Modern Tyranny

Is the smell of tyranny in the air here in America? Or is that just more mad ramblings from the conspiracy minded muh freedumb crowd, a group I consider myself a proud, card carrying member of by the way.

Tyranny can be difficult to imagine in our modern culture because it brings up images of things that happened a long time ago and far away; the Stasi secret Police banging on doors in East Germany, or the Russian KGB disappearing people in the middle of the night or China subjecting outspoken dissidents to forced organ donation and/or horrible beatings. Actually this still happens in China.

But in today’s America? I argue yes, not only is tyranny alive and well here on our Western shores, but thriving. Mind you, I’m not expecting a knock at the door in the middle of the night (not yet anyway), but the amount of government control over nearly aspect of our lives has grown tremendously over the last few decades. This, combined with the public’s incessant need for safetyism and an enormous deep state filled with unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats has brought us to a dangerous tipping point.

The recent controversy over banning gas stoves is a perfect example. The push for this was hatched a few years ago by major climate action groups whose very well funded coffers flow freely to the Democratic Party. They commissioned some junk studies on gas stoves and health risks, which the press dutifully published without an ounce of critical analysis and a very naive section of the public already frightened by 3 years of Covid hysteria ate up.

Politicians of course eagerly embraced this too, using it as yet another wedge issue to beat up mean Republicans with (they want asthmatic children to die!), while raking up more campaign dollars and appearing empathetic. And don’t kid yourselves with the Biden administration’s denials on this, they really do want to take away your stoves. In fact there are already laws on the books in blue states like California and New York to prevent you from installing any type of gas appliances.

For more on Tyranny, let’s jump over to insanitybytes222 site and check out her excellent post, Tyranny is? Here IB expounds on both the political and personal ways tyranny can grow unchecked. I especially liked her tying in fear with the need for more personal control. This of course opens the door to more government involvement with the promise of increased safety. She also expounds on an awesome definition of tyranny by Citizen Tom from his equally good post, The Thoughtlessness of the Standard Liberal Democrat.

“Tyranny is making choices for others that those others have the right to make for themselves. What are those choices? In a free country we debate such matters. In a tyrannical state the tyrant decides. In a free country, we humbly admit that none of us have the either the wisdom or the right to run the lives of people who know their own situation better than we do.”

My own comment on IB’s post was that tyranny is something we should be discussing more. It’s been increasing for years here and a serious debate is long overdue. Our catastrophic pandemic response with its casual shredding of civil liberties just added jet fuel to this slow burn and has created a lingering atmosphere of oppression, which is stifling.

“It’s the threat though that the switch could flip again at any time where we find ourselves once again under new mandates that is oppressive and depressing. That is why I firmly believe that accountability for the monstrous shredding of civli liberties that occurred during Covid has to come about. Nobody who was responsible for it or who dutifully complied of course even wants to talk about it let alone expose the wrong doing and enact protocols to prevent it from happening again.”

It’s not just about the threat of reoccurring Covid mandates, although I would not rule that out. It’s that this casual dismantling of our freedoms with 0 acknowledgement from anyone involved that this was absurdly and grossly wrong, will happen again for any number of reasons. Not if, but when.

This tweet by conservative journalist Helen Andrews sums my feelings up well here:

Even though things are mostly back to normal after lockdowns, I still haven't regained my sense of America as a free country. I saw what people were capable of, with the slightest excuse, and now it just feels like a return to that kind of social control is only a matter of time.

— Helen Andrews (@herandrews) January 19, 2023

Which brings us to the most important bulwark against a creeping and opportunistic tyranny; the people themselves. As I wrote in a post from 2016, Does Society Still Value Freedom?

“I know so many good and otherwise intelligent people that are completely willing to hand over their personal power to that inept blob of bureaucracy we call the federal government and for what? Some sense of security I suspect and the false impression that large, intrusive government programs equates to compassion.

“In reality most (programs) do not. As the government permeates in to society, the mission becomes about protecting and benefiting the managing bureaucracy and the cottage industries that support it. The needs of the people who use these programs become secondary to growing the numbers and keeping them dependent, while their self worth and initiative erodes.”

Some of us stand agog at the tyrannical nature of many politicians today and wonder how they could keep getting reelected. It’s not hard to understand though when you consider the large number of people who believe the government is keeping them safe or who are dependent on it for basic needs. It’s a form of enslavement really, of which years and years of psychological conditioning has created.

This is a big problem with no easy solutions. Neither political party is addressing it really, not in any serious way so expect more of the same nonsense in the next election.

A Shifting Tide on Covid Vaccines?

I’ve always loved the cartoon strip Dilbert, which follows the life of a cynical office worker dealing with the absurdities of corporate America. Other characters include Dilbert’s clueless, pointy haired boss, his equally cynical colleagues and of course Dogbert, a megalomaniac dog who dreams of conquering the world. I find it eerily similar to real life in the workforce and just hilarious!

What isn’t so funny is Dilbert strip creator, Scott Adams’s, rabidly obnoxious pro Covid 19 vaccination stance and his demonization of “anti vaxxers” as stupid, immoral people. It’s always baffled the heck out of me how someone so creative and seemingly aware of the dark side of human nature could be so off the mark, but that’s been par for the course lately.

Anyway, it appears Mr. Adams has had a change of heart (or more likely is worried about his heart), as the video below makes clear.

“The anti vaxxers appear to be right. Now you’ve got natural immunity and you’ve got no vaccination in you. Can we all agree that was the winning path? The thing they’re not worried about is what I have to worry about, which is I wonder if that vaccine 5 years from now….“

This is not an “I told you so” post. Rather I wanted to commend Scott Adams for his public about face, I give him a lot of props for that. I also think it’s important that people see these testimonies as surely the mainstream media will not publicize them.

Not yet anyway, but soon they will have no choice. The safe and effective narrative on Covid 19 vaccines is crumbling and many people are expressing regret. Those of you feeling the same way should know you are not alone.

For the record, I don’t feel like I’ve “won” anything either. To the contrary, this unprecedented scientific experiment on 3/4 of the worlds population, the bullying, the shaming, the mandates and atrocious gaslighting around the injuries it has caused; all of this has brought great societal harm. There are no winners here, but rectification will come at some point. The more people like Scott who come forth publicly with their regrets, the quicker it will happen.

Meet Jackie And Shadow!

No reason for this post really other than to share a webcam that brings me great joy. It’s a live view of Big Bear resident bald eagles, Shadow and Jackie. Their nest offers killer views of Big Bear Lake, a small mountain town area we visit often and you’ll often find Jackie sitting on top of her 2 recently hatched eggs, keeping them warm while hubby Shadow is off getting food, or perhaps just taking a dad break.

Often there is a lot of nothing going on, but once in awhile you’ll catch papa coming back with food, or mamma getting up to stretch her legs, er wings. And don’t worry about them getting cold like I did! Apparently eagle feathers keep their hosts very warm and even offer waterproof protection.

Here’s some more fun facts on bald eagles if you’re interested, https://chirpforbirds.com/avian-inspiration/10-amazing-facts-about-bald-eagles/

Culture of Death

There is an old saying that politics is downstream of culture, meaning the values and ethics expressed through societal norms, eventually become political ones. I generally believe this to be true, although things can flow both ways. Today, we are living in profoundly antihuman times and I suspect the main driver of this is that the large numbers of people having walked away from God over the years is finally showing up full bore in our political system.

In a nutshell, the dominant culture has turned against God and so our politics have too. And since to be anti-God is to be antihuman, many political policies go directly against human flourishing and enrichment.

This downward trend had been happening for awhile, but reached its nexus during Covid, when we were forced to become lab rats for involuntary experimentation and all of life was reduced to avoiding a virus. Nearly everything that made us human and life worth living was taken away, bringing immense and preventable harm to the most vulnerable and defenseless members of society.

I don’t know if the Covid era has hardened people further, or merely accelerated what was already there, but it’s hard not to look at our world today and see a culture of death. A few examples:

• The newly elected Senator from Georgia, Raphael Warnock, is a Southern Baptist Pastor and profoundly pro, no limit, abortion. In fact he knows that, “Even God approves of abortion.” Now, there are many, many extreme pro abortion politicians, but claiming “God approves“, or, in another interview, “it’s what Jesus would do” is a new level of repulsiveness.

• A Canadian fashion company recently released an assisted suicide ad, under the guise of “promoting beauty. Ghoulish and exploitive yes, but not surprising considering Canada has made it legal for you to have yourself killed for almost any reason.

• Doctors, politicians and hospital groups are actively promoting surgical disfiguration of otherwise healthy teenagers under the guise of transgenderism. Those of us that speak out about this get demonized and possibly canceled right out of the culture. This is a complete failure our young people who need psychiatric help and support, not irreversible surgeries and an enabling of harmful behavior.

• The outlawing of fossil fuels in the name of saving the planet, based on nothing more than junk science. Literally everything in the world is either made from, or runs on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels produce cheap, abundant energy, which has created the greatest rise in living standards since the world began. Getting rid of them or exorbitantly increasing their costs creates mass suffering and death, there is no way around this, yet government leaders seem intent on trying.

• Soft on crime laws like no cash bail and releasing violent prisoners from jail. This is not social justice in any way, shape or form. It’s done purely for political gain and creates misery for law abiding citizens, particularly ones living in low income areas. It also does not help criminals, again it’s merely enabling bad behavior and preventing those that need it most from rehabilitation.

• Allowing homeless people to live rough out on the streets, continuing to do drugs, sell their bodies and live like animals, endlessly searching for their next hit. If they happen upon a federally funded housing program, they can continue to drink/do drugs because the government doesn’t think they are worthy enough to or capable of living productive, ethical lives. The homeless in this country are basically either left to die in the streets or sent off to die in what is essentially a government subsidized coffin.

There is much, much more I could add, but the bottom line is our culture and politics are steeped in anti human thought, philosophy and behavior, which is why everything is so chaotic. Like the yeast of the Pharisees Jesus warned about, once a little bit of evil takes hold, it spreads rapidly and completely changes whatever allows it in.

People are committing horrible acts of evil right out in the open and so many others just don’t seem to care. They live apathetic lives and distract themselves with entertainment and vacations, feeling good about themselves for having voted for the very same people that are wreaking such havoc.

Justice will come but it can be slow. God has a plan and because it comes from Him we know that it is good. And that is about all we can know for sure.

“Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For those who are evil will be destroyed,
but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.” 

                ~ Psalm 37:8-9

A Needed Reckoning

A recent article in the Atlantic has caused quite a kerfuffle on social media and made me think I’m not a very good Christian. We are called to forgive others as we would ourselves, yet my anger after reading Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty, made me realize how far away I am from forgiving anybody that had anything to do with our disastrous Covid response.

The author’s stance is basically NOBODY KNEW enough about the virus to determine what the right choices were as far as school closures, business shutdowns, masks, etc…so we can’t blame folks who got it wrong and by gosh, can’t we just let bygones be bygones and move on? Well, no, because in fact many of us DID KNOW early on about a lot of this stuff.

For example by April of 2020, we knew that children did not face a serious threat from Covid, nor were they large spreaders of it. A cursory glance at data from other countries that didn’t keep kids home, or just at private schools here that remained open made this clear. Yet public schools in America beholden to the teachers’s unions stayed shut for almost 2 years in some areas.

The same could be said for masks, of which the science behind them NOT WORKING for mitigating viral spread had been well established for years, but which public health weaponized by implying you were a good and unselfish person if you believed in masks and a terrible granny killer if you didn’t.

On and on this went went, with a variety of things where an established narrative with no science to back it up was parroted ad nauseam as the good and virtuous position and anyone questioning it was bad; from natural immunity, to made up 6′ social distance rules, to business/school closures and then finally the grand daddy of virtue signal nonsense, the vaccines.

All of this caused much societal damage, as groups of people were pitted against one another, fracturing relationships which to this day remain broken. More infuriating is none of this did diddly to stop the virus doing what the virus was always going to do, but brought great collateral damage of which we are just now seeing the bill come due.

Massive global poverty, enormous childhood learning loss, particularly in low income groups, a mental health pandemic, sky high levels of addiction/suicide, supply chain issues, high inflation; all of this can be tied directly back to our insane pandemic response, which ended up killing more people than the actual virus did.

Who could have guessed that throwing out 20 + years of standard pandemic planning in favor of China style lockdowns would wreak such havoc and practically incinerate everything required for a healthy societies to thrive A lot of us actually, but we got shouted down, accused of being Covid deniers and kicked off social media.

The word that best sums up our entire pandemic response is is anti-human and to refresh the memory as to why, here is what government and public health officials did:

• Shamed younger people in to thinking they were dangerous viral vectors to be avoided.

• Closed business, schools, churches and divided us up as between essential or non essential people.

• Dehumanized people by mandating they cover their breathing holes and their uniquely identifying facial features, with useless face masks.

• Made people suffer alone in hospitals while their loved ones watched them die on iPads.

• Promoted and caused the enactment of vicious, anti-science vaccine mandates, which almost broke society by othering those that didn’t partake as selfish, evil and/or dumb. Many jobs were lost and families were permanently split apart by this dangerous and unprecedented mass psychological manipulation.

• Lied about the vaccines preventing infection and being safe/effective, while pushing them hard for all age groups. We now know, for example of the myocarditis risk in young males, yet the CDC is STILL recommending shots and boosters for everyone.

• Banned milestone events like funerals, weddings, proms, birthdays, graduations, baby showers; anything it seems that strengthened societal bonds.

• Prevented people from getting proper screening procedures, so diseases like cancer progressed unnecessarily to untreatable stages.

• Banned any non-government approved therapeutic from being used for Covid treatment, lied about their efficacy and fired doctors for prescribing them. This alone caused thousands of needless deaths.

I could go on, but you get the drift. With the casual flip of a switch, our civil liberties went out the window and in came a new dystopian era of medical tyranny, where incompetent, power hungry bureaucrats partnered with Big Pharma/Big Tech to govern the most intimate and personal details of our lives.

This created tremendous harm of which no apologies, nor even the slightest acknowledgment from those that caused it have come about.

So sorry, but not sorry, we are nowhere near the forgiveness stage. Someday, yes, but for now, we need at least an acknowledgment that mistakes were made. And I mean all of us, including those responsible and those who, while maybe not directly responsible, went along with the narrative and treated those that didn’t horribly.

Because you see, this is not just about those that were wronged needing accountability to happen. Those that did the wrongdoing need a chance to come to terms with it, apologize to whoever they need to and perhaps forgive themselves. If not, these unprocessed feelings will haunt them the rest of their lives and come out in unhealthy ways.

Vicious and cruel things happened because public health inexplicably decided to try and eradicate Covid at the cost of everything else. There must be a reckoning for this, society cannot truly heal without one.

The people responsible for this want amnesty now pic.twitter.com/JYbYFpCFu0

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 2, 2022

No Words

Just a continuation from my last post on vaccine fanatic Rochelle Walenksy getting Covid after 5 shots….

Apparently we’ve left the parody stage and gone in to full blown, absolute idiocy. Seriously, I think at this point they must be trolling us. Remember, never let these people tell you how to manage your health.

Beyond Parody…

5x vaxxed CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky infected with COVID.

Walensky one year ago: “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus and don't get sick”.

Fact check: False.pic.twitter.com/5kq3le8lkp

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 22, 2022

“We know they’re lying, they know they’re lying, they know that we know they’re lying, we also know that they know that we know they’re lying, but they STILL LIE.”  

~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

The Extremists Among Us

“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

~Benito Mussolini

It’s difficult to take the Biden Administration seriously, when the man elected to unify the country gives a speech that is purposely staged to appear as if from the depths of hell, with the President screeching about Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans and how they “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

Seriously? Was it a team of people who came up with the brilliant concept of demonizing 74 million Americans, while the President channels his best inner Hitler impression or just 1 diversity hire intern? Was it was a strategic move to goad the MAGA crowd in to another January 6th, or to get Trump on the ballot because they think he is the more beatable candidate? Or just the same typical dumbness from an administration that has completely abandoned any effort at reaching out to the other side.

Regardless, the speech went over like a lead ballon, creating near endless meme fodder and ridicule. The Barbed Wire gets it right here in his deliciously on target summation of Biden’s speech:

“A delusional, elderly mental patient hijacked a poorly lit theater stage this week to rant about an imaginary enemy he called Ultra MAGA. The man, clearly off his meds, delivered an angry, rambling speech about how evil this MAGA thing is. The media have only identified the deranged man as ‘Joe’ or ‘Our leader.’”

All kidding aside, it’s really hard to decipher just where Democrats and the Biden Administration are taking us. Their entire agenda is made up of obscenely high government spending bills, pushing aggressive and divisive agendas on transgenderism and race, making energy as expensive as possible and shoveling money in to foreign wars with no goals or end game in site. Tell me how this ends?

Oh and let’s not forget censuring anyone that goes against their narrative through massive and unprecedented coordination with Big Tech companies to violate our First Amendment free speech rights

Such fun and confusing times we are living in! Just remember, in Biden speak, more spending, chaos, divisiveness and ever ending wars are good; wanting less government and more freedom is bad. Got it.

Face Masks-The Epitome of Stupid Government

This may be hard to understand for those of you that live in sane parts of the country, but masks in blue state America are still very much a thing and are not going away, not in medical offices anyway. Those of us that live in them need to accept this and decide to either have continually uncomfortable conversations with receptionist gatekeepers, form our own underground network of providers, or move.

My dentist’s office has been fanatical about masks throughout Covid, but I was so hoping by now common sense had finally arrived and that they had ditched the state health department’s mask requirement. I walked in today smiling large and gave the receptionist a boisterous hello, naively hoping she’d pull down her mask and we’d smile and laugh like pre Covid times.

Nope, not even close. I was handed a mask as soon as I walked in. I feigned astonishment that they were still doing this and tried to joke my way out of it, but she wasn’t biting so I told her I’d wait outside until they were ready for me. The dental hygienist was much more relaxed and didn’t bother me when instead of putting on the mask as we walked to the exam room, I just used my hand, sort of. You know, because covering your face while walking magically stops Covid particles from escaping after you’re sitting down and allowed to take off your mask. Science!!

I even tried talking frankly to the dentist, who actually admitted that masks don’t work well and said it’s horrible that children have to wear them, but that he needs to keep his staff safe. Oh and they’ve all had Covid. More Science!!

I could actually see in his eyes the cognitive dissonance struggle going on in his brain. I know on a superficial level he gets it, but the mask talisman runs deep in people, it will be a long time before they let go. If ever.

I really do like my dentist and his staff, which is why I continue to go there, even though I know other dentists aren’t requiring masks. If they continue on with this though, I’m going to have to go elsewhere. There is something about being forced to live a lie that just eats at your sole. You can only go against your principles for so long and I am 150% against forced masking.

Masks don’t work against aerosolized viral particles. We’ve known this for a long time, way before Covid, so once it became known in spring of 2020 that the virus was airborne, that should have put the kibosh on mask mandates. It didn’t of course, public health double and triple downed on them, in fact the whole world seemed to have gone bat crap crazy mad on masks.

Nowhere has it been shown that masks helped to mitigate the virus, to the contrary, cases would quite often spike after mandates were introduced, prompting the dummy politicians in charge to blame us for not masking hard enough!

Forced masking on a societal level also brings much harm, physically and psychologically and is corrosive to the glue that holds us together. They are needlessly divisive and hinder interpersonal communication within an already isolated public. Honestly masks are dehumanizing and people should have never been forced to wear them. And don’t even get me started on masking children. If there is justice in the world, people will go to jail for making kids wear them for hours on end, day after day.

When my appointment was over, I was asked to put the mask on so everyone would be safe while I walked 30 feet to the door. I obliged. I had gotten my point across and didn’t want to leave on a bad note. Not gonna lie though, a part of me wanted to dangle the mask on my middle finger and flip everyone the bird, as I danced to the exit.

The mask I was given was an N95, which I had never worn before and thank God, as it was horribly uncomfortable. Completely pointless too, as the gaps by my cheeks were large enough for me to easily stick my finger through. If I were actually shedding the virus, 100s of thousands of viral particles would have blown though that air space with every breath and even right through it if it was a surgical or cloth one. The small office would have been entirely polluted with Covid within a half hour.

But continue on we shall with this theater of masking, even though most of us know how ridiculous it is.

Because, science!!

.

Thinking About Evil

Artaxes has an awesome post up featuring a 12 minute video by satirist/realist JP called, Why I Changed MY mind About Evil! (I Was WRONG). Because WordPress has absolutely butchered how shared posts are viewed, I’m going to cut and paste Artaxes commentary, along with the video below.

From Artaxes:

“JP is known for his funny videos and his political satire. He is no theologian but he gives a very useful working definition of evil. He gives also very good advice on how to recognize eivil and how to deal with it. Although not theologically accurate on some points, this video is much more useful than the stuff that comes from many theologians.”

My own perspective is that JP nails it. I’ve been thinking a lot about good and evil lately so his video was timely. Just how exactly does evil manifest in real life and in what areas am I myself being deceived? Also, how to differentiate between true evil and just dumb, opportunistic people unknowingly playing the devil’s hand?

JP explains why knowing God helps us with discernment on these things and how to better understand what His truth is. When we base our principles on this and stick to them, this helps inoculate against against being horribly misled and eventually doing evil things ourselves, perhaps without even knowing.

JP’s words:

“I think there are those who see evil and those who are blind to it. And those who can see it, can rise above it because they can see what they need to rise above. But those who can’t see evil, are not only more susceptible to being controlled by it, but probably will be.”

Yes, makes sense. I know so many otherwise very smart people who either fell hook, line and sinker for the Covid hysteria and all its absurdities (one way grocery aisles I’m looking at you), or who didn’t quite believe in the nonsense but still had faith our public health overlords would not lead us astray.

Another quote by JP addresses this:

“Making the assumption that evil people would be honest I think comes from a noble place in people’s hearts where they always try to see the best in humanity. It might surprise you that evil people willing to kill men, women and children are also willing to lie.”

It’s hard for most people to fathom that there are bad people, many in positions of leadership, doing evil things. How JP defines evil I think is a good guidepost for recognizing it and ultimately defeating it.

“Evil, from my point of view is anyone trying to control someone else in a way that is not in their best interest. Satan is all about control and God is all about freedom. That’s why God gives you free will and Satan tries to get you to consent to enslavement,”

“You can’t get out of an evil influence that you can’t recognize, so learn to see how evil shows up and trust what you’re seeing. The more you and I can allow our words and actions to stay in impeccable alignment with our heart and our own critical thinking, the more we’re allowing ourselves to express the will of God.

How he closes is perfect.

“We know freedom wins, because freedom is God’s way. What you and I get to do as proactive freedom lovers is accelerate the time line in which freedom wins.”

Watch the whole video, it’s well worth it.