Liberty Relearned

A blast from the past: From one of my first blog postings. Have things changed since then? As the saying goes: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." This post was written while Obama was president. The Democrat in the White House has changed, but the ruling by fiat has not. We find ourselves facing #democrattyranny yet again.

From “Is America Rally a Free Country?”:

“OK, so we learned our lesson with the Affordable Care Act and threw out those in Congress willing to play fast and loose with our liberty. The Constitution says that Congress makes the laws, so we are therefore (for the moment) safe from our government forcing us to buy American made electric cars, yes? No, not necessarily. President Obama has decided he does not need Congress. He has a phone and a pen (read staff and flail) that give him the power though executive order to instruct the proper regulatory body to create virtual law through regulation. He believes he can rule through Executive Order, and in fact has managed to do so. He as he sees it, could issue an order to the EPA, a non-elected body, to regulate the production of fossil fuel out of existence and thereby make gas-fueled vehicles no longer a viable option for transportation. Crazy? He is attempting to do exactly that. Onerous regulations in the coal industry at his direction already make it almost impossible to build an economically viable coal fire plant. He will not allow a pipeline to be built to move Canadian oil despite the fact that it is actually safer to transport it that way than with rail or over the roads. As for the American made part? He basically federalized GM through the bailouts, too bad their electric car has so far not met consumer needs. That window has closed, but should the automotive industry ever need another bailout... Hope (if not change) springs eternal.”

President Biden has emulated Obama's penchant for ruling by executive order. He's used executive orders to continue with President Obama's war on fossil fuel. He's also abused his executive order power do create vaccine mandates and forgive student loan debt. Only a few things stand between him and Trudeau levels of tyranny, our Supreme Court, our currently GOP held House, and a few red state governors.

Those following the #DutchFarmerProtests on this podcast and elsewhere should be happy with the win of the pro-farmer BBB

March 16th, 2023 marked the third anniversary of 15 Days to Slow the Spread. A quick check or Worldometer shows a sharp decline in the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the US beginning in March of 22 and continuing on at a low level ever since. President Biden has not given up any of the emergency powers he appointed himself as part of a COVID-19 pandemic emergency. He says he'll declare the emergency over in May. In hindsight, he could have declared it over a year ago and been justified.

With the Covid crisis all but over, and the Ukraine War fading into the background noise, we now have a banking crisis to contend with. President Biden, with the powers invested in him by well...him... Decided to make whole all the losses suffered by account holders in affected SVB and Signature Bank. SVB bank in particular, was heavily invested in the pursuit of a high ESG rating. A lot of money invested by SVB was going to causes favored by Democrats or to Democrats themselves. An article in USA Today takes pains to show that SVG donated to both Democrats and Republicans, it becomes clear that the lion's share went to Democrats. The President's pledge to make the account holders whole, even beyond the $250,000 covered by the FDIC, creates a moral hazard in that other banks teetering, will now feel like there is no downside to making risky investments the type that SVB did.

In this podcast we go back to a couple of old favorites to talk about.  In the Netherlands, Dutch farmers are protesting once again their government's attempt to decimate the agricultural sector.   They accuse their government of wanting to put a large number of farms out of business under the guise of fighting climate change in order to take the land seized and use it for accommodations for migrant workers.  Once those farms are gone, they and the food production capabilities will be lost.  They don't want to suffer the same fate Sri Lanka did, self-immolating itself in the name of high ESG scores.  An article in Rebel News talks about this new round of protests by the Dutch farmers and their supporters.  #Dutchfarmerprotest

In December of 2022, I wrote the following:  "According to Mattias Desmet in his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, there are four conditions needed for a large-scale mass formation:  1. Generalized loneliness 2.  Lack of meaning of life 3. 'Free-floating anxiety and psychological unease.'   4.  A lot of free-floating aggression.  Leftism as a mass-formation depends on all four of these conditions being met to keep their authoritarianism going." Is there new attempt to fuel the underlying anxiety so to form a new mass-formation to replace COVID? From the LR Podcast vaults, let's review this episode from December of 22. 

What do authoritarians and would-be totalitarians have to replace the anxiety lost with the waning of the COVID-19 crisis?  Only it seems, the threat of nuclear Armageddon.  #massformation 

Should red and blue America get a #nationaldivorce?

From the LR Podcast S3E43:

National divorce is a much more favorable alternative to civil war.  Is it the best alternative though?  America would have all the same problems Britian has had since Brexit, especially when it comes to the Republic of Irland staying with the EU and Northern Ireland leaving with the rest of the U.K.  There you have two countries, similar in both culture and language and with a lot of cross-pollination between them with regards to business and families.  Red and Blue America similarly would have such problems disentangling themselves.  Yes, a national divorce would solve some problems, but it would create others that the people of the EU, Great Britian and Irland are experiencing.  There would be mutual defense, and trade set up, but how would that look?

An alternative for conservatives to both a civil war and a national divorce would be (other than capitulation to the left) to stay in for the long haul and make a commitment to winning our current cold civil war.  The collectivists on the left have been engaged in the political and societal conquest of the United States since the early 20th century.  The commitment of the red states, the libertarians and conservatives nationwide has to be real and steady.  In the meantime, we must develop parallel institutions that allow conservatives and independents to live and work without threat of being cancelled either commercially or politically.  We must free ourselves from the Leftists' hegemony we find ourselves in.

Should red and blue America get a #nationaldivorce? 

The idea of a national divorce between red and blue America has been around for a while now and US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from GA has been a big proponent of it since 2020.  An article from 2021 in the NY Post outlined some of her rationale for a divorce.  National divorces are not new things.  The former country of Czechoslovakia broke up peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the early 1990's.  More recently, Great Britian has broken from the EU peacefully after the Brexit vote was taken.  Other countries broke up violently such as the former Yugoslavia.  India and Pakistan have at time experienced flare-ups of violence since their independence from Great Britian.  

National divorce is a much more favorable alternative to civil war.  Is it the best alternative though?  America would have all the same problems Britian has had since Brexit, especially when it comes to the Republic of Irland staying with the EU and Northern Ireland leaving with the rest of the U.K.  There you have two countries, similar in both culture and language and with a lot of cross-pollination between them with regards to business and families.  Red and Blue America similarly would have such problems disentangling themselves.  Yes, a national divorce would solve some problems, but it would create others that the people of the EU, Great Britian and Irland are experiencing.  There would be mutual defense, and trade set up, but how would that look?  

An alternative for conservatives to both a civil war and a national divorce would be (other than capitulation to the left) to stay in for the long haul and make a commitment to winning our current cold civil war.  The collectivists on the left have been engaged in the political and societal conquest of the United States since the early 20th century.  The commitment of the red states, the libertarians and conservatives nationwide has to be real and steady.  In the meantime, we must develop parallel institutions that allow conservatives and independents to live and work without threat of being cancelled either commercially or politically.  We must free ourselves from the Leftists' hegemony we find ourselves in.    

From LR Podcast S3E42: 

Americans are divided, not just on Ukraine policy, but on just about every other conceivable issue.   This has led Marjorie Taylor Greene to openly speculate on a national divorce, where the red and blue states declare their irreconcilable differences and go their own separate ways.  An article in John Soloman’s Just the News postulates how such a divorce would happen.

We've just passed the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  While both the left and the right have condemned the invasion, and both support Ukraine, the two camps do so for different reasons. The left looks at Russia as a threat to their globalist agenda, while the right looks at it as a threat to peace in the West and fear an alliance sleepwalking into WWIII.  #ukrainecrisis   Just the News has an article on US Ukraine policy one year after the Russian invasion. 

Americans are divided, not just on Ukraine policy, but on just about every other conceivable issue.   This has led Marjorie Taylor Greene to openly speculate on a national divorce, where the red and blue states declare their irreconcilable differences and go their own separate ways.  An article in John Soloman's Just the News postulates how such a divorce would happen.  

Until next time,

Stay healthy, happy, and free! 

-JP Mac

From the LR Podcast, S2E41...

While we were all busy talking about balloons, our government, namely our Transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg was busy not doing much at all about a recent rail disaster in Ohio, or ensuring our railways are kept safe and operable. Remember when we spent what seemed at the time, a lot of money on “shovel ready” projects under President Obama? It looks like a trillion dollars later; sufficient work has not been done to ensure the safety and security of America's railways. One might even think that a lot of that “infrastructure” money went to things other than infrastructure. This all has left some thinking that maybe “Mayor Pete” may not have been the best person for the job. An article in the Independent speaks more on this.

It looks like when we got Biden, we got the balloons, clowns, and the whole darn circus!

So, here we are, the third podcast in a row and Biden's #Balloongate is still news.  After not shooting down an obvious Chinese spy balloon until it presumably completed its espionage mission, now our government might be shooting down weather balloons launched by hobbyists.  An article in AvationWeek.com presents compelling evidence that this was indeed the case with at least one of the objects recently shot down over North America.   If could well be that our government used a $400,000 missile to shoot down a civilian balloon costing under $100 bucks.

While we were all busy talking about balloons, our government, namely our Transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg was busy not doing much at all about a recent rail disaster in Ohio, or ensuring our railways are kept safe and operable.  Remember when we spent what seemed at the time, a lot of money on “shovel ready” projects under President Obama?  It looks like a trillion dollars later; sufficient work has not been done to ensure the safety and security of America's railways.  One might even think that a lot of that “infrastructure” money went to things other than infrastructure.  This all has left some thinking that maybe “Mayor Pete” may not have been the best person for the job. An article in the Independent speaks more on this.

It looks like when we got Biden, we got the balloons, clowns, and the whole darn circus!

From LR Podcast S2E40... The State of the Union was just full of lies, half-truths and falsifications.  It's probably for an honesty standpoint, the worst State of the Union you've ever heard.  This includes ones from Bill Clinton and former President Obama.  What he and the Democrats have decided to do is find "solutions" to problems that they themselves created, like inflation.  Here's one quote from the speech the illustrates the point perfectly:   "I mean, look, I know you all aren’t enthusiastic about that, but think about it. Think about it. Have you noticed — Big Oil just reported its profits. Record profits. Last year, they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis. I think it’s outrageous. Why? They invested too little of that profit to increase domestic production. And when I talked to a couple of them, they say, “We were afraid you were going to shut down all the oil wells and all the oil refineries anyway, so why should we invest in them?” I said, “We’re going to need oil for at least another decade, and that’s going to exceed…” — and beyond that. We’re going to need it. Production. If they had, in fact, invested in the production to keep gas prices down — instead they used the record profits to buy back their own stock, rewarding their CEOs and shareholders. Corporations ought to do the right thing." -- President Biden, SOTU Address, 2023.  Do the right thing?  You (Mr. President) told them that you'd put them out of business!  That's literally one of the stated goals of the Bidan campaign, to put end to the fossil fuel industry.  Of course, they're going to take profits rather than sink money into investments in an industry targeted for extinction.  Biden actually had nerve to act surprised when severely limiting their oil exploration options that they invested less in that endeavor.  Again, and again the President showed what must be either his own economic illiteracy, or his belief in the economic illiteracy of his supporters.  His party gave his favored constituencies money the country didn't have, so they printed it causing inflation, now, he's promising even more money to offset the effects of inflations largely caused by his party's spending.  Thanks to the wonderful people at www.Whitehouse.gov for the audio and the transcript! 

Editorial note:  I speculate in the podcast that the top 1-2% of income earners pay 90% of the taxes.  That number was a little off, so to set the record straight, here is more solid info on just who pays taxes, that I pulled from   www.ntu.org : "The top 10 percent of earners paid 74 percent of all income taxes and the top 25 percent paid 89 percent. Altogether, the top fifty percent of filers earned 89 percent of all income and were responsible for 97.7 percent of all income taxes paid in 2020."  Biden suggests the rich don't pay their fair share.  --JP Mac