For all of 2020, the idea that Covid could be due to a "lab leak" was "fringe disinformation". As this NY Times article reports:
The common reaction in elite liberal circles? A Washington Post reporter called it a “fringe theory” that “has been repeatedly disputed by experts.” The Atlantic Council accused Cotton of abetting an “infodemic” by “pushing debunked claim that the novel coronavirus may have been created in a Wuhan lab.” A writer for Vox said it was a “dangerous conspiracy theory” being advanced by conservatives “known to regularly spew nonsense (and bash China).”
But why would our "trusted elites" do such a thing? As the Ridley article points out:
The emails unveiled this week reveal no good scientific reason at all for why these leading virologists changed their minds and became deniers rather than believers in even the remote possibility of a lab leak, all in just a few days in February 2020. No new data, no new arguments. But they do very clearly reveal a blatant political reason for the volte-face. Speculating about a lab leak, said Ron Fouchier, a Dutch researcher, might ‘do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular’. Francis Collins was pithier, worrying about ‘doing great potential harm to science and international harmony’. Contradicting Donald Trump, protecting science’s reputation at all costs and keeping in with those who dole out large grants are pretty strong incentives to change one’s mind.
Naturally it would be certifiable crazy to consider the possibility that the "lab leak" was not an accident, right?
I know if my IBM taskmasters had me working on a project to enhance computer viruses to make them harder to detect, easier to spread, etc, I would NEVER suspect that they had any ulterior motives. Like maybe they had agreements with a few big anti-virus companies to release anti-virus software that was absolutely required to remove this enhanced virus? Certainly we trust big business, big pharma, big government to never do such a thing. Right?
Did we miss National Socialist Germany? The USSR? 9-11? Millions of babies murdered in their mother's womb? Is it unimaginable in such a world to trade off the deaths of a few million elderly people soon to die anyway for a vast increase in government control and massive profits for the Davos elite?
We live in an amoral world. Catholic priests abuse boys. Powerful men fly on the "lolita express". Presidents stain the carpet of the Oval Office with their semen with impunity. What part of "no rules" (for those who control and support "the narrative") is it that you have not taken to heart?
As Nietzsche said "without God, all is permissible".
The book is not an easy read, and the linked review is not that easy either. I believe it is impossible to really summarise these topics and the relationship between them because they are both deep and VERY wide!
In this age of Covid, I was especially struck by this prophetic statement near the end of the review:
What makes this tale particularly unsettling to me is that the modern regulatory state also has supplied pathways to public influence for specialists in normally obscure scientific disciplines. One need only recall the public role of cytologists, pathologists, and geneticists, all of them claiming the halo of scientific objectivity and concern for public safety, in the debates on Love Canal, nitrates, saccharin, aspartame, and malathion (the Medfly spray).
In 1982, even "Anthropogenic Global Warming", now rebranded as "Climate Change" to cover ALL bases, had not entered the fetid relationship of pseudoscience, bureaucracy, political mass media, etc.
I'd recommend at least trying to make it through the linked review.
The VERY inadequate moose summary is that the ever increasing power of intellectuals who have never done anything in the real world, wielded by bureaucracy, aided abetted by global media and big business, causes the feedback mechanisms of profit/loss and being voted out of office to be effectively suffocated.
While this book is great, "A Conflict of Visions" is a much more reachable way to get to essentially the same conclusions.
Bureaucratic sclerosis was a prime cause of IBM's decline from ruling the computer tech universe to being a poor also ran. Sadly, I saw it from the inside ... quarter to quarter management precluding somewhat risky innovation projects, "cover your ass" being primary over "bust your ass" to innovate, analysis paralysis ... we had it all. "Buy it vs build it" with the assumption that the guys who built it were replaceable or buyable.
Maybe China is showing the same signs?
"They're better at just reverse-engineering simpler components and building simpler things," Heath said. "All this requires a level of expertise and competence that SOEs just often are not very good at. You have to recognize the limitations of the SOEs in China when it comes to innovation."
SOE -- State Owned Enterprise. As organizations become larger, the tendency to become ponderous bureaucracies is strong to possibly inevitable. The same thing is happening to Western civilization, and the exceptions like Elon Musk are becoming more and more rare. Apple used to have "think different" as a motto, today it is more like "think how to keep our profits large". The organization doesn't have to be "state owned" to develop this disease -- just being PC, Woke, too convinced it was "management for managements sake" rather than deep tech wizardry that let to success, etc. can also kill the patient.
The linked is an interesting discussion on how and why SOEs tend to fail when it gets to the really difficult stuff.
"There are a few technologies that are really at the apex of technological manufacturing," and jet engines are one of them, Timothy Heath, a senior international and defense researcher at the Rand Corporation think tank, told Insider.
"These high-end technologies are so difficult to master that very few countries succeed. Many have failed," Heath added.
Here is hoping that bureaucracy kills SOEs faster than just "Woke" fascist states!
One never gets a clear answer out of a bureaucracy -- obfuscation is a prime function of bureaucracy, right after increasing their power in priority.
The following from the link:
... conservatives have found confirmation of their suspicions of the life-long bureaucrat, who went to work for the NIH during the Nixon administration and has been rising through the bureaucracy, as opposed to treating patients, ever since.
The liberals view him as a saint, but of course bureaucracy is one of most important tools in their agenda of ever increasing centralized government control. The following from Wikipedia:
After completing his medical residency in 1968, Fauci joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases's (NIAID) Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI).[14] He became head of the LCI's Clinical Physiology Section in 1974, and in 1980 was appointed chief of the NIAID's Laboratory of Immunoregulation. In 1984, he became director of the NIAID, a position he still holds.[6] Fauci has been offered the position of director of the NIH several times, but has declined each time.[15]
You decide if he looks like a career bureaucrat, up to and including avoiding the big chair, where he is more likely to be held accountable. CYA is a bureaucratic mandate.
A little further evidence that COVID19 was created in a lab ... this time, a technical one.
Now the damning fact. It was this exact sequence that appears in CoV-2. Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorite combination, the double CGG. Why did it replicate the choice the lab’s gain-of-function researchers would have made?
Yes, it could have happened randomly, through mutations. But do you believe that? At the minimum, this fact—that the coronavirus, with all its random possibilities, took the rare and unnatural combination used by human researchers—implies that the leading theory for the origin of the coronavirus must be laboratory escape.
I'm sure that scientists can be found which will dispute everything about this ... super, science like any other human endeavor is prone to bias.
What skeptical people need to keep in mind as we dive deeper into the modern era of Lysenkoism "truth" is whatever the state says it is.
I'm happy that the CDC and media are treating virus breakthroughs of fully vaccinated people as "not a concern", because that is how reasonable people operate. If only they would have treated the tiny number of serious cases in children and even healthy adults under "50" in the same reasonable manner.
What does concern me a bit more is:
Of the cases, more than six in 10 occurred in females, with the median patient age being 58, according to a new report from the CDC, which stopped counting breakthrough infections as of May 1, except for those that cause hospitalization or death.
However, when it is your job to count, ceasing to count when you don't like what you see tends to make your "counting" more political than scientific. It makes the sham of trusting the bureaucracy a bit too clear -- the actual mission of any bureaucracy is to increase its power, not to actually do some supposed "critical mission".
As I've often observed, the real meaning of "believe the science" is "believe the narrative".
Knowing your enemy is good, creating your enemy is even better!
There are many important “coincidences” in the Wuhan Virus story — it is reminiscent of the Russian, Ukraine, Biden “election”, and January 6th hoaxes is a lot of ways. We are beset by “coincidences”, and they are all focused in one political direction! (remove Trump at any cost) It reminds me of a series of murders where all the victims just happen to be named “Sarah Connor”.
Naturally a tornado COULD blow through a junkyard and assemble a perfectly functioning 747. I’d just prefer to not be forced to be a passenger on it’s first flight.
I believe the lab “leak” was a “leak” in the same way that political leaks are. In this case the leak happened to be a virus vs information, but given things like mRNA (which is information), why not? “Leaks” happen.
When the Davos Elite knows what is best for the “proletariat, masses, deplorables, etc”, isn’t it their duty to make it happen for the good of “all”?
I happen to be reading “Crime And Punishment” (finally). How can one really weigh the morality of accelerating the deaths of a small percentage of elderly against the horror of Trump, and the potential that the racist deplorables might slow the inevitable “arc of history” toward utopia?
“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”
The meaning of “tiny” is even tougher than the meaning of “is”.
The fact that the linked was written by Pat Buchanan, often considered a Fascist, authored a column clearly describing modern Fascism, yet fails to recognize it as such, proves that irony is not dead yet.
However they [the billionaires] did it, America’s most successful capitalists have learned the lesson some previous generations of capitalists did not — how to preserve their wealth, privilege and economic power and avoid such derisive terms as ‘capitalist pig’.
Yet, of greater interest, and import, is that the China of the new Great Helmsman, Xi Jinping, a one-party Communist dictatorship, coexists with hundreds of Chinese billionaires.
What would Marx, Lenin, Stalin or the Mao of the Revolution that triumphed in 1949, who put his country through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, say of Chinese oligarchs and plutocrats, each of whom possessed at least a billion dollars in wealth?
Isn't it obvious? Both the Davos elite and the Chinese elite have learned "marketing" in the time honored Fascist way! "Capitalist" is a good cover for Fascism in the west, and in China, "Communist" is an equally good cover for Fascism in the east.
They work their magic by cozy relationships between massive world government bureaucracy, global finance, and maybe most importantly, global media. Bezos owns the Washington Post, Zuckerberg is Facebook. Jack Dorsey of Twitter is worth a mere $5 billion, but he clearly knows where his bread is buttered. He has been able to cancel a former president, and assist mighty in "electing" the current Cadaver In Chief.
Fascism is far more dangerous than Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism (Communism lite) because it's span of control is much wider. Antitrust laws used to try to prevent captains of industry from working in concert to control markets, government and finance. One ace in the hole used to be adversarial media, but today, big business owns the media (see Bezos and Zuckerberg), and meetings like Davos between the power elite in business, government, education, media, and finance are out in the open and even celebrated.
A major part of the book is documenting Bonhoeffer's deep theological challenge of living our faith in Christ. His question of "What is the church"? is directly applicable today. Is the church a social organization of people that gather together on Sunday to be entertained, to be identified as "virtuous", "woke", etc or is it a set of committed, confessing, devoted followers of Christ who humbly seek to live their lives increasingly in his example of being wholly human and wholy holy (spiritual)?
The very troubling part of the book is how easy it is to map Nazi Germany to "America" today -- which is much the same as Nazi Germany not being "Germany". We are clearly no longer the Constitutional Republic that we were founded as. We are largely a fascist pagan state. Hitler killed 6 million Jews, our holocaust of abortion has killed 60 million babies.
In Nazisim, the ideology of Fascism -- massive government bureaucracy, media control, church control, big business cronyism, the judicial system, education all collaborating to create creeping totalitarianism; was combined with nationalism, racism, paganism, and idolatry (for the swastika and the person of Hitler).
Today, massive government bureaucracy, media, liberal churches, big business, the judiciary, the educational system, etc are combined in censoring ("cancelling") alternate views, paganism through "wokeism", and increasing idolatry through symbols like rainbows, BLM, the earth (environmentalism), masks, etc. covered here.
So far we are missing the "strongman focus, our "Hitler", who the mass of the population worship. Is that a requirement?, or will worship of wealth, pleasure, etc, and the people who embody those (Musk, Bezos, Gates, etc) suffice?
Some interesting quotes from the book:
You cannot claim you believe something if you don’t live like you believe it. God is not fooled by our claiming to believe the words of some well-crafted statement of faith—or by our dutiful church attendance—any more than your neighbors are fooled by it, or the devil is fooled by it.
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.
God is the one who invented reality, and reality can only be seen truly as it exists in God. Nothing that exists is outside his realm. So there are no ethics apart from doing God’s will, and God—indeed, Jesus Christ—is the nonnegotiable given in the equation of human ethics:
Hitler must be called a Nietzschean, although he likely would have bristled at the term since it implied that he believed in something beyond himself. This clashed with the idea of an invincible Führer figure, above whom none could stand. Still, Hitler visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar many times, and there are photos of him posed, staring rapturously at a huge bust of the philosopher. He devoutly believed in what Nietzsche said about the “will to power.” Hitler worshiped power, while truth was a phantasm to be ignored; and his sworn enemy was not falsehood but weakness. For Hitler, ruthlessness was a great virtue, and mercy, a great sin.
Here in the early 21st century it is an important book for us to "read and weep" as we ponder it's message. Is our silence violence?
Muggerich is yet another author who I would like to read more of. I'm pretty sure he was on "Firing Line" with William F Buckley a number of times. I was lucky enough to see at least one of those, but have no remembrance of which one.
The link is to a lecture at Hillsdale College, yet another institution which I follow a bit as much as I can manage to find the time. It focuses on "why liberals seem to want to destroy lives"? Through time Communist and Fascist holocausts, through abortion/euthanasia, as well as the somewhat more subtle methods of consumerism, homosexuality, transgender, etc
Let’s look again at the humane holocaust. What happened in Germany was that long before the Nazis got into power, a great propaganda was undertaken to sterilize people who were considered to be useless or a liability to society, and after that to introduce what they called “mercy killing.” This happened long before the Nazis set up their extermination camps at Auschwitz and elsewhere, and was based upon the highest humanitarian considerations. You see what I’m getting at? On a basis of liberal-humanism, there is no creature in the universe greater than man, and the future of the human race rests only with human beings themselves, which leads infallibly to some sort of suicidal situation. It’s to me quite clear that that is so, the evidence is on every hand. The efforts that men make to bring about their own happiness, their own ease of life, their own self-indulgence, will in due course produce the opposite, leading me to the absolutely inescapable conclusion that human beings cannot live and operate in this world without some concept of a being greater than themselves, and of a purpose which transcends their own egotistic or greedy desires. Once you eliminate the notion of a God, a creator, once you eliminate the notion that the creator has a purpose for us, and that life consists essentially in fulfilling that purpose, then you are bound, as Pascal points out, to induce the megalomania of which we’ve seen so many manifestations in our time—in the crazy dictators, as in the lunacies of people who are rich, or who consider themselves to be important or celebrated in the western world. Alternatively, human beings relapse into mere carnality, into being animals. I see this process going on irresistibly, of which the holocaust is only just one example. If you envisage men as being only men, you are bound to see human society, not in Christian terms as a family, but as a factory-farm in which the only consideration that matters is the well-being of the livestock and the prosperity or productivity of the enterprise. That’s where you land yourself. And it is in that situation that western man is increasingly finding himself.
Muggerich considers this obvious truth of life being devalued through abortion, euthanasia, etc as a way to see in our time the truth of what Christ told us so clearly.
... when it’s a question of choosing whether to save your soul or your body, the man who chooses to save his soul gathers strength thereby to go on living, whereas the man who chooses to save his body at the expense of his soul loses both body and soul. In other words, fulfilling exactly what our Lord said, that he who hates his life in this world shall keep his life for all eternity, as those who love their lives in this world will assuredly lose them.
As a Lutheran, we believe that it is not human choice that leads to faith, however those of us not baptized as infants do have the strong illusion of choice -- verses like Joshua 24:15 "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
It is very worthwhile to read the whole piece -- and to look up Muggerich if you are not familiar with him.
The essential feature, and necessity of life is to know reality, which means knowing God. Otherwise our mortal existence is, as Saint Teresa of Avila said, no more than a night in a second-class hotel.
The mission of the military used to be to protect the US from all enemies, foreign and domestic. What is its mission today?
To advance Wokeness
To advance leftism/fascism and attack conservatism/freedom.
To enrich the top brass, along with the wealthy
How might this work?
Last summer, during the civil unrest agitated in part by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, more than 280 retired military officials and diplomats signed a letter blasting the idea that Donald Trump might send in federal troops to restore calm. They claimed that the mere idea “risks sullying the reputation of our men and women in uniform in the eyes of their fellow Americans and of the world.”
Yet none of the signees voiced objections to the presence of some 30,000 National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.
Using the military to restore order in US cities being burned and looted would "sully the reputation of our men and women in uniform in the eyes of their fellow Americans and of the world". Turning DC into an armed camp under one party rule is fine as long as it is the "right" (left) party.
Yes, in the eyes of the US woke, the US media, and the Davos elite and their followers domestic and foreign.
The military has announced it is now conducting an internal probe to root out American soldiers suspected of harboring supposedly dangerous ideas.
If you want Stormtroopers, "crimethink" must certainly be removed from their minds before they begin to enforce "domestic tranquility".
I hate it when they say "American Democracy". Yes it is true that we are sliding closer and closer to mob rule ("democracy"), however I'd really like more people to understand that we were founded as a REPUBLIC for very good reasons that I'm not repeating here, because anyone that wants to be an American, as opposed to a subject of Wokeistan (which we now all currently are), and as HR1 shows, we are probably going to take another step toward even more pure totalitarian fascism.
It would be an understatement to describe H.R. 1 as a radical assault on American democracy, federalism, and free speech. It is actually several radical left-wing wish lists stuffed into a single 791-page sausage casing. It would override hundreds of state laws governing the orderly conduct of elections, federalize control of voting and elections to a degree without precedent in American history, end two centuries of state power to draw congressional districts, turn the Federal Elections Commission into a partisan weapon, and massively burden political speech against the government while offering government handouts to congressional campaigns and campus activists. Merely to describe the bill is to damn it, and describing it is a Herculean task in itself.
Democrats are intent on cementing their policy of massive voter fraud by making it illegal to even marginally attempt to regain election integrity. (not that we have had any for a very long while)
State voter-ID laws are banned, replaced simply by a sworn voter statement.The dramatic expansion of mail-in voting during the COVID pandemic is enshrined permanently in federal law. States are banned from the most elementary security methods for mail-in ballots: They must provide a ballot to everyone without asking for identification and may not require notarization or a witness to signatures. States are compelled to permit ballot harvesting so long as the harvesters are not paid per ballot. Curbside voting, ballot drop boxes, and 15 days of early voting are mandated nationwide, and the bill micromanages the location and hours of polling stations, early voting locations, and drop boxes.
If this bill becomes law, we will have catapulted farther down the path where the 70 million people that loved what was once America and voted for Trump, will be further silenced to the point that the tiny number that courageously vote against fascism will be identified and punished up to and including incarceration and worse.
In the old testament, when the people turn from God to Baal, the sacrifice of children is a common result. In the US, this became official policy with Roe ... children, like souls, can be "inconvenient". They are a burden rather than a gift to be cherished -- why would you do much "for the kids" when you see another option that you see as making you "happier"?
If the children have to be sacrificed at the altar of increased government control (a basic "good" in the increasingly fascist nation), why not? If they go to school, possibly bringing home Corona, it may even endanger YOUR life (or so we are told) -- and when this world and you being "happy", entertained, anesthetized, comfortable,etc, maximizing your time in this vale of tears is the prime objective,
Reality seems to be sinking in for some:
I believed them. They were measuring their situation against people with less. With nothing. Still. What surprised me is how money didn’t make this OK. These parents looked terrified. Two of the fathers cried; one turned off his video because he could not keep it together. Two of the mom had outbursts, and I couldn’t blame them. Everything they said was true.
Even relatively conservative people like Hinderaker are losing the fact that money doesn't make much at all "ok". The link is worth a sad read.
Last time 1984 returned to the bestseller list, it was because terrified liberals feared the Trump administration would drive us straight into the dystopian horrors of 1984, in which Big Brother is always watching, forcing his subjects to believe that 2 + 2 = 5 if he says it does. This time, it appears to be because outraged conservatives fear that private corporations have begun to censor public speech. But either way, it’s Orwell’s time to shine again.
Naturally, when Trump was elected, references to the book were entirely valid! The "truth" is whatever MSM says it is -- and if you say "what about", well, the left has discredited any invocations of "hypocrisy" directed at them via the new term "Whataboutism" -- though of course use of such accusations against the right are still valid.
I'm quite certain that VOX was totally fine with "sexual preference" went from being fine in the AM until Amy Coney Barrett used it, to offensive in the PM!
Are there ANY words that are not merely whatever the left says they are?
The linked VDH column is an excellent example of what the left will label as "Whataboutism", and therefore unworthy of consideration,
In formal debate, the definition is in Latin tu quoque, an "appeal to hypocrisy" -- and considered to be a "fallacy".
In the real world, there is very little difference between "precedent", "hypocrisy", and "Whataboutism" except that "Whataboutism" is a recently created term nearly always applied to a "conservative" pointing out that the left has done very nearly the exact same thing in the past -- as in the case of the linked VDH, the invented label that means "the power elite have declared this argument to be invalid" is applied, and all people of "good faith" (the "Woke") discard it from consideration.
I the postmodern world, "Wokeism" (which based on deconstruction) declares that all argument and facts are merely "power plays", assertions of "privilege" (often "white"), or examples of "patriarchy". Since very few "moderns" have anything but very cursory knowledge of history, debate, epistemology, etc, it is "true" that in today's world, "survey says", "experts say", "most people believe" is considered to be "truth" (the kind of "truth" that is situational, so consistency is never an issue).
Since we live in an increasingly Fascist world with the power being held by media, wealth, the state, and leftist academia, conservatives efforts to point out things like hypocrisy are meaningless to a huge number of people. They may well be meaningful to many of the 70 million Trump voters, however both their votes and their opinions have been rendered moot.
The elite have decreed it is a time to "heel", so are busily suppressing any speech that is not in agreement.
Comparing the way this summer’s riots were dealt with and how the Capitol riot is being dealt with is not a fallacy, it’s how logic works. In every aspect of our lives, from law, to science, to medicine, to child-rearing, and relationships, we compare similar past situations when making a current choice. It is literally the most basic element of reason. We don’t completely reinvent the wheel every time we are faced with a choice or dilemma.
OK, so far so good. However ...
First of all, it is vital to understand that absolutely nobody who doesn’t require mental help, prison, or both defends the Capitol riots. So whataboutism doesn’t really apply here in terms of defending the actions, even though many on the left did defend violent elements of the summer riots, especially concerning property damage. What conservatives are objecting to is the double standard in legal, political, and media reaction.
Hmm. So does Kamala Harris, and in general all the leading Democrats who defended the summer riots, even kneeling in kente cloth scarves in support of the George Floyd riots, deserve mental help, prison or both?
What would "defending the Capitol riots" entail? Saying that when elections can't be trusted, people ought not resort to demonstrations? The fact that a demonstration turned into a "riot" is unfortunate, however does it invalidate all demonstrations as they may turn into riots as well?
The unarmed veteran Trump supporting woman shot and killed was a casualty is certainly tragic. Not many calls of "police brutality" there.
It turns out that the heavily mourned and nearly canonized officer supposedly "murdered" by "blunt force trauma", wasn't ... equally true of George Floyd.
In recent days, CNN reported that investigators have determined that initial reports about Sicknick being hit with a fire extinguisher are not true and that medical examiners "did not find signs that the officer sustained any blunt force trauma" as they "struggle to build a murder case" in the officer's death.
Hypocrisy is as natural to humans as breathing. Matt 23:15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! Comparison between words and action is a requirement for virtue.
"Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue". If one has standards, one will at times be a hypocrite since the higher your standards, the more often you will fail to meet them. If you are a wise person, you will appreciate it when your hypocrisy is called out. (Proverbs 9:7-9)
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults; whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse. 8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you. 9 Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.
The Trump years were years when the left and the "Never Trumpers" regularly said "What about ..." and it was fine. Certainly, not it will generally be conservatives saying "What about ...", so because the left controls the media, we are being admonished that while it was at perfectly valid point to be called out against Trump and his supporters, it is no longer anything to be considered.
Perhaps a picture is worth more than any number of words.
What those of us who observe from a relatively disconnected view (we are just pilgrims in this world, our home is in heaven), the decline has been obvious for a long time. It has been faster than I would have expected, but God's ways are not our ways.
... the dominant strain of American liberalism is not economic socialism but political authoritarianism. Liberals now want to use the force of corporate power to silence those with different ideologies. They are eager for tech monopolies not just to ban accounts they dislike but to remove entire platforms from the internet. They want to imprison people they believe helped their party lose elections, such as Julian Assange, even if it means creating precedents to criminalize journalism.
I'd argue that the dominant strain of American "liberalism" is fascism, which includes both authoritarianism and corporate cronyism. The goal of American "liberalism" is fascism -- "liberalism" is just marketing.--"Low Fat" because fascism doesn't market that well.
The article advocates "Progressive Conservatism". The difficulty with that name is that it includes the term "progressivism", which is the belief that everything is getting "better" without defining "better", nor stating the assumed mechanism by which this will happen - more centralized bureaucratic government tends to be the default.
Words and labels DO matter "National Socialism" sounds much better than "Nazism", and "Socialism" sounds a lot better than "Fascism", which is actually what we have today. The link concludes with a rather weak statement of what progressive conservatism would be.
Historically, Republicans have been the party of vertical nationalism, and Democrats the party of horizontal nationalism. That kind of nationalism they left to the Democrats, to people like FDR. What was remarkable about the 2016 Republican victory was that, almost for the first time, a presidential candidate ran on a platform that united the two strands of nationalism.
If that’s what makes the progressive conservative progressive, he is also a conservative who thinks that the government should suppress riots forcefully, that the police are owed our presumptive support, and that nothing good was ever born out of anarchy. He thinks that we’re self-deceived about our goodness and that a sense of justified anger too often serves to excuse crimes.
Eschatology is the study of end times. In Christianity it is the second coming of Christ in power. The Mises institute defines Communist eschatology as:
Communism was the great goal, the vision, the desideratum ($5 word for "what is desired), the ultimate end that would make the sufferings of mankind throughout history worthwhile. History was the history of suffering, of class struggle, of the exploitation of man by man. In the same way as the return of the Messiah, in Christian theology, will put an end to history and establish a new heaven and a new earth, so the establishment of communism would put an end to human history.
Well not really the "end of human history" in either case. For Christianity, it means judgement day, where every knee shall bow to Christ, and the "sheep and the goats" will be separated. The sheep to everlasting peace and joy with God, the goats to everlasting torment without God,
The Marxist "utopia" has a distinct sulfur smell to those who enjoy freedom, diversity of thought, private property, etc. Marx wasn't much of detail guy, but most of the visions of Communist utopia include abolishing private property, abolishing "individualism" (because everything and everybody us "flattened/equal"), all property is owned and controlled by "the collective", and "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"
Why? Because Marxist faith is that human nature is basically good and Capitalism and religion have corrupted it. Once Atheism and Communism reign, then people will just "do the right thing" ... people will work and produce without any reward other than work itself ... and nobody will be jealous, lazy, etc
Historically, the results have been the opposite -- crime, oppression, poverty, disease, despair, etc, As Churchill said "Communism/Socialism the equal sharing of miseries". Naturally, the Communists/Socialists say "it has never been done right".
This has certainly proven true in the USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, N Korea, etc. China is marketed as an "exception", but is false advertising ... it is Fascist.
Fascism is the cooperation the of centralized big business/government control that allows carefully controlled profit, with totalitarian political control. The danger of Fascism is that well managed Fascism "keeps the trains running on time" -- sure, some of the trains may be going to the Gulag or gas chamber, but since all the guns have been confiscated, and the government is ruthless (step out of line and they kill you AND your family!) -- resistance is futile.
So what might my dream of "Eschatological Conservatism" be?
For starters, it is RESISTANCE! Right now, the 70 million or so of us that voted for Trump are being assimilated into what so far is relatively soft Fascism. We are being told it is to be a "time of healing" (they mean HEELING s... however as the lockdowns, mask mandates, continued disparagement of Trump voters and encouragement to turn in your neighbors if they fail to comply (Minnesota) show quite clearly, that "soft Fascism" has an alarming tendency to get harder.
Arm yourself:
Stop doing what you are "mandated" to do. If not now, when? Today you may get some dirty looks for not wearing a mask, and some criticism for going to church, but you ought to be able to see now how fast your "freedom" can be drained away. Are you going to get on the boxcars "for your own good" when they order you to? You will really not have a choice if you have no weapons. Are you going to stand by as they restrict your freedom bit by bit, and sometimes as in 2020, by leaps and bounds?
Quit accepting their "elections". They never accepted the outcome of 2016. Is Sniffin Joe your president? What even is a "president" in this banana fake "republic"? Thank God we are living in a divided territory! "Wokeistan" only completely rules the large increasingly crime ridden "S**Tholes". Those of us in the Red States still have a choice to RESIST our "betters". The 2020 stolen election is a wake up call to the level of peril we are in.
If we are going to resist however, we need a better name. I'm bad at that ... "The Allies"? It looks increasingly likely that we need a divorce rather than attempting to reconcile with Wokeistan.
In any case, is not a time for "HEELING"! 2016 was our last opportunity to heal after 8 years of surviving BOistan. If the "Wokies" had desired actual healing, that would have been a golden opportunity to seek a return to respect for the Constitution, religious liberty, family, life, etc. That opportunity has been terribly wasted. Biden, the Deep State and the MSM are holding out fake olive branches now if we will only fold and bow to their "woke" views.
It is time for a real awakening of the type that the Allies provided for the last more limited Fascist regime of Hitler. Power is the only coin of this realm -- take it, defend it, and be not afraid.
Christianity, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights actually understood, respected and followed is our flawed objective -- far from perfection or "utopia", however hopeful for a future that is "better" in the sense of more free, more abundant, more cultured, more friendly, more civil and more unified in thankfulness for the blessing of being "one nation under God".
We were headed there in 1950, we lost our way into the wilderness of despair in the sixties -- we know where to go, we just have a long road and a lot of work to get there.
I'm no fan of Nietzsche, however he said one good thing ...
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
A rather long article on what I've been talking about for a decade -- the increasingly overt close relationship with the Davos Elite, Global Corporatism, bureaucratic "DeepAdminisrative States, universities and media. They are just coming out of the closet now in the form of the "Great Reset".
Remember "WEF", the "World Economic Forum" -- it is the public name for "The Great Reset". It isn't a conspiracy, if is fully out in the open, and as long as people are distracted, drugged, media manipulated, and generally comatose except for the "Fear Of the Day", nobody cares. (well maybe 70 million Trump voters do, but Voter Fraud). Why care if you truly are powerless?
... because the Great Reset is, in essence, corporatist, not communist. The participation of companies of the type that Sixsmith mentions is, in reality, the participation of certain members of their senior management, using shareholder funds for purposes that have nothing to do with the bottom line and everything to do with the wielding of power within a system akin to a concert, with the state — if not necessarily the government — acting as the conductor.
No, it isn't communist, it is fascist! The term that may not be stated, so they call it "corporatist", which is incorrect, because the government bureaucracies, media, education, and increasingly judicial systems are part of it.
The article is sadly so poorly written and obscure that it makes me look like a good writer. I've covered the message ... if you are looking to take a nap, I'd recommend it.
Little longish, well worth it ... pretty much 100% my thinking. Replacing "liberal" when referring to the left with "Fascist" or "Totalitarian" is important.
Think that just because you have had Corona and recovered you are immune?
Not according to the CDC -- you have to read down a bit under this link, it is the 3rd + after "transmission":
CDC is aware of recent reports indicating that persons who were previously diagnosed with COVID-19 can be re-infected. These reports can understandably cause concern. The immune response, including duration of immunity, to SARS-CoV-2 infection is not yet understood. Based on what we know from other viruses, including common human coronaviruses, some reinfections are expected. Ongoing COVID-19 studies will help establish the frequency and severity of reinfection and who might be at higher risk for reinfection. At this time, whether you have had COVID-19 or not, the best ways to prevent infection are to wear a mask in public places, stay at least 6 feet away from other people, frequently wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, and avoid crowds and confined spaces.
Therefore, if you have faith in the CDC, we are on perpetual masking and social isolation.
Masks are now required indoors wherever people from different households are gathered — even if they are physically distant, the state health secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, said Tuesday. The order applies to every indoor facility, including in private homes, but Levine acknowledged that officials are relying on voluntary compliance rather than on enforcement.
"Voluntary compliance" ... so far. In an increasing totalitarian state, the "experts" ideas are just so good they have to be made mandatory -- naturally for your own good!
Minneapolis encourages people to reach out to the non-emergency 311 line if they see questionable social distancing.
I know this is hard to remember now, but the old country called "America" was "the land of the free and the home of the brave"! We now live in a fascist state, "Wokeistan". Even gere in Emmetsburg Iowa, the sheriff showed up and prevented a land sale at a large facility with lots of room.
The fact that number of cases is what is most reported (nearly exclusively) tells us there is an agenda. An honest scientist / statistician would report the rate of deaths if/when you get Corona. It is a very infectious virus, so the vast majority of us will get it. Of course 100% of us will die of something, and our chances of death rise dramatically by age. Sometimes in panic, we forget the obvious.
Amazingly, finding death rate by age is quite hard. I wasted a lot of time this AM on what in a rational non-paniced nation would be the chief reported number. Here is data on that from this source:
Some believe that the shift in infections from old to young is the primary explanation for the drop in mortality. A recent medRxiv preprint concluded that the relationship between infection fatality rate and age may be exponential. The researchers found that the age-specific infection fatality rate was extremely low among children and young adults, measuring 0.002% at age 10 and 0.1% at 25. However, the rate progressively increased with age, growing from 0.4% at 55 to around 15% at 85.
As rational people know, it is a Henny Youngman world: "How is your wife? ... Compared to what"? Data without comparison / context IS useless ... "I lost 50 lbs", GREAT news for me. Very bad news for a 100lb woman.
So at 50 to 64 years (a range I'm strangely interested in), the death rate for flu is 10.6 according to this chart, compared to previous Corona chart rate of .4 at 55. Yes, I wish the granularity was better, and I'm sure the rate goes up as one gets closer to 65, but it seems an interesting data point.
I find that suspiciously high, I understand that if you go 65+ with no upper bound, of course it is 100%, it would be for ANY disease or injury ... say a stubbed toe. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics! That does not mean they are "useless" it just means that like driving, you must pay attention!
So let's look at more data. Here is flu 2010-2011:
In my similarly age group of interest 50-64, we are looking at 10.1, which again seems really high to me ... however, I might not be completely objective here for some strange reason!
So I'm neither a doctor or a statistician, so NOT an "expert" (eg always certain, frequently wrong). My conclusions:
Unless you are quite old and/or have an underlying condition, Corona is a pretty mild flu.
The reporting on Corona is absolutely tragic. "Cases" is useless metric, even if you accept the accuracy of the various tests (which very suspect. For the fast tests, flipping a coin seems to be close to the same accuracy.
People rushing to the doctor because they are scared (who could blame them given the media/government reporting/reaction-- and the hospital is a dangerous place.
Health workers being uselessly quarantined -- don't treat at risk patients for "some time" after a diagnosis, otherwise if you feel well, you ARE well. As indicated above, the CDC says you are not "safe" even after you had it! Not that I believe the CDC, but many do
Families, friends, communities being separated both physically and because of different views. We NEED to gather, for this level of risk, the "cure" is more damaging than the virus.
Panic causing worse symptoms -- as a panic attack sufferer, I can testify that panic is not conducive to breathing.
I could ramble on of course. I would like to think that the panic was caused because a lot of old people died very quickly, and it tore through nursing homes at an alarming rate. For little things like death, people tend to personalize and project. "A plane crash killed a lot of people, therefore it is dangerous for me to fly".
Like a stock market bubble (or crash), people quickly lapse into mania, "I've got to get IN right now no matter how expensive it is! Followed by "I've got to get OUT right now to stop my losses!"
While I sincerely hope that these very human reasons are the cause of the panic, the timing is at best concerning relative to politics and mass control.
For practicing Christians, at least the Confessional sort, we are admonished to not follow the crowd, but rather step back and attempt to take an eternal perspective. We are eternally free, no matter how totalitarian the state becomes. (John 8) 31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Our time here is short, and we have faith that to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If you are a practicing even 90 year old Christian, fear not! Enjoy the holidays with the family as much as you can, and judge not. If this life is all one has, adherence to what is currently proffered as "undeniable science" belief in that is one of the main "virtues" one has. In that case, then fear, masks, isolation, etc are very understandable. Show grace, be gentle in stating your views.
One of my current prayers is that more people will realize that our (or our government, "experts") to "control" anything, including our next breath is an illusion. You WILL believe in something -- choose wisely!
The short story is that Scott Johnson of Power Line was excluded from the MDH press briefings on and after April 27 of this year because he asked tough questions and posted blog entries critical of the "circle of love" cozy reporting with local MSM (Star Trib, MPR, etc). He filed suit and was eventually ... with lots of effort, expense, and judicial involvement, they grudgingly relented.
So much for "free" speech.
Here we have proof of the media / government cabal. "The Press" was once considered to be a vital "Fourth Estate", described in Wikipedia as follows:
Due to the massive increase in centralized political powers, emerges a need for the fourth estate of democracy, where transparency is maintained regarding information, news and the public sphere.[26] This fourth estate, being the news media, contributes greatly and is used as a tool for the unbiased dispersion of news.[27] Addressing important information that may often showcase the dark side of political parties or corporations.
I assert that it is completely obvious to a reasonable observer that there is no longer a vital "Fourth Estate" -- the Media, Government, and large corporations are effectively a single entity. I assert:
Media and the "State/Deep State" are now a single voice espousing one view of increasingly centralized anti Christian bureaucracy.
Large corporations, like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter , Microsoft, etc are effectively government extensions. They force their employees to celebrate things like gay "marriage", transgender, abortion, etc and actively discourage their even speaking about opposing views on any "rightish" political views -- mask mandates, less government, less regulation, no suppression of religion, etc
We desperately need a return to the once great Constitutional Republic that was America, or, failing that, a creation of a separate "Free Republic of North America Under God".
