Liberty Relearned

Stop me if you heard anything like this before... An avowed socialist ascends to the leadership of his country despite being a member of the minority party. A precipitating event in the nation's capital serves as the pretext for that person to assume extraordinary “emergency powers”. He uses those powers as a blunt instrument to destroy his opposition. A minority group in that country is scapegoated as the cause of an existential crisis, and the leader escalates persecution of that group. That group is banned from partaking in society in full and has their possessions confiscated by the government under the emergency powers.

I think most of you know where I'm going with this. Everything in the preceding paragraph applies to Adolph Hitler, who used the Reichstag Fire as an excuse to assume dictatorial powers which he used to attack, if not eliminate his political opposition and to persecute those who he felt were undesirable, who didn't fit in with his vision of the perfect society. So too does it also apply to Justin Trudeau, who rose to the top post of his government, despite his party not holding the majority of seats. He invoked the seldom-used Emergencies Act, which he is using to persecute and intimidate the truckers who brought their protest to the nation's capital several weeks ago. Though he won't exterminate the truckers, or (hopefully) won't put them into work camps, he does seem intent on depriving them of any meaningful existence as Canadian citizens, and of several unalienable rights. Even those who offered financial and material support to the truckers are being treated exactly like those who support actual terrorists. Trudeau not unlike the Fascists of yesteryear will brook no opposition, no challenge to his vision. Those who dare stand against him must be crushed, as all those who stand against the state must be in his world.

Yes, these truckers in their act of civil disobedience, have broken laws-- traffic laws, parking laws, and assorted other minor misdemeanors. None of which, in the civilized world, would justify the sort of crackdown Trudeau has started. They are the sort of nuisance violations that normally, in a sane society, warrant fines and little more. Many of the truckers had already left their positions blocking the US/Canada border. What Trudeau is doing is above and beyond what the situation calls for. What he and his flowers are doing resembles less what leaders of liberal democracies do, and more what the craven, despot rulers of the last century did. The situation calls for sitting down with the truckers, listening to their grievances, and working out a solution. (Offering people the right to bodily autonomy would seem like a pretty low bar.) It calls for him seeing them as equals and dealing with them as people, not terrorists, not enemies of the state, but people. If he can kneel with BLM protesters, he can sit with peaceful truckers. It's what a true leader, a statesman worthy of the name would do.

In this podcast, I concentrate on what fascism is, and what it isn't. Left-leaning politicians, members of academia, and the mainstream media chronically misuse the terms fascist and fascism. I quote heavily from an article by ANGELO M. CODEVILLA entitled: The Original Fascist, From movement to epithet. 

An excerpt from the article:

"Today, the adjective “fascist” is an epithet—often mixed promiscuously with “white supremacist,” “sexist,” etc.—that the ruling class uses to besmirch whoever challenges them, and to provide emotional fuel for cowering, marginalizing, and disempowering conservatives.

This maneuver consists of defining fascism in terms of unpopular ideas, political practices, and personality traits observable in many times and places; then, having cited Hitler’s Nazi movement as fascism’s quintessence, of pinning those deplorable characteristics on the intended targets. This reductio ad Hitlerum aims at no less than to outlaw conservatives. As the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin exclaimed: 'these people are not fit for polite society... I think it’s absolutely abhorrent that any institution of higher learning, any news organization, or any entertainment organization that has a news outlet would hire these people.' And the New Republic explains 'why fascist rhetoric needs to be excluded from public discourse.' The establishment doesn’t seem to realize that they are preaching some of fascism’s practices."

I've mentioned before that today's leftists' programs such as the Green New Deal and the Great Reset more closely resemble fascism's relationship to business than they do to straight socialism. Stalin and the Communists redefined fascism to mean anything against international communism.  Academics in the West took this bastardized definition and ran with it.  We need to take back the definition of fascism and put it back where it belongs, with the collectivist ideologies of the Left alongside communism and socialism. 

Until next week-- Keep on truckin'!

The COVID crisis is in its death throws.  As more and more countries relax or end outright their COVID restrictions, other places cling to and even increase theirs.  Leftists are trying to silence Joe Rogan under the pretense that he's spreading COVID disinformation.   Like cornered, wounded animals, these places and institutions are lashing out at the public in a desperate attempt to maintain their control over the people. Some of the people have had enough, like the Canadian Freedom Convoy truckers, and legions of people around the world that have protested in recent weeks against vaccine mandates and vaccine passports.  In some cases, like that of the truckers, they've been unjustly and falsely maligned by their Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who desperately has tried to paint them as a fringe group of violent, white supremacist extremists.  Along those lines, GoFundMe used a small number of isolated incidents attributed to supporters of the Freedom Convoy as an excuse to suspend millions in funds meant to support for the truckers. (GiveSendGo has offered to pick up the slack)

"I have attended protests and rallies in the past. When I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues, Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that," -Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (That tells you all you need to know about what the Left truly values.)

For two years, authoritarians have used the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to truncate the freedoms of ordinary people.  In the case of some countries, like Canada and Australia, the restrictions and mandates were applied to such an extreme that those countries forfeit their status as “free” countries. Long has the Left lusted after such power to try and reshape their societies, purging libertarians and free-thinkers from their midst in favor of a complaint underclass that will march lockstep towards a “great reset”, some fantasied collectivist utopia with them, the intellectual elite on top, of course, to guide us plebs to our assigned place in their great society.  For some, of course, the COVID restrictions simply offer a sadistic sense of control, the control being and ends onto itself. These are powerful motivations, and people who get a taste of such power are loath to give it up quickly or easily. They will cling to that power until finally, they can not rationalize holding on to it any longer, and we move finally on from a crisis mode to a maintenance posture and return to the nominal freedom we had.

Postscript:  As the COVID-19 crisis finally ends, the authoritarian Left will inevitably move on, probably quickly to the next one.  The lessons learned from COVID they will apply to some other crisis, probably having to do with climate change.  We who love freedom must learn from the Covid crisis too, and stand ready for what they have planned.

United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Australia, Austria, Belgium, etc.  These demonstrations are now global, and common. This has to be the biggest political/human rights movement since the massive anti-communist movements of the early 1990s. Perhaps nothing in Western Civilization today is more hated than vaccine mandates and passports.

Justice Stephen Breyer will be retiring from the Supreme Court. How will his departure affect Court decisions going forward? What sort of justice should replace him and what sort of justice will?

Coverage and summary of the Defeat the Mandates DC march. The rally was organized primarily by outspoken critics of the mandates, Doctors Robert Malone and Peter McCullah.  It was MC'd by J.P. Sears, a very funny libertarian comedian. 

Some of the main themes of the rally were:  The freedom to choose how best to prevent, treat, and overcome a potentially serious disease. Censorship of views, studies, and data that don't fall in line with the Fauci doctrine. The vaccines are not as effective as we were led to believe, especially when it comes to the Omicron variant.  Natural immunity is real and can be better than artificial immunity provided by vaccines. Healthy children, in particular, should not be forced into taking the vaccine. Side effects from the vaccine while rare, are real and can be quite serious, even deadly. Also, the fact that Americans just don't like to be bossed around. 

(1/23/22) For more info visit: https://defeatthemandatesdc.com/

LR Podcast notes: A Tale of Two Leaders

A Quinnipiac poll released on January 12th showed President Biden’s Approval rating at just 33%. His approval ratings have been plummeting since the Afghanistan pullout debacle. Meanwhile, on Saturday, Glenn Youngkin was sworn in as Virginia’s 74th governor. He won on a platform in many ways diametrically opposed to that of the President’s party. Biden’s top-down approach to government stands in stark contrast to Youngkin’s grassroots approach. The president demands obedience from American citizens. He wants mask and vaccine mandates. He’s sicced the DOJ on parents who disapprove of leftist ideology being foisted on their children and who’ve chosen to speak out forcefully against them. The Biden regime wants you to associate these people with domestic terrorists. Far from terrorists, Youngkin sees them as concerned parents sick of leftist indoctrination, moreover, they are a key constituency. One of his first executive orders was to forbid mask mandates in public schools within the Commonwealth. Biden wants the government and teacher’s unions to determine school curriculum and Youngkin wants parents to have the chief say. One stands for an authoritarian approach of mandates and the other the libertarian approach of empowering VA households, parents, and individuals. One enjoys record disapproval, one enjoys a mandate from the people. Which vision for America should prevail, will prevail?

Further reading:

In part one of the 2021 year in review, we covered a lot of ground including:

The Jan 6th Riot and its fallout, the resulting escalations in the war on free speech, and the inflation bomb. 

In this part, we're going to cover more major topics covered by Liberty Relearned online and on the podcast including:

The Biden agenda aka "We the Government" or "Build Back Broker" or "Buy Votes Better". 

The Afghanistan debacle and its central figure, Gen Mark Milley. 

Also, I talk about some of the things that scared me the most in 2021, the rise of authoritarianism and collectivism. 

At the end of 2020, we had high hopes that 2021 would be a darn sight better.  In some ways it was, but in many ways it wasn't and often things went sideways. This podcast covers many of the major events of 2021.  We had the unfortunate events of January 6th that have been used to justify the marginalization and sometimes downright persecution of Republicans, conservatives, and just about anybody not willing to toe the leftist line. The war on free speech was in full swing in 2021, and the left and their allies used the opportunity to settle scores and take out the competition. Wokeness, the idea that supporting preferential treatment for some groups at the expense of others is a virtue. Companies continued to give in to the woke mob and preach divisive theories such as CRT. The backlash was big, and wokeness was rejected time and again in elections around the country. Inflation was and continues to be a big problem. In 2021, multi-trillion-dollar spending bills became a thing. 

Looking forward to next week, we'll cover Critical Race Theory (CRT) in greater detail, as episodes and blog postins on that subject were by far the most popular.  We'll also talk more about the debacle in Afghanistan and cover some basics of conservatism.  

Until then, 

Stay happy, healthy, and Free!-- JP Mac

Last year in my Christmas message, I wrote these words:

“These are dark times, both literally and figuratively... Jesus is the light, brought into a dark world, and as they say, it's always darkest before the dawn. It's certainly dark in the world and in our country today. We have an epidemic, which has brought not just the death of people, but the death of liberty as well. Our Republic is in peril, states across the country have abandoned their allegiance to the Constitution, the following of which they now see as optional. Some of those same forces have plans for this country that would basically mean its end. They believe that in its ashes they can build a new country, their Utopia, not in His image, but their own.”

So, where are we one year later? We still have an epidemic, but one which appears to be on the verge of dying out. In most countries, your chances of dying from COVID are down, and surviving it is up. When it comes to the loss of our liberties, we struggle to regain many that were lost, but gradually have seen many restored. In the U.S., The Constitution is back after going MIA briefly following the election of 2020. Those who strive for a godless Utopia have been met by an ever-increasing opposition and the societal momentum of their movement has stalled. It's stalled because it has caused misery, not happiness and its false promises are, if not being rejected, are at least being met by skepticism. In the closing days of 2021, there are signs that the light has started to vanquish the dark. Just as the Nativity signaled the beginning of a decades-long process of renewal and ultimate victory over death, so too is there the slight hint of a nascent resurgence of those who would bring His light in our world.

Have a happy and healthy Christmas!