So, we continue to see the growing numbers of ill and death from Beer Flu. We hear about people dying in strange ways in strange places. We worry about earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, blizzards and floods, droughts and tornadoes.
All these things are dangerous, all these things pose threats to many people. And often (as in Tennessee recently with the tornado), people die when we wish they wouldn’t.
But…
Continue readingA brief preview of the commentary to be published on Thursday morning in The Price of Liberty.
We need to remember the opportunities that the Beer Flu Panic is creating as well.
Some key areas:
None of these are new – there have been developments for years.
But the panic is accelerating the process and changing our entire economy and society. ALL of these opportunities strengthen us in our fight for liberty and against the state. As well as fighting the false “progressives” and their socialism.
Be sure to read The Price of Liberty on Thursday, and chime in with your thoughts!
One of the keys of a free society, especially in the 21st Century, is communications. The current novel coronavirus crisis and the Beer Flu Panic are demonstrating – again – the truth of this statement. Whether or not we are in a “National Emergency” or not, we need to communicate. Simply, widely, efficiently. And without someone or something censoring unpleasant or undesirable information.
And government doesn’t like that. It (They) want to be the “go-to” source of information. They want to control what we hear, even more than they want to control what we say.
Continue readingDear readers:
Last week, I put out a brief commentary about the holiday weekend. I talked about:
But as several people pointed out, I omitted the grand holiday of the 17th of March, Saint Patrick’s Day! Although many celebrations are muted this year due to the Beer Flu Panic, it is still a holiday many people celebrate.
And it, too, has its ties to liberty and freedom.
Ireland and her people have always and nearly constantly battled against others to win and keep their liberty. For all of recorded history, Irish patriots have been challenged by internal tyrants and bandits (often with little to tell the two apart). The Emerald Isle has been a constant attraction to invaders, including Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes and other Vikings, the Norman French and last (and longest), their English and Scots neighbors. Other, more subtle invasions have been a problem as well. In modern times, the submission of Ireland to the European Union is such a problem. But there are more forms of tyranny. These include organized religion: churches. Specifically the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland (part of the Church of England – Anglican).
In much of this constant struggle for liberty, Patrick, long sainted by the Catholic Church, has been a touchstone. Unfortunately, like so many other people of ancient times, especially in the first 500-700 years of the Christian Era, the Vatican (and its minions) have twisted the story of Patrick to their own ends.
Although quintessentially Irish and synonymous with Eire today, Patrick wasn’t even Irish, he was a British Roman, born in the Fourth Century AD in what is now England or Scotland, and stolen and made a slave by Irish raiders. After years of servitude as a shepherd in Ireland, he escaped slavery and returned to Britain and then went to Gaul. Although raised in a christian family (both his father and grandfather were church leaders), he had lived an immoral life and was far from faithful. But living in freedom again, perhaps because of his slavery, he again embraced christianity and returned to Ireland as a missionary. Confronting the pagan Druids which had dominated the island for centuries, he made many converts and is credited with founding the christian churches of Ireland.
He is claimed by the Roman Catholics, made a Catholic “bishop” and supposedly commissioned by the Pope to go and convert Ireland. But the truth is, the Catholic Church did not really exist in the 300s and 400s: the “unification” of most christian churches under control of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) was not done until about AD 600. Patrick’s family, and he himself, were almost certainly members of independent, autonomous congregations established by evangelists to Britain back as far as the First Century AD. (Legends exist of Paul of Tarsus, Joseph of Arimathea, and the Apostle Andrew (St. Andrew, as in the Scots flag) preaching in Britain.)
So Patrick would have preached the Gospel found in the New Testament, and not that other Gospel which later Roman Catholics preached. No submission to Rome, no archbishops and cardinals, no veneration of Mary, penance for sins, state church, appointments of church leaders by government. And no infant baptism and national churches. National churches which benefit clergy and secular rulers by keeping the people docile.
The thousands of myths about Patrick, his murderous ways and all the business about snakes are all completely bogus. As is his status as a Roman Catholic bishop and loyal servant of Rome and the Popes. The Catholic Church is well-known for its use of rewriting history – even creating forged memoirs and other documents. Like many before and after him, Patrick was rewritten into a larger-than-life, magic-wielding, nation-building “saint.” And the legend was used to cozen the Irish into accepting kings of ever more power, and the tyranny of Roman Catholicism and its secular partners.
For nearly 1200 years, Ireland was saddled with Roman religious domination, first with the often-despotic kings of the five and six Irish realms, and then the Norman kings of England their successors. When the English became “Protestant,” Irish resistance to British tyranny became firmly welded to the Roman Catholic Church. Despite its own version of tyranny and abuse of its parishioners.
But Patrick did not start that: his preaching, based on the little we have that has not been corrupted, was teaching the Bible and the liberty that people have been given by God. Over the centuries, the Irish have scattered to the far ends of the earth, as “Wild Geese” and just simple farmers and workers – seeking and finding a better life for them and their families, but still carrying that Irish love of liberty, given in part by the preaching and lives of men like Patrick.
On Friday the 13th, as I sit here writing reports and preparing training, I listen to the radio, see news feeds, and get calls from correspondents, clients, and other christians.
And what I see is a panic continuing to rise and already overwhelming society. Not just here in the Fifty States, but around the world. It is here in the States that I see the most overreaction. Hysteria reigns. Just plain fear, for one thing. And fear and panic kills.
Continue readingLong-time readers of Science Fiction will remember Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold The Moon.”
Turns out DD Harriman was a piker, compared to this “Moonland” company and website. According to Groupon, you can buy an acre of land on the moon now. Although apparently sales aren’t going well, as they’ve discounted the price from $33.60 an acre to just $10.00 an acre (apparently today only).
No word on whether there is beachfront property available. Or whether there are bridges available. But I would advise against buying any land without doing an environmental site assessment. Who knows what potential pollution and other environmental conditions are present?
And remember, government is not the ONLY scam out there, folks.
Just as a matter of fun, while March is usually the only month without some kind of federally-recognized day, there are a lot of fun days, especially near the middle of the month.
We just missed MAR10 Day – the 10th is celebrated by gamers as Nintendo and Mario Brothers day.
Of course, today is a dreaded Friday the 13th. A constant reminder of the evils of government: it was on Friday the 13th of 1307 that Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar (The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), was arrested and the Knights were suppressed by the French King Phillip IV and the Catholic Pope Clement V, conspiring to put down a private, voluntary organization. An organization that Pope and King saw as a threat to State and Church and their union.
Saturday the 14th is Pi Day: 3.14. Some people celebrate Pi Hour (1600 hours or 3.14.1600). Many restaurant chains (for example, Village Inn) celebrate “Pie Day” on the 14th.
I admit the political and social aspects of Pi Day are a bit tenuous. But it should remind us that physics and mathematics are really quite immune to governmental political manipulation and corruption. No matter how much know-nothing congress-critturs, legis-gators, local klepto-crats and various bureaucrats would love to be able to legislate that you can calculate a circle using something nice and simple like 3 instead of 3.14159…
Next we have the 15th of March: the Ides of March. We remember the anniversary of the death – the murder – of Gaius Julius Caesar. His murder by members of the Senate – on the Senate floor! (The Conscript Fathers were meeting in the Theatre of Pompey.) In modern terms, Gaius Julius was murdered by a conspiracy of the Deep State of the Roman Republic. While it is usually viewed as a strike against tyranny and dictatorship as we view it today, the reality is a bit more complex. The Republic would have been much more likely to have recovered and survived if he had remained alive and in power, versus the rumors (planted by the equivalent of our modern mainstream media) that he was going to declare himself King.
But regardless of what side Julius and the conspirators who killed him were on, it is a reminder that government is (maybe) a “necessary evil,” but always an evil master and danger to liberty.
Monday the 16th of March? Some call that day “God loves me day” or “Jesus loves me day.” This of course refers to John 3:16, called America’s favorite Bible verse. “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (Holman Christian Standard Bible) We can be reminded that Christ came to set us free; free from sin and the evils of sin. Which of course includes evil and sinful actions by people who claim to have power over us because they are government. God did not and does not force men and women to accept Jesus, or to love Him. Unlike government, God gave us free will and life.
Of course, it is also worth remembering that March is supposed to be named for the Roman god of war, Mars. And again, let me quote Jesus (Matthew 10:34) “Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” He knew that it is necessary to fight, both spiritually and physically, against those (in and out of government) who want to steal our liberty away and enslave us to their demands. William Penn is one of many who have said (and lived): “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.”
So there you have our holidays this middle of the month.
The Denver Post tells us that Wyoming State Government, those evil monsters, are looking at buying a million acres of land and 4 million acres of mineral rights. Including – gasp – some located in Colorado.
Continue reading
Who benefits from closing all the schools?
Rob Morse, in his “Slow Facts” webzine, on Monday, asks a good question: “Are bureacrats shutting down schools for their benefit or for yours?
When the same cities that close all their schools to supposedly prevent the close contact that helps a virus to spread, but open up large child care centers to house the children during the day who have no place to stay because their parents have to work to support them?
When the workers in those child care centers, that are even MORE likely to be exposed to the virus are only temporary public employees (if not just contractor employees), “subprofessional” and probably unable to afford health insurance themselves because of low pay and the “benefits of ObummerCare? And when those workers – those “caregivers” are more likely to be unqualified, untrained, and themselves carriers – because of hasty hiring practices? To say nothing of the increased potential that some of those caregivers are predators: pedophiles who cannot be detected by proper vetting because of the urgency to hire them?
When the children in those centers are less likely to have sufficient staff to discipline them and help them maintain this “social standoff” distance, and are more likely to come in contact with a lot more than the 15-30 students in their own classrooms? And get poorer quality food from makeshift kitchens instead of the well-equipped school kitchens? And probably having to spend more time crowded in buses taking them to the centers instead of their neighborhood schools?
But the bureaucrats, and especially their attorneys and risk management specialists don’t really care about the children, no matter what they claim. The educrats are more concerned about things like potential lawsuits and the medical costs of treating unionized teachers who won’t be in those child care centers. And more concerned about potential for these educrats having to take personal responsibility for the children that parents entrust to their care?
And when the child care center buildings are also more likely to be unsuitable for this use, unable to meet codes, than purpose-built school buildings? Thus risking everything from poor fire protection to failure of sewer and sanitation, and thus increasing the risk of injury and illness to the children?
When you put this all together, you just have an incredible checklist of the evils of government-run, tax-supported, and irresponsible, self-serving, and completely objectionable “education systems.”
And the question as always, is why are we so foolish as to entrust our precious children to these institutions.