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How Capitalism Made Christmas a Holiday for Children

Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2023

By Ryan McMaken

Mises.org

Giving toys to children is not new. As noted by Nicholas Orme in his book Medieval Children, baby rattles date at least to Aristotle’s time, and the philosopher himself praised rattles “as a means of allowing children to expend their energy without doing damage.”

How Capitalism Made Christmas a Holiday for Children

During the 1980s, millions of American children pored over the Toys ‘R’ Us catalog, daydreaming about what toys we hoped to receive in a few weeks on Christmas morning. After all, by the mid twentieth century, Christmas—for countless middle-class households with children— had become more or less synonymous with an enormous number of gifts for children in the form of toys and games. Barbie playsets and a myriad of action figures were routinely advertised during Saturday morning cartoons and in Sunday print ads in the weeks before Christmas. We kids of the 80s were sure to tell our parents what toys we “needed.”

We weren’t the first generation with such thoughts, of course. As Jean Shepherd (1921-1999) recounts in the beloved film A Christmas Story—set in 1940—Christmas was the time to strategize on how to receive essential toys—such as a new BB gun—from Santa. The annual bacchanalia of gifts at Christmas meant the holiday had become something “upon which the entire kid year revolved.”

Moreover, the copious number of gifts for children has been just one aspect of how Christmas in many ways has become a holiday focused on children. From Santa Claus to gingerbread houses to countless children’s Christmas movies and picture books, Christmas has become a time for adults to invest enormous amounts of time, money, and energy into amusing and entertaining children as a means of expressing parental affection.

But, of course, as with so many modern rituals and cultural expressions, the extensive focus at Christmas time on children’s amusement and gifts is a fairly young practice enabled by the wealth and disposable income made possible by modern economies.

Early Child-Centered Christmas Rituals

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Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Names Three Prerequisites for Peace

Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2023

The beauty of the Egyptian proposal is that everyone hates it.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Names Three Prerequisites for Peace
Mish Talk logo

In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Benjamin Netanyahu names three conditions for peace. Let’s review the conditions and the stumbling blocks to them.

Three Prerequisites for Peace

Please consider Our Three Prerequisites for Peace

Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized. These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in Gaza.

First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end. Hamas’s leaders have vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again.” That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.

Second, Gaza must be demilitarized. Israel must ensure that the territory is never again used as a base to attack it. Among other things, this will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt that meets Israel’s security needs and prevents smuggling of weapons into the territory.

The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream. It currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel. Not surprisingly it has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza. 

Third, Gaza will have to be deradicalized. Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews. Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it.

That will likely require courageous and moral leadership. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas can’t even bring himself to condemn the Oct. 7 atrocities. Several of his ministers deny that the murders and rapes happened or accuse Israel of perpetrating these horrific crimes against its own people. Another threatened that a similar attack would be carried out in Judea and Samaria.

Egypt Proposes a Deal, But Israel and Hamas Say No

Yesterday, I wrote Christmas for Gaza? Egypt Proposes a Deal, But Israel and Hamas Say No

A Starting Point

If both side genuinely dislike the deal, we have a starting point for negotiation.

It’s clear that Israel would dislike this proposal for several reasons. Does Hamas dislike the deal?

If Hamas has to give up power, and that can somehow be enforced, they probably do hate this proposal. But what’s the enforcement mechanism to keep Hamas out of power?

No Future in One-Sided Proposals

There is no future in one-sided proposals. The beauty of the Egyptian proposal is that everyone hates it.

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Someday, We’ll Have No Choice But To Use Money That Can’t Be Counterfeited

Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2023

“Inflation statistics are like covid statistics”

“Counterfeited” as in printed money not backed by something of value.

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

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The Future of Direct Taxation

Posted by M. C. on December 26, 2023

by Jeff Thomas

But, finally, there will be the subject of taxation. Once all wealth is trapped in the banking system, direct involuntary taxation can begin. Since your government will have a record of every financial transaction that you’ve made during the year, they can unilaterally decide what you owe in tax and take it as a direct debit from your account.

Should tax rates rise dramatically, due to, say, war, which is certainly in the cards, the depositor will have little choice other than to watch the robbery take place on a regular basis.

And, again, those who object may find themselves being investigated for terrorism.

You thought just using your card and digital currency would be easy! Oh BTW, good luck on that IRS appeal.

The Future of Direct Taxation

The image above may be considered by some as unfair, as it suggests that taxation is a form of robbery. Well, let’s check the dictionary for a definition:

“Robbery is defined as taking away of goods or property by force or intimidation.”

Well, that certainly fits the bill. Of course, Inland Revenue (or the IRS, CRA, etc., depending upon where you’re from) would say that it’s not robbery if it’s lawful. As I see it, the fact that a law has been passed to allow robbery does not change it from being robbery. It’s merely institutionalised robbery.

Academics might say that we elect representatives to run the central government and those representatives are then entrusted to pass the laws, which we must then meekly follow. Again, this argument doesn’t hold water for me, as these individuals may have been elected, but they most certainly do not “represent” me if they pass a law that says it’s okay to rob me. No government has ever asked me for permission to take my money simply because they want it, and I have never given it.

If there’s any question as to whether the above definition is correct, I’d be happy to see it put to the test: The internet makes possible individualised referendum. If we were to all be questioned as to whether we wish to be taxed, we could easily decide on an individual basis. I’m guessing that I wouldn’t be alone if I were to say, “No, thank you.”

But, to be fair, I do approve of taxation, but only indirect taxation – taxation based on consumption. (This is lawful in my own country, the Cayman Islands, and I receive good value for money.)

Many would say that it would be impossible to operate any government without direct taxation, yet this is not so. In the U.K., income tax was initiated in 1799 to pay for the Napoleonic Wars, and the tax never went away. In Canada, income tax was initiated in 1917 to pay for World War One, and the tax never went away. In the U.S., income tax was initiated in 1913 as a means to compensate for lost revenue due to recently decreased tariffs (clever), and the tax never went away.

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Here’s Why Tearing Down Satanic Statues Is Perfectly Acceptable In Our “Constitutional Society”

Posted by M. C. on December 26, 2023

If they hate the cultural roots of this country so much then they can always leave. They choose not to, and instead scheme to upend everything we used to stand for. So no, I shed no tears for the progressives or the satanists (almost the same thing at this point) or the globalists when their mocking statues are cut in half. After years of trespasses they are finally facing some blowback. As the leftists like to say, freedom of speech does not guarantee freedom from consequences.

AltMarket

By Brandon Smith

In recent articles I’ve been discussing the ways in which the political left exploits the principles of a society as a shield to destroy that society. In other words, if a nation has a certain historic regard for freedom, they will try to destroy that nation while under the protection of those freedoms. If you point out what they’re doing and try to stop them, they then argue that you are “violating your own principles,” the same principles which they are trying to tear down.

It’s a form of psychological warfare designed to create a Catch-22: If the target population sits back and does nothing in the face of the cultural onslaught, their heritage and their beliefs are systematically dismantled. If people take action to disrupt the saboteurs, they are accused of being hypocrites who don’t actually value the freedoms they claim to value.

However, this little mind game relies on a certain false relationship. It requires that the population under attack continues to see the saboteurs as integral members of that society with the same freedoms and the same protections. They are Americans just like us, and therefore we have to treat them merely as citizens in disagreement even though they would like nothing better than to see our culture burn.

Globalists and woke leftists often openly boast about their agenda to deconstruct western society and replace it with their own ideological cult. They are not simply in disagreement, they have declared war.

They’ve been treating conservatives and patriots as the enemy for quite some time, while we continue to treat them as fellow citizens. They tried to erase all of our freedoms permanently during the covid panic (which they perpetuated through false information). They tried to create a government apparatus working with social media corporations for mass censorship. They tried to create punishments for people who spoke against the establishment narrative. They supported vaccine mandates that would have enslaved Americans for years to come. They almost got what they wanted, too.

They then twisted the events of the Jan 6th protests and declared war on us again. They fired rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowds, got a violent response, and then acted as if the reaction was an “insurrection.”

They have targeted our children with political and sexual indoctrination in an effort to groom them into willing servants to the woke cause. They have saturated our media from commercials to movies with an endless stream of DEI propaganda, all while claiming WE are “terrorists” because we refuse to spend our money on woke products.

When someone is actively at war with you they are no longer a part of your community or tribe.  They can’t claim to be Americans while also planning to undermine everything that makes America what it is. When someone is working tirelessly to destroy the constitutional principles you hold dear, they don’t get to use those same freedoms as a buffer against retaliation.

An enemy in war is meant to be defeated; their “rights” are secondary to this goal.

Again, this is not a political disagreement. This is not a friendly debate among countrymen with the best of intentions. This is not a cultural speed bump on the way to mutual benefit. This division is irreparable. It cannot be salvaged. This is about survival. THIS IS WAR.

This is why I smiled when I read the story of Michael Cassidy, a former US Navy fighter pilot who destroyed a satanic statue of Baphomet on display at the Iowa State Capitol Building. The political left is in an uproar on social media, and as expected they argue that this incident is proof that conservatives are “authoritarians” hellbent on dictatorship. They say the statue has a constitutional right to be there if any other religious symbols are allowed to be there – But does this really matter to the situation?

My personal feelings about organized religion are complicated, but I still recognize the replacement tactics being used by the political left to undermine the west; they have been clearly targeting Christianity for many years.

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5 Things You Can Do This Christmas To Make The Marxists Miserable

Posted by M. C. on December 26, 2023

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Sunday, Dec 24, 2023 – 10:30 PM

Authored by Kevin Downey Jr. via PJMedia.com,

I found this too late for this Christmas but we can practice for next year.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/5-things-you-can-do-christmas-make-marxists-miserable

Why is Christmas the most wonderful time of the year? Is it all the mistletoeing and hearts that are glowing? Yeah, that all rocks, but my values — and kicks — revolving around Christmas joy have taken a holly jolly turn, and I’d like to get you on board.

If you think eggnog and caroling are fun, wait until you get your bald-headed niecephew so mad zhe poops zher Che Guevara manties.

FACT-O-RAMA! The commies hate when we mock them, so mock I shall until we lock the doors of Ark 2.0 and listen to them get flushed away like the human feculence they are or, should we lose, until they learn how to load, aim, and fire a gun as I face a firing squad for the hundreds of articles I’ve written making fun of the joyless frown clowns.

But first a quick reminder from our favorite KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, who presciently told us back in the 1980s that there is ONE thing Marxism can’t overcome — Christianity. That is why they hate and fear us. This is why the miserable skanks show up to children’s Christmas choirs and bullhorn their support for terrorists who rape women and burn children alive. They utterly hate you.

And don’t forget how the U.S. Capitol Police made kids stop singing the National Anthem lest the song “offend” someone. The rot is deep, my friends. Enjoy Christmas before it is outlawed.

Remember, Christmas is the season to give, so let’s give it to the Marxists good and hard.

#5  Mele Kalikimaka Is the Thing to Say

This one is simple and yet devastating: say “Merry Christmas.” This is kryptonite to the simpering, pink-haired, troglodyte narcissists who believe that, in a world full of adults, their feelings mean something — like this jackpudding who laughingly tries to associate the phrase “Merry Christmas” with anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and, of course, hatred of the LGBTWTF crowd, all of whom, by the way, loathe Christians.

PINKO-RAMA! The journalistic ambergris I quoted above managed to fit the words “diversity” and “inclusivity” into zhim’s victim manifesto. It only missed “equity.”  Commie Rating: Three out of Five Stars, Hammers, and Sickles.

“KDJ, what if I say ‘Merry Christmas’ and a com-symp whines, ‘I don’t celebrate Christmas’?”

You have several responses from which to choose:

“Then don’t have a Merry Christmas!”

“Try some diversity for a change.”

“I was being inclusive. I didn’t know you’re a hater.”

“Say ‘Happy Ramadan’ to Hamas when they are done slaughtering gay people, you homophobic pile of pig vomit.”

Pro tip: Laughing as you say these things will denote mockery, and that is their Achilles heel. Also, belittling them with their own weapons is easy, effective, and fun to do.

I’m aware that they judge us when we say “Merry Christmas.” I don’t care. Neither I nor my language will be controlled by some entitled, basement-dwelling dime museum or the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) that pulls its strings.

# 4 Unvaccinated Christmas Parties

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And So Ends an Era

Posted by M. C. on December 26, 2023

The mental pain endured by the Harvard bigwigs must be excruciating, and of course they have themselves to blame because they walked right into the Woke hustle with their eyes wide shut. They bargained away their dignity, and the university’s honor, for mere brownie points in a fool’s game called Win big prizes pretending to care about your fellow man.

By James Howard Kunstler

Kunstler.com

And So Ends an Era

“The old politics of right versus left, and Republican opposed to Democrat have now given way to a new existential struggle: Americans must choose between civilization—or its destroyers.” –Victor Davis Hanson

Now that you, the lucky ones, are beyond your steaming platters of pancakes and mighty rashers of bacon, and perhaps even a dram or two of grog in your coffee. . . and clawed your way through the bales of presents. . . a merry Christmas to all. . . and here’s something else to think about this morning:

You may have noticed that our country, formerly a republic of sovereign individuals, has become one great big racketeering operation run by a mafia-like cabal with Marxist characteristics — or, at least, Marxist pretenses. That is, it seeks to profit by every avenue of dishonesty and coercion, under the guise of rescuing the “oppressed and marginalized” from their alleged tormenters. Apparently, half the country likes it that way.

Much of the on-the-ground action in this degenerate enterprise is produced by various hustles. A hustle is a particularly low-grade, insultingly obvious racket, such as Black Lives Matter, DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), and “trans women” (i.e., men) in women’s sports. Some of the profit in any hustle is plain moneygrubbing, of course. But there’s also an emotional payoff.  Hustlers and racketeers are often sadists, so the gratification derived from snookering the credulous (feelings of power) gets amplified by the extra thrill of seeing the credulous suffer pain, humiliation, and personal ruin. (That’s what actual “oppressors” actually do.)

Categorically, anyone who operates a racket or a hustle is some sort of psychopath, a person with no moral or ethical guard-rails. Hustles are based on the belief that it is possible to get something for nothing, a notion at odds with everything known about the unforgiving laws of physics and also the principles of human relations in this universe. Even the unconditional love of a mother for her child is based on something: the amazing, generative act of creating new life, achieved through the travail of birth. Have you noticed, by the way, that the birth of human children is lately among the most denigrated acts on the American social landscape?

The flap over Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, is an instructive case in the governing psychopathies of the day. I wish I’d been a roach on the tray of petit fours and biscotti brought into the Harvard Overseers’ board-room when they met to consider the blowback from Ms. Gay’s unfortunate remarks in Congress, followed by revelations of her career-long plagiarisms. The acrid odor of self-conscious corruption in the room must have overwhelmed even the bouquet of Tanzanian Peaberry coffee a’brew, and not a few of the board members must have reached for the sherry decanter as their shame mounted, and the ancient radiators hissed, and their lame rationalizations started bouncing off the wainscoted walls.

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How Absolute Power Corrupted the President

Posted by M. C. on December 26, 2023

The process of unseating a dictator and limiting the powers of the presidency is far from simple but at a minimum, it must start with “we the people.”

Or just do it the easy way, have the CIA and FIB do it.

How Absolute Power Corrupted the President

by John W. Whitehead

“He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”—Donald Trump to Sean Hannity on being asked if he would abuse power after being re-elected

Once a dictator, always a dictator.

Power-hungry, lawless and steadfast in its pursuit of authoritarian powers, the government does not voluntarily relinquish those powers once it acquires, uses and inevitably abuses them.

Likewise, any presidential candidate who promises to be a dictator on day one, if elected, will be a dictator-in-chief for life.

Then again, the president is already a dictator with permanent powers: imperial, unaccountable and unconstitutional thanks to a relatively obscure directive (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20), part of the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, which gives unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president in the event of a “national emergency.”

That national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.

It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be—civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”—as long as it allows the government to justify all manner of government tyranny in the name of so-called national security.

The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.

For all intents and purposes, the Constitution has long been suspended, and we’ve been operating in a state of martial law for some time now.

The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.

Yet according to documents obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public.

Deploying the same strategy it used with 9/11 to acquire greater powers under the USA Patriot Act, the police state—a.k.a. the shadow government, a.k.a. the Deep State—has been planning and preparing for such crises for years now, quietly assembling a wish list of presidential lockdown powers that could be trotted out and approved at a moment’s notice.

Indeed, President Trump’s administration even asked Congress to allow it to suspend parts of the Constitution whenever it deems it necessary during the COVID-19 crisis and “other” emergencies. The Department of Justice (DOJ) went so far as to quietly trot out and test a long laundry list of terrifying powers that override the Constitution.

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Merry Christmas!

Posted by M. C. on December 24, 2023

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The Christmas Truce of 1914

Posted by M. C. on December 24, 2023

The Folly of Irrational War-mongering and Other Unlearned Lessons from World War I

By Gary G. Kohls, MD

The Christmas Truce of 1914

“Enemy” soldiers in World War 1 fraternizing at Christmas

“…the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we’re the same” — John McCutcheon

In World War I, as happens to be true in most American wars, the Christian church leadership joined in the patriotic fervor with very un-Christ-like, nationalistic and racial/religious domination stances. Astonishingly, religious leaders on every side of the conflict truly believed that God was on their particular side. And so the pulpits all over Europe, including British, Scottish, French, Belgian, German, Austrian, Hungarian, Russian and Italian reverberated with flag-waving fervor, with clear messages to their doomed warrior-sons that it was their God-given Christian duty to march off to kill the equally brain-washed young Christian soldier enemies, who were also certain that God was on their side. The 2024 Old Farmeru20… Old Farmer’s Almanac Best Price: $5.88 Buy New $5.55 (as of 01:47 UTC – Details)

Five months into the miserable death and destruction of the perpetually dead-locked trench war (featuring the now-infamous mass slaughter via artillery, machine gun and poison gas weaponry), the first Christmas of the war on the Western Front came around.

Christmas was the holiest of Christian holidays on all sides of the war, but in this time of homesickness and having to live in the cold, rain and snow, the first Christmas of the war had special meaning. December 24, 1914 reminded the soldiers of the good food, warm homes and beloved family relationships that they had left behind – and which they now suspected that they might never experience again. The physically exhausted, spiritually-deadened, combat-traumatized soldiers on both sides of No Man’s Land desperately sought some respite from the water-logged, rat-infested and now increasingly frozen trenches.

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