, a woke revolutionary military, book banning, bleeding the First Amendment, canceling careers, blacklisting, separate-but-equal racial segregation and separatism.”

The term “Orwellian” is made for today. All of us may indeed be created equal, but some of us — those on the Left — are clearly more equal than others. As Hanson writes, “The Left demands not free-speech areas anymore, but no-speech ‘safe spaces’ and ‘theme houses — euphemisms for racially segregated, 'separate-but-equal’ zones. ‘Microaggressions’ are tantamount to thought crimes. … No one is spared from the new racists, not Honest Abe, not Tom Jefferson, not you, not me.”

In today’s Animal Farm, 74 million Trump voters need to be deprogrammed, the “new and improved” ACLU fights against “hate speech” rather than for free speech, our nation’s capital is militarized, and our federal law enforcement and intelligence services are now embraced by a Left that once hated them.

Who’d have imagined it? Orwell.

A note from freedom or Anarchy Campaign of conscience

Let’s not lose sight of our humanity. Some have lost track of basic human values & what is fundamentally & morally right, and that doesn’t have a place in this world and the future we all deserve. If you are standing next to a white supremacist (literally or figuratively), you have lost touch with your humanity. If you are using racism, nationalism, or other dehumanizing and oppressive forms of thinking to guide your choices in life, you have lost touch with your humanity. Period. There are so many examples of people coming together in this time of divide, who are committed to caring for one another and upholding principles of human decency, who are doing the slow, painful, thankless job of pushing us forward rather than backward. We would all do well to use those people - their hearts and their actions - as our collective compass.

There are people finding ways to do what’s right despite immense pressure to flow with the political current. Nobody has to allow political, conspiratorial, religious, or patriotic beliefs override their humanity. We need to demand better from ourselves. I know firsthand what it’s like to be part of a group that uses every tactic in the book to keep itself in power, control people, and shut out all differing perspectives. This is incredibly dangerous and is what allows for atrocities in our history to be repeated. I am calling everyone to action, to stand up for what makes us good and to do more of it. We are all responsible for this. I don’t give a shit what you are - Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative - if it doesn’t move us ALL forward to a better future, then it shouldn’t be supported. We must all be on the side of humanity. 

 

The Best Way to Honor Dead Soldiers Is Not to Create More

Removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan by early 2021, or by Christmas as President Trump has exclaimed, does not mean that the United States lost the war in Afghanistan. This wouldn’t be an admission of defeat, rather an acknowledgement that we have exhausted all possible tactical avenues with forces on the ground.

Furthermore, the United States can no longer use the “sunk cost” excuse to perpetuate an unclear mission described in the Washington Post’s Afghanistan Papers by Douglas Lute, a three-star Army General, when he said, “we didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

For years, proponents of staying in Afghanistan have been justifying their position in part by saying our men and women would have “died in vain” if we leave, that it would “dishonor” or “cheapen” their sacrifice if Washington pulled up stakes and called it quits militarily after 19 years. Just recently, former Army general and national security adviser H.R. McMaster reiterated that very sentiment on “60 Minutes,” referring to American peace talks with the Taliban and the president’s directives to leave.

When wars drag on, it is not uncommon for leaders and military personnel to cite lives lost and resources spent to argue against withdrawal. Some 50 years ago, this rationale pervaded arguments for staying the course in the Vietnam War, which lasted a decade.

In 2015, Gen. David Petraeus and Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution said “the United States must stay in Afghanistan to ensure that past sacrifices were not in vain and to ‘protect our [prior] investment.’” By investment they mean lives lost andover $1 trillion already spent at the time.

In 2017, President Trump argued, “Our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives.” Shortly after this statement, he increased troop numbers in the region by 10,000 as part of his “mini-surge.”

Just this year, war hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham issued the following statement: “We have fought too hard and sacrificed too much to allow our security gains to slip away.” And on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, former national security adviser Susan Rice said that Trump is cheapening “the sacrifice of the 3,500 American and NATO service members who perished in Afghanistan” by potentially leaving Afghanistan to its own devices.

Using the 2,352 American soldiers who died during this conflict as a reason to send even more soldiers into harms’ way is not the best way to honor the ones who have fallen.

Afghanistan, The Longest War in US History: Forgotten, But Not Gone

“I believe the ‘sunk cost’ view actually dishonors their sacrifice, because it converts them into a kind of political-emotional ‘currency’ that is used to gain argumentative advantage,” argued journalist and author Thomas E. Ricks in response to O’Hanlon and Petraeus in 2015.

John Glaser of the Cato Institute, in a policy analysis titled, “Overcoming Inertia: Why It’s Time to End the War in Afghanistan,” wrote that “a decision about where and whether to devote resources should be based on whether the investment will add future value, not on sunk costs.” Glaser goes on to argue that policymakers instead must be agile when it comes to ditching costly operations that no longer promise feasible conclusions.

This is not meant to be a discussion of whether or not soldiers have died in vain, which has been argued and addressed in myriad forums.

Rather, this is an opportunity to argue for not extending our losses and to reckon with the fact that there are better ways to honor service members than continuing to send them into doomed missions across the globe.

Especially since our very own officials have already acknowledged, according to the Afghanistan Papers, that we “clearly failed in Afghanistan.”

Honoring those who have fallen is not tied to strategic outcomes, and if the United States really cares about the soldiers lost during the war in Afghanistan, there is plenty to be done on the home front to pay homage to their sacrifices.

The military is reporting a 30 percent jump in active duty service member suicides since the beginning of the year (veteran suicides are pegged at 17 a day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs). While no specific reasons were cited, officials would not rule out COVID-related conditions, or the strain of multiple deployments. In fact, senior officials told the Associated Press that they are considering shortening the combat rotations — something they probably should have done earlier in this 19-year war.

Meanwhile, veterans have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. As the pandemic continues to spread, this puts a strain on the already tenuous availability of mental health programs and the VA’s ominous backlog for appointments and disability claims.

But even without COVID, after nearly 20 years of war, the VA is still overrun and plagued with inefficiencies, and in the worst cases, fraud and corruption. Some 9 million veterans are enrolled in VA healthcare programs today, with more than 1.2 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan accessing the system since 2001. Efforts to modernize and improve both care and efficiency for veterans have struggled as more strain has been put on the system in the last two decades.

There is not a one-size fits all approach and lawmakers and advocates have clashed over how to fix it. On one side, there are demands not only for more funding for programs, but a more comprehensive and targeted plan for where those funds are going. Many veterans live outside big cities, so there is a push to build more accessible facilities and clinics in rural areas. There are needs for caregivers, mental health, and specialized care for women veterans. Others say that despite budget increases every year, the bureaucracy has failed to adjust in order to accommodate current veterans’ needs and is riddled with red tape and inefficiencies. They have promoted extending veterans’ access to private healthcare, but that too, has been problematic.

Both sides have complained about politicization, vacancies at the top, and not being able to fire top officials who fail. These issues are long standing and seemingly never resolved before each new administration, with their own crop of appointees, takes over. Congress, too, has revolving priorities, and despite real champions for veterans in their ranks, always seems willing to kick the can down the road.

As a country, we must come to grips with the fact that strategic efforts in Afghanistan stopped being worthwhile long ago, and turn to the immediate healthcare needs of our recent veteran population, which has now reached 2.7 million men and women.

If the United States doesn’t see this as a noble cause to tackle, it’s time for a reassessment of our own priorities. On the battlefield we preach “leave no man behind,” but it seems that at home we don’t hold ourselves to the same standard. Instead of talking about “sunk costs,” continuing meaningless store discounts and special nights at the ballpark, the best way America can honor its veterans and fallen soldiers is to create fewer of them, and when they come home, do our best to take care of them.

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Featured image: A soldier presenting an American flag to the relative of a deceased veteran at the Tahoma National Cemetery, Washington, May 28, 2011. (The Old Major/ Shutterstock)