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A Man Has 4 Options in Today’s World

Posted by M. C. on August 26, 2022

By Robert Slye
Man and War

A Man Has 4 Options in Today’s World

Which Will You Choose?

American civilization is on the verge of collapse. It is plain to see that the goal of American government is to turn us into barbarians, as it has been doing for 240 years.

Because of this, a man has 4 options in today’s world:

Option #1 – Pay attention to the collapse and be ground into dust
This man watches the daily happenings of the clown class. He gets upset at the actions of those in power. He is always frustrated with how things are. He sees obvious ways to improve upon our societal situation. Maybe he writes about them, maybe he tells his neighbors, maybe he mumbles under his breath. Either way, he spends his time in a stupor of anger, or shock, incredulous as to what is happening.
The problem with option #1 is that it only hurts the man. Nothing is improved, nothing is done to change the direction of things. He grows weary and exasperated being angry all the time. He is made to be weak. Until he goes to option #2 or #3.

Option #2 – Don’t pay attention to it and enjoy life
There is a lot to be said about this option. You didn’t create the political and cultural decadence we live under. We didn’t choose this system, or even agree to it. Let those in power continue to screw up. Let those who want to pay attention to those in power continue too. But not us.

A man choosing this option refuses to pay attention…refuses to give the system any energy, thought or time. He is content to get the most enjoyment out of life…to raise his kids as well as he can…to follow and stand up for Christ at all times…to be an example to others…to be happy and not worry about how politics and the federal reserve are destroying American civilization. He inoculates himself the best he can against the negatives from a degrading society and then proceeds to live. “Life is made to be felt as a joy,” as Nock said. He enjoys life until they come to put him in the camps. Then he tries to wriggle free.

Option #3 – Become a revolutionary

See the rest here

Robert Slye is the editor and publisher of ManAndWar.com. Contact him at rs@manandwar.com.

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The Pledge Still Ought to Be Scrapped

Posted by M. C. on August 26, 2022

You have to excuse Mr. Vance, he doesn’t like a lot of stuff.

By Laurence M. Vance

How many Americans know that the author of the Pledge was a socialist minister forced to resign from his pastorate who believed in an indivisible union for which the Civil War was fought?

How many Americans know that the author of the Pledge sought to use public schools as a tool to indoctrinate children into his socialist vision of patriotism?

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/08/laurence-m-vance/the-pledge-still-ought-to-be-scrapped/

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

A Fargo, North Dakota, school board has decided that the Pledge of Allegiance has to go because of inclusivism and diversity.

Said the school board’s vice president Seth Holden:

The word ‘God’ in the text of the Pledge of Allegiance is capitalized. The text is clearly referring to the Judeo-Christian god and therefore, it does not include any other faith such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of which are practiced by our staff and students.

The pledge is a “non-inclusionary act” that “doesn’t align with the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion values.”

The state Republican Party called the decision “laughable.” North Dakota Republican senator Kevin Cramer tweeted: “Please don’t judge North Dakota on the actions of a few cultural & intellectual outliers on the Fargo School Board. Join me in our beautiful state and I will introduce you to the best of the best across the fruited plains.”

Now, I know that the progressives on the school board in North Dakota want to do away with the Pledge because they are stupid and evil, but the Pledge still ought to be scrapped.

Many Americans no doubt think that the Pledge is in the Constitution, that the Founding Fathers recited the Pledge, that it is against the law for students in school to refuse to recite the Pledge, that the wording of the Pledge has never been changed, or that reciting the Pledge is patriotic.

They know nothing about the origin of the Pledge and its author, Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), or the subsequent history of the Pledge.

How many Americans know that the author of the Pledge was a socialist minister forced to resign from his pastorate who believed in an indivisible union for which the Civil War was fought?

How many Americans know that the author of the Pledge sought to use public schools as a tool to indoctrinate children into his socialist vision of patriotism?

How many Americans know that the Pledge was not recited in a public school until 1892?

How many Americans know that Congress did not officially recognize the Pledge until 1942?

How many Americans know that the original salute to the flag was the outstretched-arm salute later adopted by the Nazis?

How many Americans know that the Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that students cannot be required to recite the Pledge?

How many Americans know that the phrase “under God” in the Pledge was not added until 1954?

How many Americans know that the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that students cannot be required to stand for the Pledge?

How many Americans know that most other countries don’t have an equivalent of the Pledge. In fact, it has been said that countries that do either emulate the United States or are totalitarian regimes.

I was surprised to see the truth about the Pledge in a new book, Pete Hegseth & David Goodwin’s Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (Broadside Books, 2022, pp. 77, 78):

In 1892, Bellamy, an early Progressive, authored the precursor to the pledge of allegiance, called the Bellamy Salute, which would come to be used in schools across the United States. Curiously, Bellamy’s pledge included the Roman salute with outstretched arm—very similar to what would later be known as the Nazi salute. It was nearly identical to what would become our current pledge, except that it made no mention of God. Bellamy’s salute had a purpose: to unite and elevate the American people with reference only to America, not to Christ. The WCP [Western Christian Paideia] no longer bound America together; the new pledge was designed to supplant the creeds of Christianity. The public school classroom would become a shrine of sorts to progressive ideas.

The Bellamy Salute was intentionally part of that liturgy, as were American flags. By the early 1900s, there were portraits of John Dewey and Horace Mann in the classroom, alongside George Washington. In 1942, the original salute, with hands outstretched, was replaced for its obvious connection with the Nazi salute. In the 1950s, Bellamy’s original pledge was amended to add “under God” by Congress amid fears of another form of Marxism—atheistic communism.

The Bellamy Salute served its purpose as nationalism slowly replaced Christianity over a period of decades. This form of nationalism, married to what has been called Manifest Destiny, became a sort of civil religion in its own right in America. Nationalism has its place—no doubt—but this form of American “democracy” was intentionally disordered. It was an early placement of “nation” above “Christ”—and executed intentionally.

And yet, every conservative Christian school that I know of requires its students to recite the Pledge. And to their shame, some conservative churches recite the Pledge during the Sunday morning church service on the Sunday before Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day (the three military appreciation days). “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” ~ James 3:10.

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US Details Its Largest-Ever Weapons Package for Ukraine

Posted by M. C. on August 25, 2022

The $3 billion package includes surface-to-air missiles, counter artillery radars, surveillance drones

The US government admits they have no idea where these weapons go or who ends up owning them.

Surface to air missiles, the kind that shoot down airliners.

antiwar.com

by Dave DeCamp

President Biden on Wednesday announced new military aid for Ukraine worth nearly $3 billion, marking the single largest weapons package for Kyiv since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.

The Pentagon detailed the contents of the $2.98 billion package and said it demonstrates the US commitment to “supporting Ukraine over the long term.” The Pentagon said the new aid represents “multi-year investments to build the enduring strength of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.”

The new weapons package includes:

  • Six additional National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) with additional munitions for NASAMS
  • Up to 245,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition
  • Up to 65,000 rounds of 120mm mortar ammunition
  • Up to 24 counter-artillery radars
  • Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and support equipment for Scan Eagle UAS systems
  • VAMPIRE Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems
  • Laser-guided rocket systems
  • Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment

The funds are being pulled from the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill President Biden signed in May. The weapons will be sent to Ukraine through a program known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the US government to purchase equipment for Kyiv from the arms industry.

The Pentagon said that the announcement marks the beginning of the contract process to purchase the weapons for Ukraine. Most weapons the US has sent to Ukraine were done under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows President Biden to send arms directly from US military stockpiles. The new package brings the total of direct military aid for Kyiv since the war started to about $13.6 billion.

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The student loan forgiveness scam

Posted by M. C. on August 25, 2022

For that matter, people who didn’t go to college at all, perhaps because they thought it was a bum deal or because they’d rather learn a skill, are forced to subsidize other people’s choices while getting nothing in return.

https://mailchi.mp/tomwoods/forgiveness?e=fa1aba8cd8

As you may have heard, Joe Biden pushed through a partial student loan forgiveness plan today.

This bailout of the wealthy carries the usual perils and moral hazard.

If you doubt that it’s a bailout of the wealthy, here is how student loan debt is presently distributed:
And the incentives here are all perverse. People who abstained from taking vacations or buying a new car or getting the latest gadgets or making a down payment so they could instead meet obligations they freely entered into are now made to look like chumps.

For that matter, people who didn’t go to college at all, perhaps because they thought it was a bum deal or because they’d rather learn a skill, are forced to subsidize other people’s choices while getting nothing in return.

Meanwhile, what will the trend in tuition costs be now? When there’s an institution standing by that has shown its willingness to bail out the wealthy, it is very hard to persuade people that it will not ever do so again. On the margin this will make more people (including more people who don’t so much as belong in a college parking lot) make the decision to enter the college industrial complex. Colleges have consistently raised tuition in light of various federal subsidies to students, and there’s no reason to expect that this one will be any different.

So, I have an action item for you.

(And note, incidentally, that it is an action item. We’d be wealthy people if we had a dime for every time someone in our movement simply complained about the problems with and costs of college. We have far fewer people actually doing something about it. Well, here are some people who have done something about it.)

If you or your children would like to avoid college but — and here’s the kicker — prosper anyway, I strongly urge you to check out Praxis, the college-alternative apprenticeship program that has placed countless young people in excellent jobs, building up nest eggs while their peers are all falling into debt.

So yes, your child can succeed without squandering a quarter million on some institution whose faculty can’t stand the sight of you.

I’ve been talking about and promoting Praxis for years, and quite a few young people who listen to the Tom Woods Show have gone through it and prospered with it. If you’d like to check it out, here’s how to watch their full presentation:http://www.tomwoods.com/praxis

Tom Woods

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It’s All About Control

Posted by M. C. on August 25, 2022

“Alpha waves in the human brain are between 6 and 8 hertz. The wave frequency of the human cavity resonates between 6 and 8 hertz. All biological systems operate in the same frequency range. The human brain’s alpha waves function in this range and the electrical resonance of the earth is between 6 and 8 hertz. Thus, our entire biological system – the brain and the earth itself – work on the same frequencies. If we can control that resonate system electronically, we can directly control the entire mental system of humankind.”

Nikola Tesla

“If you aren’t destroying your enemies, it’s because you have been conquered and assimilated, you do not even have an idea of who your enemies are. You have been brainwashed into believing you are your own enemy, and you are set against yourself. The enemy is laughing at you as you tear yourself to pieces. That is the most effective warfare an enemy can launch on his foes: confounding them.”

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

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Doug Casey on Propaganda, Changing Language, and Thought Crimes

Posted by M. C. on August 25, 2022

Who can trust any of the stats that the government comes up with these days? For instance, how many of the millions employed directly by the State, and millions more indirectly as contractors, are doing something truly productive, something that’s actually needed and wanted?

Many of them are just pointlessly digging ditches during the day and filling those ditches up at night.

Doug Casey on Propaganda, Changing Language, and Thought Crimes

by Doug Casey

International Man: Recently, the Biden administration tried to change the traditional definition of a recession which is “two consecutive quarters of decline in a country’s GDP.”

The new definition of a recession is more vague and is “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.”

What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: Odd. It sounds like the definition of a depression, not a recession that I’ve used for years.

Words shape thoughts, and thoughts shape beliefs. That was a major theme in Orwell’s book 1984. The government consistently changed the meaning of words, labeling some as “bad think” or “thought crime.” 1984 is the ultimate evolution of cancel culture, PC, wokeism, and the like.

It’s critical that words be defined and used precisely. If definitions are nebulous and can be changed at will, it becomes hard to communicate. The closer we come to redefining “blue” as “red,” or “war” as “peace,” or “recession” as “prosperity,” the closer we come to literally not knowing what we’re talking about.

Politicos don’t like the word “recession.” You may recall when Alfred Kahn, Jimmy Carter’s chief economic advisor, joked he’d rename a recession a “banana” because the word wouldn’t scare people so much. During the last depression, Roosevelt said that “All we have to fear is fear itself.” But that was totally untrue. What the country really had to fear was his destructive policies.

As for the definition of a recession, their previous “two-quarters of decline in GDP” was arbitrary—but at least it allowed everyone who juggled economic numbers to use a meaningful shorthand. Though frankly, who can even be sure what the GDP even is with trillions of new fiat dollars injected into the economy? And the value of the currency fluctuating wildly against everything?

Even by the government’s own inaccurate figures, the currency is losing value at nearly 10% per year. It’s hard for even an honest observer to put his finger on what a recession is when a currency is dropping radically by an indeterminate amount.

Who can trust any of the stats that the government comes up with these days? For instance, how many of the millions employed directly by the State, and millions more indirectly as contractors, are doing something truly productive, something that’s actually needed and wanted?

Many of them are just pointlessly digging ditches during the day and filling those ditches up at night.

See the rest here

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The Problem With Virtue

Posted by M. C. on August 24, 2022

By Ira Katz

The same people who lecture us day and night about how we shouldn’t “impose our morality” on other people think absolutely nothing of demonizing half of America and imposing their ideas on other people’s children.

So humility is the virtue that is lacking; and the problem is not with virtue, but with the virtuous.

The Problem With Virtue

When I recently wrote about being disagreeable I did not identify the aspect of the conversations that made me uncomfortable. The issue crystallized in a later conversation with an old friend of our family. He was lecturing us on the sins of cutting our grass and the virtue of having no grass at all. In fact, most of his conversation (and the other old friend I mentioned in the previous article) revolved around how they were living virtuous lives. This is not in an older sense of the term. At the end of the last century there was an evident loss of virtue. Specifically, we can identify the losses of chastity for lust, kindness for envy, and humility for pride (see this on Humility). But there is a new sense of virtue based on saving the planet or protecting society from infectious disease (unless it involves sex). Tom Woods put it well in his newsletter.

Whether it’s Black Lives Matter, or teaching gender theory to children, or the usefulness or otherwise of the COVID restrictions, or a wide variety of other subjects, people on one side of the divide have exerted a moral imperialism over the other, refusing even to acknowledge that there can be another side on issues like these, and have instead tried to drive their opponents from polite society through intense social pressure and the outright suppression of dissident voices.

The same people who lecture us day and night about how we shouldn’t “impose our morality” on other people think absolutely nothing of demonizing half of America and imposing their ideas on other people’s children.

Peter Hitchens noted the same virtue signaling behavior in his Monday conversation with Mike Graham (August 22, 2022). So it is not only me feeling the oppressive modern morality.

In conversations with these friends the underlying assumptions of virtue were implicitly critical of virtually all of my choices on how to live. In the conversation about cutting the grass I mentioned above I finally isolated the issue of virtue. This friend is very thoughtful but his assumptions about virtue had never occurred to him. I told him, “You believe climate change is occurring due to human activity, thus there are behaviors that you find virtuous. But I don’t believe what you believe. I believe in the Truth of Christianity and you don’t. Yet I don’t tell you how often I go to church or tithe.” He happens to be gay. I said to him “In all of the years I have known you have I ever mentioned anything about gays?” He responded that he discusses these things because everybody suffers from climate change. I answered, “You believe everybody suffers but I don’t. And I believe that everybody suffers when we don’t follow the teachings of the church. And the spread of monkeypox by gay men having origies could ultimately be dangerous for everybody.” I mentioned he is a very thoughtful guy. The next morning he told me that he now understood my point of view and would be more careful with his assumptions. This small meeting of minds, even though we still disagree, made me feel better after so many disagreeable conversations.

I believe in the old virtues, virtues that have stood the test of time. But I wonder if I lived in the society where those old virtues were the implicit assumptions would I be the one talking about how virtuous I was. Jesus pointed out the problem of the virtuous in his parable in Luke 18:10-14 (New International Version):

10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

So humility is the virtue that is lacking; and the problem is not with virtue, but with the virtuous.

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Those Who Violated Nuremberg Code Must Be Prosecuted for Crimes Against Humanity

Posted by M. C. on August 24, 2022

In the last two-and-a-half years, tragically, we have witnessed a global assault on the Nuremberg Code, according to Children’s Health Defense President Mary Holland. We can restore this foundation of medical ethics … but only if we come together.

By Mary Holland
Children’s Health Defense

Mary Holland: Those Who Violated Nuremberg Code Must Be Prosecuted for Crimes Against Humanity

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Editor’s Note: Following are remarks delivered by Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense president and general counsel, on Aug. 20 in Nuremberg, Germany, at an event hosted by Action Alliance, a group of German activists, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Code.

Thank you to all who have made this event possible — it is a great honor to be here.

The Nuremberg Code is an international monument to humanity. It is a critical guidepost, not unlike the 10 Commandments in the New Testament or similar guidance in other religions.

In essence, the code says: “Do this, and you will stay on the right path; stray from this, and bad things will happen.”

The last two-and-a-half years have certainly proven the wisdom of this document.

I am especially honored to be here because the authors of the Nuremberg Code were doctors and lawyers from the United States who sought to prevent future horrors. And they built on medical and legal ethics established here in Germany before the Nazi regime.

I deeply wish that U.S., British, Russian and German government representatives were here to stand with us, as well as representatives of the global mainstream media.

It is a sad commentary that they are absent.

But I rejoice that The People’s representatives from all over the world are here — because it is “We the People” who will restore our rights, our laws and our morality and lead us out of these troubled times.

For more than 75 years, the Nuremberg Code has been a beacon of light — all medical and legal norms have been based on it since 1947.

The Nuremberg Code is the foundation for modern medical ethics.

The code has been incorporated into U.S. federal and state law, and U.S. courts have recognized the Nuremberg Code as a universal, international legal standard — like the norms prohibiting slavery and piracy.

The Nuremberg Code exists and is enforceable even if a country or institution or individual denies its validity.

The consent of the individual is absolutely essential in all medical experimentation. There are no exceptions.

Tragically, in the last two-and-a-half years, we have witnessed a global assault on the Nuremberg Code.

Governments, medical establishments, universities and the media have violated the very first principle and every other principle of the code’s 10 points.

They have coerced people into being human guinea pigs.

See the rest here

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The FBI Was Always This Bad; Ruby Ridge Turns 30

Posted by M. C. on August 24, 2022

by Jim Bovard

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-fbi-was-always-this-bad-ruby-ridge-turns-30/

In the wake of the massive raid at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, politicians and pundits are hectoring Americans to blindly trust the FBI.

“The men and women of the FBI,” Attorney General Merrick Garland proclaimed, “are dedicated, patriotic public servants.” But the FBI would be more credible if it didn’t claim a right to secretly wield almost unlimited power.

Most Americans (53%) view the FBI as “Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo,” a recent Rasmussen poll found. FBI actions 30 years ago at Ruby Ridge help explain the G-men’s fall from grace.

Randy Weaver and his family lived in an isolated cabin in the northern Idaho mountains. Undercover federal agents targeted him and entrapped him into selling a sawed-off shotgun. The feds sought to pressure Weaver to become an informant, but he refused.

After Weaver was sent the wrong court date and (understandably) failed to show up, the feds used any and all means to take him down. On Aug. 21, 1992, six US Marshals outfitted in full camouflage and toting automatic weapons trespassed onto Weaver’s property. Marshals circled close to the Weaver cabin and threw rocks to provoke the Weavers’ dogs.

Weaver’s son, Sammy, 14, and Kevin Harris, a 25-year-old family friend living in the cabin, ran to see what the dogs were barking at. Marshals killed one of the dogs, and Sammy fired in their direction. As Sammy was leaving the scene, a marshal shot him in the back and killed him. Harris responded by fatally shooting a marshal who had fired seven shots.

Read the rest of this article at The New York Post

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Germany’s Nuclear Choice: Russian Energy Crisis Forces a Reckoning

Posted by M. C. on August 24, 2022

A survey has shown that now in light of the recent events, seven out of ten citizens prefer the continuation of said power plants. Almost ironically, even most Green Party voters are in favor, according to the survey.

It has been said the propping up of the Ukraine war is to defeat Nord Stream 2. Germany has to suffer loss of heat in winter just as the US has to suffer inflated food prices in the name of US empire building.

https://mises.org/wire/germanys-nuclear-choice-russian-energy-crisis-forces-reckoning

“We are the makers of our own fate,” said Christian Lindner (FDP, Free Democratic Party), German federal minister of finance, in a TV interview not too long ago. This statement was made in the context of being asked if Vladimir Putin had had a hold over Germany, considering its rather dire energy situation, now, but especially going into winter.

Torn between a decade-long reliance on cheap Russian gas on the one side and a sudden desperation to be energy independent in the face of the Ukraine war, Germany is now in the uncomfortable position to have neither. To use the words of Robert Habeck (Green Party), federal minister for economic affairs and climate action, “every kilowatt-hour counts.” Germany has waited too long to side—the time is up.

According to the Federal Network Agency, 55 percent of Germany’s imported gas derives from Russia, mainly via the gas pipeline Nord Stream 1. Of late, Germany has seen a decline in received gas, which, according to Russian sources, was the consequence of “technical problems.” It doesn’t take a lot of doubt to see how the current geopolitical circumstances might have played a role in this too. Now, Germany receives roughly 40 percent of previous levels of gas imports via Nord Stream 1, drastically decreasing its reserves. For over a week in July, this was even down to zero.

But how did Germany get itself into such a morally and strategically dubious situation?

Nord Stream 1 was questionable to begin with, let alone its sequel: Nord Stream 2. The ten-billion-euro project received widespread criticism from various sides during the years of its construction. After its completion last September, Chancellor Olaf Scholz abandoned the project in February this year as a reaction to the war in Ukraine.

Germany gave the green light to build Nord Stream 2 in 2015, four years after it began pumping gas via Nord Stream 1 in 2011, which is also the same year Germany made another pivotal decision regarding its future energy supply: exiting nuclear energy for good.

Back then, this issue had been long campaigned for by the Green Party, received support from other parties including the FDP with then general secretary Christian Lindner and was finally put into legislation by Angela Merkel and the CDU (Christian Democratic Union). Until the end of this year, the last three standing nuclear power plants in Germany are scheduled to be put out of service.

See the rest here

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