Patriotism? To What?

I wish more people could see the United States Government for what it really is, a brutal organization seeking every means of stepping on one’s neck while they rip the wallet from their back pocket. What method of thuggery have they refused to utilize? A SWAT team descending on a local preacher or common welder who participated in a protest is not police work or law enforcement, it’s terrorism. It’s not fear of the preacher or common welder that dictates their actions, but the sheer terror they might strike into the hearts of patriots that they strive for. Kill one to terrify ten thousand is the maxim of the communist. How else should we view them?

In the simplest terms, they’re taking advantage of patriotism to enact and enforce the most brutal domestic policy since Stalin. Everyone knows some local cop who they conflate to the aggregate of copdom, but one’s intimate knowledge of one cop, good or bad, doesn’t provide testimony as to the rest. Cops, like everyone else, might be completely decent when alone, but become another animal all together when in a group, especially if that group feels threatened. To expect cops to act differently than the average person is to credit them with a level of evolution from the ordinary man that simply doesn’t exist.

The criticism of democracy is that it’s a mobocracy; two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner. I heard, not long ago some irrelevant voice taking up the cause of “our democracy” and criticizing MAGA for it’s view of democracy as just that. “Imagine,” he breathlessly exhorted the audience, “thinking of our democracy as two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner.” Is it not? Though that quote is attributed often to Benjamin Franklin, there is some question as to the fact of that just as there was in the last post concerning Nathan Hale. It matters less who actually said it, than that it rings so completely true. There is nothing about a democracy that is anything other than the majority ruling over the minority and the division can be as slim as one vote. That’s no way to run a nation and why any thought of justice must include the demand for individual rights as a shield from the greatest excesses of government.

As I wrote in Nine Principles of Freedom, the Bill of Rights are human rights. One cannot be free unless individual rights are defended with the greatest vigor. In America those rights were recognized by the courts, but that’s no longer true, leaving those rights to be defended by the individual. Unfortunately, patriotism and undue trust is still largely practiced by the average American in spite of all evidence pointing to the fact that the governments have worked their way around providing any power to the individual at all.

The idea of patriotism to just any form of government is the product of brainwashing. It must be specific. This nation is largely communist in form and function and that’s lost on the average patriot, because we still have private property. Do we? Do you own something that can be taken away without penalty or prosecution? The way I explained it to a prospective county commissioner and to my county judge, is that if I own a coffee cup, I will never have to pay another dime to keep it. They can’t say that about property. The response, “then pay your taxes.” But there are no further taxes on the coffee cup I own, the chair I sit in or the refrigerator I take my drinks out of. Those are things I own. A service, like electricity, natural gas and internet connectivity are different, they supply me with consumables. Land is not a consumable brought to me through wires or pipes.

We are not communist, because the government doesn’t own the means of production. Doesn’t it? The means of controlling all of commerce is available to the government through OSHA, clean air and water regulations, even, as we just found out, pandemics. Give the government a good pandemic and you will see what owning the means of production matters to them. They control the means of production, can decide whether gasoline cars or electric cars will be built. They can decide whether one power generation method is used, or another one. They can limit the amount and source of steel production by using pollution legislation. We don’t own our property, our cars, or our businesses. Right now, they are going after Trump’s business, charging it with fraud to destroy it, regardless of testimony affirming that he, nor his business entities committed the fraud, it was just manufactured out of the crooked DA’s office. Again, we get back to Lavrentiy Beria and “show me the man and I will show you the crime.”

Our current House of Representatives renewed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) again, with all of the woke and weaponized, the CRT, embedded in it by the previous congress, including the 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) provisions in tact. Not only has this provision been used illegally by the FBI to spy on American citizens (not foreign) 274,000 times, including the Russia Hoax, to manipulate the 2020 election and hold patriots responsible for their legal actions on January 6th. That was Mike Johnson once again suspending the rules, suspiciously after a long meeting with Paul Ryan.

I recognize that all of these politicians are the worst people in the world, that their word means nothing, that their lies are not counted, but weighed by the ton and I don’t expect very much out of them even in the best of times, but now, because of people like Mike Johnson (318) 840-0309 (one of his local offices) who is in a unique position to do some good, simply turned his back on the people. Another person, and I just called his office yesterday to ask him to vote against this, was Ronny Jackson (TX) (806) 225-3706. (also a local office) Jackson is very often on the right side of things, but he had a chance here to do something and he didn’t even vote against it. I know he’s a veteran, but this wasn’t the denial of military equipment, it was a statement that the people want a strong and focused military, not one concerned with the gender issues of its troops. He was in a position to do the right thing and he failed and should be called out for it. I will, but I am a small voice in a wilderness of louder voices. I will not let it go unaddressed, though, not in silence.

What are you patriotic to, then? People like Johnson and Jackson, a flag, a military, a congress? None of those things benefit from your patriotism unless they support the individual rights they are put in place to defend. I am patriotic to the idea, the concept of individual rights, from which everything good about America rises. This was a direct assault on those individual rights and more than that, it was a bill of consent for the FBI to continue this practice of surveillance of American citizens. That is a violation of everything to which Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jackson took an oath to uphold and defend. That vote was an act of treason. The Defense Department could be funded without those provisions and that’s what should have happened.

Despite my frustration with these politicians, I didn’t have much faith to begin with. I’ve worked with the state legislature and know what sort they are. This coming year, 2024, they will be guilty of bigger and more costly betrayals. They will not stop until this whole nation is submerged in the sewer of failed states and we’re going to have to deal with that. This is a communist state that we live in, where the Stasi do as they please and the politicians are free to loot the land, bankrupt businesses and drive the people into poverty.

It makes me sick to think of the freedoms we once had. Only a few years ago 90% of everything the government is doing would not have been tolerated. They didn’t even try this sort of nonsense, but today, it’s just how it’s done. It’s past time for us to stand up to it, to demand our rights be respected. It will have to get worse, I guess, and it will. Nothing will take the place of the common knowledge that anything they can do, they will do. Passing the NDAA under its current state was a big BFYTW to us. It demands that we examine our patriotism and by my figuring, respond in kind.

I am personally grateful for all of the people who support my work and the success of twelveround.com. We are, at least, able to pay the bills with your subscriptions and purchases and what more could one ask? This is not a profit center, nor is it intended to be, but it has costs that rise every day. This Christmas, know that if you think I’ve made a difference, it was only because of you and your support.