These Things Have Power

An old women, bent over by years of hard work, approaches a heavily armed invader of her country.

“Are you hungry,” she asks.

“Yes,” he replies, unsure of what to make of the women.

Protected from the cold by a badly worn glove, she reaches out a hand with a small bag of sunflower seeds. “Eat these,” she says. The invading soldier, uncertain of what’s happening, takes the bag.

Smiling the old women tells him to put a few of the seeds in his pocket so that when he is killed a flower will mark his grave.

On a small island outpost thirteen defenders are threatened by an invading warship. The warship orders them to surrender. After discussing their options and knowing full well they are unlikely to survive the coming attack, the islands defenders agree to tell the warship to screw themselves. In the subsequent attack all thirteen defenders are killed.

A brave young soldier realizes the bridge he was guarding can not be destroyed remotely. It’s destruction is paramount to slow the invaders progress. Knowing he will likely be killed he never the less makes his way to the bridge and destroys it, losing his life in the process.

In the skies above the war torn country a lone flier downs five enemy aircraft. He is known as the ghost.

A famous and fabulously rich sports figure places everything on the line when he decides to pick up arms and fight for his country.

When the countries president is offered safe haven in America he replies, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

In the defense of their homes and families people will be motivated to acts of outstanding bravery. History shows this over and over. What invaders always discount is that these stories have power.

An invading army can occupy land.

An invading army can destroy things.

However, an invading army facing such courage will soon find itself questioning the wisdom their war. A people possessed of such courage and resolve will never allow themselves to be subdued. History has shown that even with a soldier or policeman on every corner, such people cannot be long cowed. Once the genie of freedom has been released from the bottle of tyranny it is only put back with the greatest of difficulty.

This is so because courage is contagious.

This is so because these stories have power.

You Want A Conspiracy Theory?

I have way to many hobbies. One of my more interesting hobbies is that I collect conspiracy theories. As a writer (another hobby of mine) of fiction these theories often lead to what I consider interesting stories. Of course the more outlandish the theory the better.

Did you know that John F Kennedy’s brain is being kept alive on a yacht in the Indian Ocean and is helping to run the democrat party. Or that the moon is hollow? Or that Bigfoot is an interdimensional being? Or that there is a way to get 500 miles on a gallon of gas? Or that Biden actually won the 2020 election? Or that Richard Nixon showed Jackie Gleason evidence that aliens were real? Good stuff all but I am after all a writer. What if I made up my own conspiracy theory?

Maybe it starts with a foreign government experimenting with how to make a virus more easily transmissible in the human population. Perhaps this was being done with the intention of then weaponizing a deadly virus to be loosed in a sort of pre-emptive strike against an enemy nation. When the virus accidentally escapes the lab the opportunity to conduct the second phase of the study, that of international spread and transmission patterns presents itself. The offending government locks down their country while allowing its population to travel internationally. A bonus is learning just how the infected countries leadership and populations would respond as well as their capacities in areas such as healthcare and maintenance of order.

Or

Maybe it starts with an election. One side having managed to create what they felt was an insurmountable vote count with paper ballots being shoveled into unsupervised drop boxes and mailed in by the thousands. A problem arises when people actually show up to the polls to vote, The electronic voting machines soon predict a disturbing possibility for the preferred candidate. At the rate people are voting there will be more votes cast than population in a great many of the the precincts with the candidate targeted to lose actually winning in a landslide. Having no way to explain such an obvious fraud away the decision is made to stop counting votes. Ostensibly this is done because of high turnout or mechanical problems in the building where the counting is taking place. The fact is the cheaters need to come up with a way to solve the problem.

Or.

Maybe it starts with a large number of people deciding they are no longer willing to surrender their freedoms to an increasingly tyrannical government that they feel no longer represents them. They are concerned with the depth and breadth of government overreach into their lives. Perhaps they gather peacefully in the capitol. They have dance parties, barbecues, feed the homeless, play street hockey games and rent bounce houses for the children. They share these activities live on social media in hopes of convincing others of the correctness of their cause. The government, unwilling to even meet or talk with the protesters, calls them terrorists and nazis and sends in riot police to violently shut down what it maliciously calls an insurrection. Perhaps the government, after identifying anyone who was there or who supported the protestors in any way, steals these peoples bank accounts, seizes their personal property, jails them, has their insurance policies canceled, threatens their employment and places their children in state custody. The government goes so far as to capture their pets and threaten to euthanize them.

Or.

Maybe a country like say, Russia, spends millions of Rubles over a generation importing agents provocateur into a neighboring country like say, Ukraine. These agents, spending unlimited Russian funds, foment an “independence” movement. The Russian leader, seeing an impotent American President decides to capitalize on his investment and invades Ukraine.

Or.

A major American sports league like, say the NBA, in an effort to preserve billions of dollars in future income from, say the Chinese market, ignores some extremely unpleasant things. Things like the genocide of religious minorities. Things like forced organ harvesting and abortions. Things like the illegal occupation of neighboring countries. Things like slave labor and political re-education camps. Leadership of this league routinely attacks anyone who points out the leagues devotion to dollars at the expense of it’s humanity.

Perhaps gentle reader you are sensing a familiar pattern in these conspiracy theories. Perhaps in some distant corner of your mind these theories sound terribly familiar. Willingly or not, perhaps you have even seen or participated in some of them.

Or maybe, they are not conspiracy theories at all.

The Thin Veneer

We like to think of ourselves as a civilized people. Increasingly we are not. We have, over the last fifty plus years, gradually allowed the veneer of civilization to be slowly and surely chipped away.

Few things illustrate that better than driving on the freeway. Three days a week I commute twenty miles on I-15. If I only go ten miles over the speed limit I am an impediment to the flow of traffic. As I have no desire to die in a horrific traffic accident I routinely complicate things by limiting myself to five over. I am routinely tailgated, honked at, cut off and flipped off. The way I figure it, I’m in the slow lane and these other morons have five lanes to choose from but no, they take it as a personal challenge to try and irritate me. The closer to the liberal enclave of Salt Lake City I get the worse the behavior gets. Funny how that works.

If the degredation of America were limited to just drivers choosing stupidity I could almost deal with that. Sadly, it is so much worse.

America has been under an orchestrated attack for at least fifty years. It is not just an attack on America. One needs to understand that, whether we like it or not, America is the supporting piller of western civilization. It is that concept, a Judeo-Christian based republic form of self government that the attackers seek to destroy. America is just the face of the target. The underlying principles of this form of civilization are anathema to those who would rule us according to their passions.

Consider some recent events.

On Feb. 7 the Washington Free Beacon reported onthe Biden administrations handing out ‘safe smoking kits’ to liberal groups for distribution to drug addicts for the alleged purpose of ‘harm reduction.’

“The $30 million grant program, which closed applications Monday and will begin in May, will provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to help make drug use safer for addicts. Included in the grant, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, are funds for “smoking kits/supplies.” A spokesman for the agency told the Washington Free Beacon that these kits will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and “any illicit substance.”

HHS said the kits aim to reduce the risk of infection when smoking substances with glass pipes, which can lead to infections through cuts and sores. Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of “underserved communities,” including African Americans and “LGBTQ+ persons,” as established under President Joe Biden’s executive order on “advancing racial equity.”

Am I to take from this that there are not enough gay drug addicts? Can somoen explain to me the value of the government supporting and maintaining drug addicts? And people get mad at me when I say “Stay stoned, the government needs you easily controlled.”

The long held American tradition of self sufficiency is also under assault by our government.

A recent release from the Department of Homeland Security entitled “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland” essentially reclassifies domestic terrorists as ordinary citizens concerned about the future. The document focuses, in part, on those who have the good sense to prepare for disasters by preparing in advance. The document refers to those folks as “hoarders.” This is intentionally misleading at best. Preparing is nothing more than buying extra supplies when supplies are readily available. A hoarder buys up extra supplies when supplies are scarce.

Not willing to trust the government to care for you during a crisis? You are now a “domestic terrorist” in the eyes of the current regime and as many of their followers as they can convince.

The lunacy isn’t limited to inside the United States. American citizens trying to get out of Ukraine before the Russians invade are told, apparently by U.S. State Department, that they cannot enter neighboring Poland without proof a a Covid vaccination. Curiously, Poland itself requires no vaccination to enter the country. According to the State Department, “The security situation in Ukraine continues to be unpredictable due to the increased threats of Russian military action and can deteriorate with little notice.” It advises, “U.S. citizens in Ukraine should depart immediately using commercial or other privately available transportation options.” The notice informs,

“Poland has indicated to the U.S. government that U.S. citizens may now enter Poland through the land border with Ukraine.” The statement finishes with, “U.S. citizens must present a valid U.S. passport and proof of COVID-19 vaccination” in order to enter Poland.

Sounds like the State Department is perfectly willing to allow you to die in a Russian invasion if you are unvaxxed.

We have now reached a point where actual biological science is malliable to an individuals wishes. In Arkansas the SAFE Act prohibits professionals from treating minors with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sexual reassignment surgery. This makes perfect sense as something like 85% or more of so called gender confused children accept their actual biological sex by the time they reach adulthood.

Unwilling to allow children to have a childhood, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the SAFE Act. The suit claims thata consensus of medical organizations agree as to the appropriate treatments for minors presenting with gender issues. The ACLU knows what I am about to tell you but they choose to not include this information in their lawsuit. In other words they are with holding evidence that undermines their suit. Let that sink in.

The ACLU cites the 2012 Standards of Care published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) claiming it is the recognized standard for treatment concerning gender confused children. The ACLU chose not to disclose that WPATH, at the time it created said standards, was not a professional association of mental health professionals but merely a group of around 400 transgender advocates. The group is further compromised by reports of bias and conflicts of interest.

Your children are little more than sexual playthings to those seeking to destroy America but they are not done with your kids yet.

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) is going full on KGB.

Parents Defending Education obtained documents proving that Fairfax County Public Schools is going to create and implement a far reaching spying effort on students and most likely anyone the students interact with. The alleged justification for such an effort is to monitor accounts for undefined “hate speech” and “social media threats.”

The school district wants to “monitor social media threats, harassment, hate speech and bullying” using the“active listening,” concept and monitoring“deep and dark web sources not visible through traditional search engines,” as well as“Open Source Intelligence.” More worrisome is that the school district will create and maintain a database to “classify aliases, usernames, emails [sic] websites, etc.” to help them “visually identify relationships and connections between persons.” The spy system will have “no limits on searches, or the amount of data that can be saved” and will save all search queries.

Kind of changes the meaning of that’s going on your permanent record don’t you think?

I wonder, do you detect a pattern here?

How about everyone being forced to take a questionable vaccine that even the CDC admits will not prevent you from catching or spreading the virus you’re supposedly being vaccinated against.

What about the unadulterated evil of the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory being force fed in schools and colleges across the nation?

Or the Biden administration surrendering our energy independence to make brutal dictators in the middle east and Russia rich.

Or shutting down churches and schools while allowing liquer stores, pot shops and big box stores to remain open during the alleged pandemic.

Or the government actually calling for censorship of those who disagree with them. I’m looking at you Jen.

Or the opening of our southern border to anyone who will walk across be they terrorist, murderer, pedophile, child trafficker, sex trafficker, drug dealer, robber, rapist or carrier of any of a dozen diseases no longer prevalent in the U. S. and granting them privileges American’s are not even allowed.

Finally (not because the list is complete but because we don’t have that much time), the abandonment of law enforcement. The war on cops by our governments is real and the consequences are distressingly predictable, fewer cops, fewer veteran cops and much more crime. The choice to not prosecute criminals of the correct skin color is equally distressing and produced such outcomes as record murder rates and massive organized retail theft.

Those who hate America and the values that made us the greatest country in the history of mankind are cheerfully peeling back the veneer of civilization so carefully laid over the last two thousand years with all the reckless abandon they can muster.

Some will, even now, say I am up in the night. America they say is just fine. We are progressing to a more open, tolerant society. Sure.

All I can say is stupidity at that level does not exist naturally, it must be chosen.

.

The Only Filter You’ll Ever Need

In China today, if you leave your house without your cell phone, the police will use the hundreds of public surveillance cameras with facial recognition software around your neighborhood to locate you. Once they find you they will escort you back to your house to get your phone. That cellphone is the key to the communist parties ability to spy on you. As long as you have the phone on you they can track where you are, where you’re going and where you’ve been. Using the phone they can listen to everything you say. They can monitor everything the phones camera sees. Think that’s bad? It gets worse.

Your phone not only tracks you its tracks who you associate with. Using the fully implemented social credit scoring system, if your phone detects you with someone whose social credit score is unacceptable, you take a credit score hit, up to and including being investigated, fired from your job or even imprisoned.

All this is real. It is also the kind of story that causes liberals, progressives and democrats, but I repeat myself, to spontaneously orgasm. Here in Utah our alleged republican governor and representatives are pushing the so called Digital Drivers license program for your cell phone. The fake conservatives are using this program as a back door to implementing a version of China’s social credit system.

Right now participation in the program is voluntary and the only information they are after is your driver license and your auto insurance. I must point out that any police officer who stops you can already access that information on the laptop in his cruiser. The supporters of the legislation give themselves away when they admit they want everything of importance in your life on that digital drivers license. That means healthcare information etc. This is at best a back door attempt at implementing a Chinese style social credit score and at worst, a mandated direct surveillance program. The only thing the legislation is missing is a penalty for not participating and the authority for police to track you down should you leave your home minus your electronic leash, I mean cell phone.

Ok sailor I hear you say, what’s all this got to do with filters? That’s a great question.

I’m hearing a lot of chatter about the digital drivers license being a benign program solely invested in protecting the public. So was the yellow star the Nazi’s forced Jews to wear, but that’s another story.

Everyone filters. We filter the news we hear. We filter the comments of friends and coworkers. If we are lucky we develop the ability to filter out television commercials. These filters consist of preconceived notions we have about everything. They are often formed in part, or in whole, by those we respect or admire. Family, friends, mentors, teachers, athletes and community leaders are among those who typically have some level of influence over how we construct our filters.

There is nothing inherently wrong with incorporating the values of those you respect into your opinion forming process. I did so for many years but eventually I learned that I only needed one filter to form an opinion on any subject.

The only filter I use is the filter of how does this affect my freedom?

You see, I don’t need my phone spying on me to purchase auto insurance. I don’t need my phone deciding whether the person I am having coffee with is socially acceptable. I certainly don’t want my phone giving me up for going seven miles over the speed limit on the freeway. I suspect you don’t either. I think you can see where this could be headed.

Everyone says freedom is precious. I suspect many people do not know the meaning of the word and the rest are simply lying to cover an anti freedom agenda. I’m looking at you Spencer Cox.

The freedom filter is easy to learn and apply. When you are diligent in it’s application the world will change almost overnight. You may begin to question some of the ideas and policies you currently support. If that happens good, it means the filter is working.

The freedom filter requires discipline to use. When presented with an idea or concept simply ask yourself, “How does this affect my freedom?” It’s important to remember that if it impacts your freedom and you are just fine with the imposition, that doesn’t make the law or mandate right. The freedom filter has no emotional component. Our freedoms, per the Constitution, cannot be taken from us.

Another way to engage the freedom filter is “Does this limit me in any way?” If you determine it does ask yourself who does that limitation truly benefit? You? The government? Some other entity? I would point out that again, there is no emotional component here. The same freedoms that cannot be taken away cannot be limited.

Another fun exercise is to run the idea out to it’s fullest conclusion. Do you remember when the Patriot Act was being debated? The provision in that law that allowed the government to access your library history received considerable heat. Civil libertarians worried that people could be targeted for simply reading the “wrong” books, that authors of certain subjects would no longer be allowed to publish and that public debate would be stifled. That was a good example of applying the freedom filter.

The freedom filter, used properly, will reveal many things about people you admire. It may change how you think about things you never thought you would question. More importantly it will hold an unflinching mirror up to you. That reflection will test your devotion to the principle of true freedom. Once learned the filter may be easy to use but it doesn’t always provide the exact answer we think it will.

If you apply the freedom filter, what will you see?