There are many forms of conspiracy of which average citizens have some inkling or suspicion, despite, or perhaps because of the concerted mendacity of government officials and agencies, including our military bureaucrats. Particularly since the Biden administration took control, world politics and military relationships have become more dangerous, more conspiratorial and far more difficult to control, let alone understand. Naturally, Americans are much more nervous and feeling isolated, as we probably should. With China encroaching on our spheres of influence and on numerous allies like Canada, Columbia, Panama, African nations and Europe, itself… even Hungary, the “world” seems to be ganging up on the U. S.
This is a rather abrupt turn of events. One has to wonder if it’s all a matter of incompetence and lack of understanding, or if key power centers in the U. S. are executing a plan. Can these questions be answered?
Was Covid-19 a strategy or unfortunate accident?
Is the widespread “legalization” of very dangerous marijuana and the onslaught of lethal drugs flooding our neighborhoods, just wretched capitalism or an element of intentional weakness that makes sense to some people?
Is the attack on Ukraine part of an “approved” plan by globalists to weaken NATO and the U. S.?
Is the “attack” on oil and gas in the U. S. part of the same plan?
Where did the basic plan to expand “transgenderism” among grade-schoolers originate?
How is it that major hospitals suddenly coordinated with the LGBTQ+ agenda and public schools to begin performing transgender mutilations and sterilizations?
Is the pressure to give virtually everyone from age 5 and up the modified RNA injections part of a larger objective of weakening individual freedom, lower general health and possibly population control?
Who, or what country(ies), actually benefits from the dramatic changes in U. S. monetary and immigration policies?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from election fraud?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from soft-on-crime policies in major cities?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from high inflation in the U. S.?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from restricting food production – reducing fertilizer use and sequestering productive acreage?
These are all rather sad questions to be able to posit. How could so many negative policies suddenly descend upon our nation and people? Can they all be parts of tragic, unavoidable coincidences? Or, could they be coordinated from… well, somewhere? Someone? Some group?
Can we put much credence into the idea that Joe Biden, a man whose mental state requires guides and “handlers” at all times, actually believes in what he says or does, or that he thought up the set of policies he has put into action?
Or, God forbid, but not an impossibility, is it possible that leftists/globalists in the United States’ “deep state” have considered the evolving relationships and power of Red China, the problems and responsibilities of American freedom and nationalism and the blandishments of the World Economic Forum in terms of a financial control model of vastly smaller populations, and decided that the only answer to the possibilities of wars and nuclear conflict is to throw in with the W.E.F. and establish a global government able to negotiate with, and even coerce China into coexistence? Perhaps systemic treason has been sold to the oligarchy as salvation.
Politics is more than pointing out the lies of others, Prudence indicates. So too is how people and societies organize themselves and their governing structures and technology. Even more, so too is religion and ideologies of various kinds: much, much more than pointing out the lies of others. There are larger pictures to take in and analyze and critique. After all, do artists lie? Are they, then, no longer artists?
Life is art… or at least the creation of an artist – an artist who tries to teach his/her subjects how to expand and beautify the painting in which they reside, on ever better canvas and frame, and in brighter, truer colors. Life is the basis of the greatest artist’s greatest work. Eventually life takes us to the edge of the canvas and what we call death results, but death is not the basis or the subject or the purpose of the painting. Death dealt for selfish, craven reasons before the edge of the canvas is reached, destroys not only a bit of life but the integrity of the painting. It’s source and perpetrator must be expunged, cleansed from the art that is life, for it/he/she has no place here.
Details of the art of life can be studied and understood a little better, and a little better, and a little better, still. Important to the beauty of the multi-billion points of life that comprise the fulgent artwork of life on Earth, is freedom to act in concert with the artist’s intent. Were there no options, no imagination, no whimsy, no beautiful choices, then the painting would be dull in color and harmony, smaller and devoid of love, the one color that is always the hardest to mix or apply, and the most vivid.
Holding the whole creation together is the love of life. Here and there, created in love but, somehow, twisted to love death, itself, bits of life, humans, develop the love of death and the “art” of dealing death. They claim to abhor terrible, brutal, violent death, yet do nothing within public policy to put a stop to it. On the other hand, the same people use public policy to accelerate hidden, “life-saving” death, like abortion and vaccination. That’s where the art of death exists, first from euphemism and then, only in unseen places, by terrible, brutal violent death. In either case, the very presence of death-lovers amidst the beautiful artwork of life causes the artist’s paint to bead up, unable to blend or enrich the near-perfect painting alluded to; it leaves blank, colorless blemishes.
Freedom, or the absence of freedom, is like that: devoid of color, particularly vibrant colors of creativity, joy and charity. Humans are designed for and have evolved to flourish in an environment of freedom – we’re “tuned” to what we consider to be beautiful and harmonious – and there are “rules” for being free. Without the rules, which are not limitations, in application, but better described as guidance, humans can easily slip into license and corruption, both mental and physical. Where this tendency has begun to concentrate we can see that the inherent beauty of human evolution has been dulled, and created still more areas where the artist’s paint has beaded up, failing to mix and blend and enrich the entire picture. We have names for these “rule-breakings.”
The first name describes corruption of the heart; we call it hatred. It has many manifestations, but all of them must be taught, it turns out. Every cultural tradition seems to include an identification of the “first hater,” which is the same as saying the “first liar.” Lying to other humans is an act of hatred: hatred of the inherent beauty of another human. It declares that the hater who is doing the lying has no respect for the value and integrity of another person… or even of a country full of other persons. Hatred is very easy to spread around when haters don’t even realize they are hating others, and when they may not even realize they’re telling lies!
So, the simplest form of heart-corruption is lying, but it’s not always a matter of lying to others: humans can be led to lie to themselves. That’s an environment wherein there is neither much debate nor alternatives based in pure truth. A small initial lie, like “this drug will make you happier,” can lead an inherently beautiful human to tell him- or her-self that he or she is not worthy of the beauty that others still enjoy. Nothing good flows from that belief. Even worse, rather than trying to convince such “lost” people of their inherent beauty, political forces try to make reinforcement of the new self-lie much easier. It’s called respecting “civil rights” but it is an ugly perversion of the beauty of human life. It also seems to be contagious, tending to infect younger and younger, beautiful humans.
At some point, societies develop a means of “enforcing” the rules of freedom so that the greater “good:” the maximum number of humans being able to survive, grow, create and have successful families and children, is assured. Except for those whose freedom is stripped from them for varying degrees of failing to follow the rules of freedom, the enforcement paradigm works fairly well until a fresh lie is introduced: enforcement “hurts” too many people. The political/police enforcers are quickly led to still another form of hatred-lie: “hurting so many of our fellow humans is not who we are as a people” and that ending a lot of enforcements is the “right” thing to do.
Now the artist’s beautiful painting becomes even more dull and hard to look at by humans who are still mostly beautiful… and hard to understand, as well.
Soon, because political power and re-election trumps everything, confused humans are led to hate those who refer to rules of freedom as being anti-freedom: the worst of all sins. The defense of “freedom” for those who are already in the business of lying, readily morphs into the defense of licentiousness, at which point every person or institution who defends adherence to the “rules” for freedom, is identified as an enemy of “freedom” or of “democracy,” neither of which is defined. The evil intent of anyone opposed to them, however, must be virulently opposed.
We can Prudently see, now, that hatred is more than the first name of rule-breaking: it’s the only name of rule-breaking. It manifests as lying, and therein lies the complexity of hatred: the myriad kinds and styles of lies that are told to us and by us. The struggles between truth and lies describe most of human history. Prudence thinks humans have become LESS truthful over the centuries that have led us to today. Certainly this is true for the United States. Can we keep excusing lies from various groups, agencies and institutions simply because the liars believe what they are saying?
The great painting called “Life” is still beautiful, but becoming less so at a frightening rate. The single metric of suicides teaches us that increasing numbers of humans no longer perceive any beauty in living. The great lie of abortion has blazed the trail… no – blazed the 8-lane expressway toward death as a “solution” to the problems of life. Great, ugly swaths of the painting have beaded-up, unblended colors that look muddy rather than vivid, because of abortion. Will truth ever overwhelm the hopelessness of abortion?
Nearly as much of a blemish on the painting called “Life” are the compound lies of transgenderism. Here, the merchants of Death convince very young people to commit “suicide of the self,” even as they convince their parents that those same merchants are “educators,” preparing their children to be successful citizens of the United States of America. Each child was born to be a certain person, a certain soul, and to conquer the challenges for that person, male or female. Instead they are coached to either become sex objects at grade-school ages, or to “kill” their selves by undoing their sexual being with a grand pretense that it is possible to believe two diametric ideas simultaneously. It is a means to living a lie, also destroying reproductive viability. As it has spread through education in many states and countries, the painting has become duller, with sharp edges between vibrancy and death and dullness.
The elements of vibrant, vivid paint, including the color of love and not of death or hatred, still exist, and there are yet a few million of the artist’s apprentices still active and available. We who are given the opportunity to co-create our painting – which represents a lot of faith on the part of the artist – often lose sight of the harmony and natural beauty that we have taken for granted. For a hundred reasons we insist on trying to blend ugly, dull colors, believing that our odd intentions will render a better beauty than that created for us by the artist. Yet our ugly paints keep beading up and leaving growing patches of ugly dullness amidst the original beauty.
Still, we push on, insisting that we know better than the artist of our life painting. As the blemishes expand, those stuck in the ugliness try to blame the co-creators of beauty for the contrast, as though reducing the overall quantity of beauty and harmony would make everyone feel accepted and grant equity to all. To their dismay, however, the rules of freedom don’t allow for it and, to the purveyors-of-ugliness’ horror, those are the rules of beauty, as well.
One way to look at our current national condition is from the top of the Mountain Of Lies. It’s a better viewpoint for observing the accumulating effects of dishonesty upon the health and strength of the nation to which it is dished on a literal daily basis. Sometimes there is illumination provided by organizing lists of items that share one or more parameters. It will be Prudent to consider the entirety, if not enormity of the following list of lies on which Americans’ lives depend:
LAW. Our history and culture are replete with real and literary conspiracies based on subversion of laws. To Prudence, undercutting the law is the worst of all lies. Peace, safety, freedom and life, itself, depend on honesty in matters of law. It is still worse when it leaves the individual level and seeps into “official” policy and action – denying or subverting the law, that is. We can see the scope of damage that official lying can do, by reflecting on the completely fabricated “Russia” conspiracy that politicians and law-enforcement agencies attempted to pin on Donald Trump before he won election as 45th President, and through much of his administration. Subverting federal laws only expanded after that.
A few people lost their jobs at the FBI, but, so far, not their pensions! The message is that anything illegal done against Donald Trump is not considered to be nearly as bad as illegal acts taken against some other American citizen. Yes, you broke the law, but it doesn’t bother us enough to apply legal sanctions – wink, wink. Subversion of law: one of the worst kinds of lie.
But, unfortunately, the unprecedented crimes against Trump are not the worst in terms of how the citizens of the U. S. are besmirched by government lying. We have to look at immigration and border policies and practices since Joe Biden signed that stack of executive orders on January 21st, 2021.
U.N. and U.S. rules for “refugee” and “asylum” status are pretty loose, subject to multiple steps of acceptance despite previous errors or even untrue/fraudulent applications. A judge can always accept some claim of good reasons to submit fraudulent statements in order to obtain safety unavailable in their country of origin. In other words, it is subjective at almost every step. Those who hyperventilate over “loopholes” in tax laws are singularly unconcerned about the sieve of loopholes in immigration law. Interestingly, many of the possible claims for asylum are based on non-binary sexuality. However, there are laws and regulations that govern the processing of asylum claims and of asylees, themselves. These are being ignored at the President’s direction, leaving millions of illegal entrants in our country with virtually no way for our erstwhile protectors to monitor or arrest them when they fail to appear for “hearings” required by law.
It’s all part of “Progressives’” intention to dissemble our Constitutional Republic. Every person connected to the Biden administration who comments on “the border,” has lied about it, and quite consistently. Those are bad lies, sure enough.
LEGISLATION. Once upon a time in Washington, representatives of the people and representatives of the states would diligently research and debate, in both Houses of Congress, the federal budget. Presidential administrations would cook up budgets with their own plans and hopes, including the increased spending inevitably required by each and every one of the 1,000 or so executive departments, offices, agencies and “black” projects. Congress, politically, would dissect parts of it, replace parts of it, gain hours of news coverage about their essential work, and eventually pass some form of it, including myriad political advantages for the parties holding some level of power: earmarks. And, always, plenty of “pork.”
The two great sources of power in Congress are 1) Spending; and, 2) Taxing. No matter how motivated or honest a new congressperson may be, fairly quickly he or she becomes either purposefully corrupt or casually corrupted by the systems of Congress. The orientation process for newbies includes explaining why it is that what each feels is the right thing to do… cannot be done. In order to accomplish a small bit of what spurred the campaign to enter Congress, much has to be compromised. That is the economic dynamic of Congress – not right or wrong, but bartering for good and not-good. With the number-one goal of everyone in both Houses being re-election, the barter system quickly becomes bartering to gain re-election benefits. Voting on the so-called “budget” offers dozens of barter opportunities, and so it goes. It is inherently corrupt and corrupting, which means that our fresh new representatives – House or Senate – must lie to us at their first opportunity.
Then, there are the aggregations of spending and taxing ideas that are given names like, “The Inflation Reduction Act.” These mountains of malarkey cut and pasted by the “power brokers” who then present a 1,000-page or 3,000-page pile of words with hundreds of new “laws” included and call for a vote within 24 or 48 hours. No one can read or understand the implications all of it before voting, yet there is a great trumpeting of accomplishment. Most of the time prior to the vote is spent by each “yea” voter to find something – anything – that he or she can tell constituents was “accomplished” for their benefit, including how their representative “fought” for them against the evils of Washington. Still, where’s the truth? There are $31 Trillion in the national debt that display 65 years of great lying to American citizens.
IMMIGRATION: No country is a greater magnet for emigration than the U. S. Despite the constant Marxist drumbeat of “systemic” racism, imminent murder of blacks by police and unfair incarceration of pathetic, somewhat innocent or non-responsible prisoners, people of color flock to our southern border by the millions. Some just walk in and say the magic words claiming asylum. Our Border Patrol officers spend virtually all of their time “processing” the flood of people from up to 100 countries(!). In The meantime, about 25% as many as claim asylum escape through our poorly secured border, carrying tons of fentanyl and other drugs (drugs that kill over 100,000 young Americans every year) as well as carrying plans in some of their heads to commit terrorist attacks.
It is one of the prime responsibilities of a President and administration to prevent these very circumstances. For a government to NOT fulfill this obligation requires two forms of “untruth:” 1) a purpose other than protecting the United States or its citizens; and, 2) a constant barrage of utter lies about the “secure” status of the casually breeched southern border, supporting the pretense of an administration that is fulfilling its vows. Typically, there is a penalty to pay for lying, much more so if the lie causes injury or cost to the subject(s) of it. What sort of penalty is appropriate for this grandiose lie?
The upshot of this close-to-the-worst-of-lies is that about 4 MILLION illegal entrants are scattered across the country. Each of them is a living, breathing, expensive lie. Along with them are the nearly 1 MILLION “gotaways” who evaded apprehension thanks to President Biden’s utter… no, purposeful… failure to complete the border wall, which would at least have channeled prospective entrants to limited points of entry. They are all lies, too, whose very presence implies some sort of right to be inside our borders. That there is no such right for nearly all of the 4 MILLION and the 1 MILLION, simply compounds the grotesque lie this administration has been telling American citizens.
COVID: This compendium of lies began 10 years ago as the great Dr. Anthony Fauci funneled NIAID grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research on the SARS-2 coronavirus. He has denied that purpose, of course, which simply shows that lying is common in the federal government’s hundreds of agencies. Fauci’s NIAID agency of the CDC earned millions in royalties from helping Moderna develop its mRNA “vaccine” (the vaccine that doesn’t prevent infection, doesn’t create immune response and doesn’t prevent contagion), which Moderna was working on in Wuhan months before the world heard of the novel coronavirus, Covid-19.
Interestingly, the only response to Covid infection was – and still is – “vaccination.” All other treatments, some very effective, have been suppressed and discussion of them censored. Reputable scientists estimate that half a million American deaths can be blamed on failures to treat Covid with known anti-virals, immune boosters and supplements. Individual personnel within the NIH are allowed to earn royalties from numerous pharmaceuticals they helped to research, including the slickest liar of all, Dr. Anthony Fauci, reportedly the highest-paid employee in the federal swamp. Lying about Covid must have been the most lucrative scam he’s had. To really push the mass vaccination program that was part of a tawdry, essentially worldwide scheme, great fear had to be fomented, and locking down the country from most business activity fitted in perfectly with that goal.
First, though, the “Friends of Fauci,” recognized scientists all, conspired to flood medical publications with false opinion papers that claimed, uniformly, that the origin of the ENGINEERED SARS-2 novel coronavirus came from some natural evolution that workers at a “wet market” in Wuhan city were exposed to. Real virologists, like Fauci, can identify the Furin cleavage site in the viral chain where other genes were added to the original SARS virus. Yet the papers went forth at Fauci’s direction to confuse politicians and divert attention from the financing of the exact research – begun in the U. S. and shifted to Wuhan – that made COVID-19 so infectious. Lies have consequences.
COVID killed a lot of people, although far fewer than statistics claim, and nowhere at a higher rate than in the United States! How could that possibly be? We certainly have a right to know.
In effect, the pandemic here was handled politically, not medically. Fauci and others inside the deep state, beholden to big Pharma, and PROFITING from them, advised federal and state governments to impose useless and actually harmful steps, locking down economic and social activities, ruining family economics and, worst of all, forcing protocols on hospitals that ignored known treatments and caused the deaths of thousands who could have survived. It seems criminal.
As the so-called “vaccines” were introduced, the lies became greater. The definition of “vaccine” had to be changed to include the weird chemicals that comprise mRNA shots. Pushing them as vaccines was and still is comforting to the average “emergency use” recipient, now pushed down to infants and children. Unfortunately, nRNA shots don’t prevent the disease, they don’t prevent infecting others, and they don’t instill normal immune response. Oh, and they don’t last long in their one effect: mitigating the “severity” of infection. As one gets into “booster shot” country, the effects dwindle to a month or two. The shots are utter failures as vaccines and immensely successful as money-transfer agents.
But, wait! There’s more!… or less. The shots are dangerous to humans! You’ve seen the ads, over and over, telling the trusting that COVID vaccine is “effective and safe.” Some mothers couldn’t wait for them to be available so that their kids could be protected from a disease that is of nearly ZERO threat to them! Zero as in NO THREAT! Why force an experimental drug known to damage children to the point that they are at greater risk from the injections than they are from the disease? I’ll tell you why: FEAR and two years’ of lies from our helpful government.
Other lies… well, let’s talk about IMMIGRATION. Anyone in this administration or Congressional Democrat who happens to get a question about the “control” of the border with Mexico, lies. No one stands out as telling the truth about this one issue.
President Biden is virtually never asked about the border – that’s left up to his press flacks: first Jen Psaki and now the incomparable Karinne Jean-Pierre. On August 29th reporter, Peter Doocy asked “KJP” why tennis star Novak Djokovic cannot enter the United States to play in a tennis tournament because he ‘s not “vaccinated” against Covid, but migrants can just walk into Texas and Arizona unvaccinated and are allowed to stay?
Jean-Pierre’s response was that just walking in was not how it works. When corrected of that notion she stated that “…it’s not like that you can’t just walk over and…” And so it goes in the great mendacity machine that is the Biden administration.
Prudence has asked before: Where do we turn when our own government lies to us?
We’re all psychologists. Humans could not work together, form societies or even families, if we could not “size up” one another and make relatively accurate judgments as to the attitudes and outlooks of those we need to live with. Like every other human skill, psychological survival and progress has attracted experts, often the death knell of progress in the field of interest. Beyond studying and learning about human psychology, psychologists have moved on to defining and even inventing forms of it. Today it is almost as though the professional in the psychology field had DISCOVERED psychology in humans and that they, psychologists, must be consulted about any and every aspect of it, lest mere humans hurt themselves and others by trying to comprehend it.
Life is animalistic without psychological abilities. Animal brains only barely exhibit any sense of meaning to the actions they take. Humans strive to avoid it. Part of the magic of human psychology is the ability to worship, and to perceive a spiritual existence that is the greatest sense of meaning possible. What does – or what will – what I’m doing, mean?
Generally, the actions of today are taken because of their meaning something in the future. We save today for security tomorrow; we court and marry today to produce a family of children tomorrow; we live honorably, creating friends and earning respect from others, so that we’ll have friends and friendship in our old age; we try to avoid poisoning our bodies and avoid danger and injuries because it means we can live longer. We even attempt to extend our meaning to others beyond the date of our death with inheritances and bequests and instructions. Unfortunately, we are descending into a process of talking ourselves out of our own humanity. Psychologists of various stripes have convinced many to deny who they are, and have convinced many others with influence over them, to help them in the process of denial. What for?
A large element of civilization has been and remains theater. It could be as simple as street actors and their ad-hoc creation of scenes, characters and stories, to the elaborate production of operas that remain popular over decades and centuries. Greek and Roman theater still teach us to look at life and meaning in “better” ways; Shakespeare, Marlow, Bacon and thousands of others from every culture, employed costume, staging, music, masks and pretense to teach cultural truths and lessons for living. Modern electronics make it possible for every individual – including children – to become a preferred pretense character, almost always on a Snap-Chat stage. It seems, unfortunately, that the “psychology community” talked itself into treating human theater, down to the individual level, as more valuable – more essential – than reality.
As one old Greek noted, “Virtue lies in Reason and Vice in rejection of Reason.” However, as psychologists are only too aware, or promoters of, Reason cannot be satisfactorily defined, especially from generation to generation. There seem to be thousands of permutations of reason, and as communications have advanced, so to speak, certain biases have become widely shared, affecting modern concepts of reason, which is not to say, Truth. Since the 1960’s and ‘70’s, feminism has become the overriding permutation of reason in the United States, and it has led to a society-bending twist of sexual roles and mores. Psychologists haven’t tried to stem this tide. Where “psychology” might add to understanding of various truths, instead it seems to adapt to and rationalize social trends.
Prudence can expect to be roundly chastised for the previous paragraph, and, probably, the next one.
Feminism has done more damage to American society than any other belief system besides slavery. Bit by bit – now chunk by chunk – it has feminized men and destroyed the majesty of motherhood. Simultaneous with the explosion in homosexuality, feminism has also led to hyper-sexualization of school-age children down to disturbing ages. As it has torn down the old morality it has failed to replace it with a new one. Where women used to “civilize” men, they now compete in an arena of irresponsible sexuality where everything is planned or avoidable based on the whims of women.
Women are now the drivers of the new para-psychology called transgenderism. And, rather than eliminating confusion about maleness or femaleness, it encompasses a host of “sexualities” that mainly women teachers and gay or other “non-binary” “teachers” feel compelled to dictate to, if not guide and groom, children at very young ages. Where are “the psychologists” on this strange twist of “education?” Sadly, they seem able to rationalize or even justify the trans-gender fad. If it didn’t do so much damage to the kids whose theatrical fantasies everyone is rushing to “confirm,” the psychologists might be forgiven.
MOST of transgenderism is theater. Children, some genuinely confused about sexuality, a very small fraction, and the rest who want to play at being the opposite sex, are pounced upon by agenda-driven teachers, psychologists, doctors and even hospitals(!), who are all in a hurry to “confirm” trans-gender fantasies. Confirmation, unfortunately, consists of largely irreversible hormone injections and blockers, and even surgeries to remove perfectly healthy organs. The children are permanently changed and their developments confused chemically. The greatest effect? Sterilization. Not many teenagers and damned few adults can conceive of what full medical transfiguration means as time goes by. Most come to realize that they have attempted something that is impossible in the majority of cases, and that leaves them neither male or female. There is more at stake than pronouns.
Yet, some dysphoria is real – the people who transition to another way of living are still real people who deserve as much respect as anyone else. Heterosexual people are largely unable to accept trans-gender people at “face” value. Reactions vary over a short spectrum, from disbelief to disgust. Normal people have a duty to learn respect for those who have found the only way to deal with their relatively rare dysphoria is transition. Let the rest of us count our blessings.
This doesn’t excuse the agenda-driven recruitment of children to a belief in gender-fluidity. Parents know that childhood whims and fantasies usually fade away or are outgrown by maturity in nearly all cases. To pounce on these susceptible kids, especially for teachers, is criminal. For administrators and political / civic leaders to make it ILLEGAL to prevent gender-predation shall remain a stain on the conscience of the nation. Shame on us and kudos to those leaders wise enough to resist this weird aberration in human purpose.
Those who are committed to the “trans” state of being and living also need to recognize that their own, understandably very deep biases toward “non-binary” sexuality, bends their views to find trans potential atop almost every pair of legs. Bigots on both sides need to stifle their angers and misunderstandings. Professional, expert psychologists and psychiatrists ought to be guiding the confused toward a path that is constructive for society and civilization. Unfortunately, they have agreed among their professional, expert-laden Societies, to avoid moral judgement and even counsel patients to dissociate themselves from religious codes. Indeed, such counseling tends to affirm those ideas that comfort the patient, rather than disturb him or her.
In other words, psychology can affirm one’s deepest beliefs, which is not to say truth. Unfortunately, sometimes beliefs are just wrong and counter-productive or damaging to society. They can interfere with forming positive bonds with others, with family members, or with others who would be good for the individual. Psychology has drifted too close to chemical solutions for too many conditions/reactions; they also tend to counsel for far too long, with patients dependent upon their therapists to maintain a new normalcy.
As Americans ponder the decline of trust in the institutions that ought to defend successful traditions and uphold the greatest strength of U. S. culture, one of those has been medicine, including mental health medicine. The professionals in that society have always been people of sense, ready willing and able to advise patients toward the healthiest, most sensible habits and actions. This used to include psychologists and psychiatrists, but this has all changed. Why? How did industries – professions – of HONOR, become so sullied?
Politics and money, not synonymous, but often congruent. If politics were corrupted by only money we could survive and even thrive as the running battle against corruption played its parallel games. But politics has been corrupted by ideology, hatred and mendacity. The Covid pandemic exposed the degree of twist that has occurred. One political party routinely condemns half the voters in the country, not as those who see a different way to improve and strengthen America, but as a group that can’t be permitted to hold or even share power… a group that threatens the republic, that is racist, homophobic, transphobic and every other epithet that can be used on TV to denigrate another person. Then that same party does everything that their opponents are accused of doing, BY THEM. It is no longer politics, but managed hatred, and it has coopted the institutions of government, justice, education and medicine, among others. None of the professions that once held the nation together have been spared.
The various forms of artifice are all masks, covering the faces of evil. Millions of true patriots resist and believe in the majesty of the American way – most are Christians. They – we – are the conscience of America. A new professionalism and a new citizenship are all that can restore us… and a new / old spiritual understanding of why humanity is male and female, and how it can survive and grow stronger. Honestly.
The Green New Deal has become a means of theft: elites taking freedom and independence, and possibly life, itself, away from the middle and lower classes. “Oh! No!” you say, “Surely you are misinterpreting the existential threat of climate change and their intense efforts to save the planet.” Well, no, actually I’m trying to balance reality with what we’re being told.
Many hundreds of statements and declarations are made on a weekly, monthly, annual basis – certainly on every hot day, cold day, dry day or wet day, that “climate change” is wreaking havoc on the planet and on the poor and downtrodden, minorities and LGBTQ+ “communities” worst of all. It’s all the fault of you smug suburbanites and your SUVs spewing that awful carbon dioxide… and the cow farts you cause by eating burgers made from meat and not insects. Don’t forget your air conditioners and outdoor grills – all hastening our extinction.
This would be such a nice planet to live on if it weren’t for all you… well… people for goodness’ sakes. (Can’t say ‘God’s sake.’)
Actually, if it were not for the constant tilt of most media outlets, the condition of the earth and its climate could be discussed and better known by young and old, alike. We are just coming to the end of a very hot summer. There were drought conditions in many countries. We will soon be inundated with claims of the planet having a “fever” and “the earth is on fire,” and similar declarations. So far, we haven’t suffered a hurricane coming ashore to the United States; as soon as one does, we’ll be told there are more -and stronger – storms because of our driving “fossil-fueled cars” and resisting buying non-polluting “electric vehicles,” EV’s. If we have a severely snowy winter with lots of cold, cold days, they’ll all be our fault, too.
There is some supposed perfect average global temperature… one we like. It is impossible to define the “ideal” climate, the ideal temperature, the ideal amount of ice at the poles, the ideal amount of cloud-cover or precipitation… or the ideal anything else. What does seem easy to idealize is the right population the earth should hold and support, and it is a Hell of a lot smaller than the population we have, today. Various oligarchs, like Bill Gates and others, think the world is overpopulated by 5 BILLION people, or even more. It’s going to take substantial new rates of sterility and deaths to achieve the “ideal.” What an achievement that will be.
Around the planet ice is melting… from the poles (supposedly), Greenland, various glaciers and so forth. This causes terrible worries. Oddly, they’re more terrible for leftists in the West, than for conservatives. They don’t make a damned bit of difference to leftists in Russia, China, India and elsewhere, or to Islamists, who are happy with any number of earthlings as long as they’re all Muslims – the right kind of Muslims.
It’s rather comforting that the climate is changing, whether warming or cooling at any time: the climate has been changing for hundreds of millions of years – maybe billions of years… as long as we’ve had an atmosphere. No one would want to be here on the day the climate STOPS changing. For most people, “climate change” translates as “global warming.” We can see videos of running water on Greenland and shrinking glaciers in the mountains. Definitely, it’s warming. Then we have a summer like 2022’s and we are convinced of the imminent danger of the seas rising and a hurricane toppling our houses. Look what happened to New Orleans, for Pete’s sake. Maybe if they’d all had electric cars in 2005, the people who wasted the federal moneys for strengthening the dikes around the ninth ward might have gone to jail.
It’s hard to predict the future, and that’s the only kind of predicting there is. There is a form of false, God-save-us-if-this-happens sort of prognosticating, though, that is employed stridently by “Climate Campaigners.” It’s always negative. People who worry about and inveigh about the climate, are certain that change means some form of doom. They never seem to make any predictions of benefit from “climate change.” It’s always an imminent disaster, and it’s always our fault, meaning that we have to make drastic changes to avert certain death in as few as 10 or 12 years.
The premise of prediction is history. Recorded history of what people have done, or which volcanoes blew up or geologic evidence of mile-thick ice sheets that created the Great Lakes and the like, as well as records of various past weather trends and climatological periods, provide a basis from which inferences are drawn and, in very grave tones, predictions are made about the future of climate and weather over the next hundred years or so. It’s all very scientific, except it’s impossible to replicate the conditions to see if the same effects take place, so climatologists are unable, actually, to apply the scientific method to historic evidence and add to the evidence of the first “experiment,” seeking correlation.
Atmospheric scientists have gained great knowledge and reasonable predictive power of weather deriving from worldwide patterns like El Niño, although little has been said about movements of the magnetic poles, for example, and the focus of charged particles changing cloud formation patterns. The availability of satellite data, global photography and thousands of measurements daily and hourly, have given meteorologists perhaps too much confidence in prediction, and this has seeped in to the self-esteem of climatologists, too.
Whether from ice cores or dendrochronology (tree rings), climatologists can paint what they feel is an accurate picture of what the climate has been for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Things become more sketchy when they try to make inferences as to WHY they were the way they were. Bias, or belief, can sway even the best scientists’ theories of cause and effect. It’s something “science” ostensibly guards against and works against no matter the line or field of inquiry. Replicating experiments and finding the same or similar results – and publishing those results for other scientists to review and try to replicate or prove wrong, is how science makes real progress towards understanding.
It is not possible to replicate the past; it’s not possible to mimic all the conditions, both on the earth and impacting the earth hundreds or thousands of years ago. But there is great pressure, whether personal or from the all-important funding sources (grants) for a direct correlation to be discerned… cause and effect. Why? Because the reason the study of the past is being funded is often because of beliefs about today’s climate and weather, and that there is a way that humans and their bold politicians can avoid the conditions of the past. A little humidity – if not humility – is called for.
Politicians and the scientists they fund, have an overriding belief that we humans can modify the climate to keep weather as pleasant as we like, the oceans at the depths they currently are, the glaciers as big as they are if not bigger, and polar bears in their favorite conditions, too. Underlying this presumption is a belief that we humans have caused changes in the climate to begin with. Otherwise, we are powerless to undo the damage it is believed we have done! So, to start with, let’s agree that humans HAVE altered the climate somewhat, and not just around cities.
Cities form “heat islands” with huge blocks of real and manufactured stone, steel and asphalt absorbing more sunlight than the natural environment they replaced. But huge, multi-square-mile farms also modify natural environments, also changing sunlight absorption, requiring and transpiring huge volumes of water – water that is artificially moved away from its natural location(s). Are either of these commonplace alterations of the natural environment changing climate? Somewhat, but how much? It is very hard to quantify or even describe. That is, we know the CAUSES we’re concerned about, but we cannot, despite many claims, actually pin down the EFFECTS of these two causes. Certainly there are some, but what should people be forced to stop doing in order to offset those effects? We don’t really know, but there is a strong political pressure to force people to stop doing something because of some politicians’ FEARS. Indeed, one of their biggest fears is of doing nothing or, worse, of failing to force other people to stop doing something.
The urge to do something and to force others to do something comes, deep down, from a belief that a wise-enough human, especially from the leftist persuasion, can control almost anything, including populations, countries and planets. To a great degree, these same authoritarians will automatically adopt any tool or method to control those who aren’t in agreement with them, especially people whose faith tends toward religious origins rather than government ones. Soon, the authoritarians commence to blaming those who don’t agree with their beliefs, for the problems they believe they, the ‘wise,’ are destined to solve. Any contrary data, facts or “science” non-leftists discover, are automatically denigrated and their proponents are labeled “deniers,” as an attempt to more firmly cement the immutable truth of what leftists believe. It becomes difficult to discuss or debate ideas in that environment.
Because CO2 is generated by so many human activities and machines, not least of which is electricity generation, and because climatologists have observed wide fluctuations in the apparent concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere over millennia from all those ice cores and tree rings, there has grown up a set of beliefs about the correlation of temperatures at different points in time and CO2. We can summarize this fear quite easily: More CO2 than the magical percentage is BAD; less CO2 than the magical percentage is GOOD. Sometimes the rise in CO2 concentration precedes a warming period, sometimes it follows, but there is definitely, we’re almost certain… in fact, we’re so close to certain that it’s time to pass laws that we think will reduce the amount of CO2 that enters the atmosphere so that the average temperature of the entire planet’s biosphere can be controlled.
Whether these temperature fluctuations are caused by carbon-dioxide or not is unproven and unprovable. But, it is definitely believed by many. Of course, CO2 is essential for life and good for vegetation in particular, from which our food derives: farms and crops and things. So we wouldn’t want to interfere too much, would we? How much is too much? It’s impossible to say, but less than we’re making now, we’re quite certain.
CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor are the primary “greenhouse gases.” They’re all natural. Many chlorinated and fluorinated gases that we manufacture also have the effect of “trapping” solar energy. Fortunately, they are much smaller fractions of the atmosphere, although not as small a fraction as the dreaded CO2. [See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/07/20/a-home-on-the-beach/ ]
It’s common to see descriptions of human contributions to total greenhouse gases based on what percent of our (American) contribution is CO2. This makes it look like CO2 is a gigantic problem and the U. S. contributes over 70% of it! Ye Gods! Stop breathing! On the other hand, it is very reassuring that over 70% of what we contribute is CO2 and not methane or manufactured gases. Methane is natural gas, basically, and the product of bacterial action on organic materials, like food we eat or grasses and grains that cattle, deer, antelope, bears and squirrels eat, among other living things. Those gases escape, both intentionally and accidentally. As far as we know, animal escapes are all accidental. Still, methane is a greenhouse gas, the concentration of which also should be reduced, according to the magical percentage theory of global management. This has led to calls to reduce cattle herds and, less publicized, to reduce human herds, too. Ye Gods, again!
Those who are deeply committed to the magical percentages of greenhouse gases theory, are equally committed to blaming their fellow humans for every weather event that is less than perfectly comfortable for everyone from the Amazon watershed to the arctic tundra. Everything is now our fault. It has become a great tool for forcing people to accept authoritarian government as it lovingly struggles to avert the imminent climate catastrophe. A “climate crisis” is declared repeatedly. Taxpayers and anyone who wants the United States to survive and prosper, should have justifiable concern about any use of “crisis” in relation to items of government interest. The designation is uniformly employed to justify borrowing from future generations to create politically advantageous spending, now. There’s a $31 TRILLION liability on our balance sheet that demonstrates the effectiveness of this spending strategy. Thus it is that “climate change” has become “climate crisis,” a political tool, and not just for the U. S. Climate is global, and through the World Economic Forum [See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2022/04/16/where-the-globalists-struck-first/ ] it is politically valuable to globalists and other socialists. There is no reason to trust them.
The W.E.F. has determined that nitrogen-based chemicals, like most fertilizers, must be curtailed in order to save the planet. You can see the conflict: humans eat the products of fertilized crops. We like to eat meat, too, often simultaneously, and the animals that provide it also contribute to nitrogen chemicals resulting from bodily functions. It is what it is. The globalist solution? Less eating! Unfortunately, many governments pay attention to the blatherous emanations of the W.E.F., and adjust policies to fit. You can read of the effects of this nonsense in the Netherlands, where farmers are in serious protest, or in Sri Lanka where people are starving. Oddly, the same people who want to mandate the mRNA “vaccines” are they who want to limit food supplies to avoid climate change. Are the two efforts connected in purpose? Population reduction? Certainly, in terms of the net effects of the Covid-19 “vaccines,” population reduction appears to be the biggest net effect. The spike in non-Covid deaths among the healthiest demographic (ages 25 to 64) in the U. S., Canada and the U. K., is continuing. The victims are vaccinated against Covid.
It seems intensely Prudent to be intensely skeptical of the unsubstantiated claims of Climate believers.
We should consider the benefits of warming and the ancillary costs of attempting “carbon neutral” or, worse, “zero carbon” by any date-certain. All the public statements about “climate change” fit under one heading: “The sky is falling!!” Note the dual exclamation points! Once the rabid claims are sorted out – and the overblown statistics corrected-for – the best projection for the extent of warming is 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit by year 2100. What are the upsides?
One is longer growing seasons for the crops that sustain the world’s population. This can also translate to requiring less fertilization and more fallow periods for fields, enabling natural processes to enrich the soil between crops. There will be more arable land, now covered by ice. Some may think this is a tragedy, but those who live near the ice are glad to see it go. Earth’s current weather patterns will change. This may mean more rain in lots of areas. Deserts that have evidence of past wet periods might return to that condition, improving opportunities for many peoples to feed themselves and spend less time on subsistence, leaving more time to develop their societies and, perhaps, correct their crappy politics and improve millions of people’s lives and futures.
Less energy will be expended heating homes and other buildings; less fuel expended clearing snow. Meanwhile, should we manage to avoid or stifle the warlike designs of globalists and Communists, the invention and innovation of free, well-nourished people will be making at least as much progress in engineering and science as we’ve made in the past 80 years. Our economies will cost less in energy density, transportation will be logarithmically more efficient. People who are bound by ideologies that condemn half the population, and who are willing to twist “science” for political advantage, cannot conceive of humans creating solutions to the problems that serve one political ideology today: leftist authoritarianism.
In short, there are more reasons to hope for the future than to fear it. If we have the wisdom to restore freedom as our flame of purpose, there is nothing to fear. Biden and his ilk will be gone. Education will be dramatically decentralized and made honest and non-ideological. Freedom, Hope and Genuine Progress: bring it on!
It is certainly obscure, even mysterious, why a wealthy oligarch like George Soros would expend his fortune on the election of socialist, soft-on-crime District and States’ Attorneys. He has had an outsized impact on not only crime rates and, automatically, the victims of criminal acts, but also on the reduction in trust of government, police and justice, itself. Still, there must be a plan.
It doesn’t seem that Soros’ purpose stems from a love of crime or even any particular sympathy for the weak-minded dopes who commit crimes. He doesn’t appear to be an advocate for all things anti-White or pro-Black. But, there must be a plan and, considering his actions Prudently, the shape of the plan can be discerned. It is quite simple.
Soros is a socialist – a virulent one. He doesn’t seem to trust Communists, which is a mark of intelligence, but, like most political socialists, believes that socialism can be controlled and manipulated to fit the goals of oligarchs and one-worlders. By employing a process that breaks down civil order and public safety, Soros makes clear his contempt for the “proletariat,” which is most of us. He has always seemed offended, as it were, by the Constitutional limits that underpin the United States, the belief in “unalienable rights” that they guarantee, and, even more, the basically Christian love of freedom and personal sovereignty. Soros hates the power and influence of the United States of America, and of Americans.
So, it seems clear that the purpose of destroying cities through increasing crime and lack of trust in authority, is designed to force Americans to accept authoritarian forms of government… so as to “clean up” the crime, drug, homelessness and other problems that make normal citizens unsafe. It’s simple, really, and it won’t take long. There is already a significant political party/movement that is pushing for exactly the solutions Soros wants: Democrats. Their experience in promoting and excusing multi-city rioting and destruction, weakening of police departments and removal of the only populist president in our lifetimes, in 2020, and the ability to control almost everyone, including stripping many of their “unalienable rights” by building up the Covid-19 scare of 2020 – 2021 and beyond, encourages Democrats to attack the Constitution directly. They, and Soros, have won some victories.
Are any students, anywhere in America, learning why what Soros has been doing with his money is evil and anti-American? By the same token, are any learning about the Constitution, itself?
It is becoming ever more clear that there are good, solid, society-strengthening, family-strengthening and tribe- or nation-strengthening reasons to NOT sink into hyper-sexuality and debauchery.
“Oh, come on, you damned Republican prude, sex is fun and ‘empowering’ for individuals that didn’t like themselves before learning to translate everything about life and economics into sexuality. Don’t be such a Donnie Downer.” And, if one steps back from identity politics far enough to see the forest AND the trees, that one can see the point being made in that reactive statement.
Now, now, now… calm down, there. America and the West have tried a 60-year experiment in immorality and sexual depravity, all couched in terms of “love,” “freedom,” “rights,” and “health care.” It has proven extremely confusing, mainly because all the things the experiment was supposed to make better, have proven to become worse.
Of course, the prime target of the acids produced (and “dropped”) by the experiment has been morality, primarily Christianity. REGARDLESS of your opinion of “the Church” or any reformation thereof, or of “the Bible,” the rules for living contained in both Testaments, are far, far better than the pack of “rights” and re-defined words we attempt to operate society with, today. There is plenty of evidence of the breakdown of “Western” civilization, here in 2022, not least of which is the installation of an American administration controlled by mostly traitors and liars, and the “root cause” of this breakdown is mirrored by, or caused by, the spread of hyper-sexuality, mainly, but not exclusively, in forms of “non-binary” expressions.
“Oh, you hateful homophobic trans-phobe! You can’t say that, you hater. Next you’ll say you’re opposed to gay marriage. Hummphh!”
It is not Prudence’ intent to use broad-brush half, or even smaller fractional truths to express feelings about others’ partial truths. She intends to make very pointed statements about them. Some examples might help.
Let’s consider pornography. No one talks about it anymore. In the 1950’s and 60’s pornographic photography came of age, or so people thought, in part thanks to Polaroid technology whereby film negatives didn’t have to be shared with any third parties in order to be shareable. Of course there were always hidden, secretive “foreign” magazines from “Sweden” or some other exotic place, but, for the most part, “porn” was under-the-counter or back-room stuff in sleazy joints that most honorable, upright citizens would never frequent. And then came “Playboy.”
With Playboy numerous barriers were breeched: a new envelope was created, as it were, and ever more prurient publications pushed to stretch it. Our own Constitution was unprepared for it. The First Amendment had to be applied in some way to keep porn under wraps… and it couldn’t. Judges, themselves, couldn’t agree on what constituted pornography or obscenity. Pictures, and full-color, high-definition videos, of course, of naked bodies in the midst of various activities, are “protected speech” according to clever attorneys and agreed-to by judges, including supreme court justices. Somewhere along the line, unlike the strict definitions of words usually applied to the Constitution, “speech” has been stretched to include “expression” which is automatically stretched to include bodily movement and exposure, all sorts of cursing and verbal attack. One can almost hear the arguments.
“Freedom of Speech” now means any form of observable or audible activity detectable by another. So, what, you ask? Well, how about skewing life and sexuality toward unreality? Do you not see the damage to marriage, families and morality? And, now that what used to be hidden in various ways is quite public (any “Gay Pride parade), in movies and on television and a raft of advertising campaigns, can we even define morality?
“Morality?” you scream… “You mean that Christianity stuff? Separation of church and state, pal!” Hyper-sexuality has become the most effective weapon against true religion, most particularly, Christianity. Just count the rainbow flags and laws that are closing in on what pastors and priest can even SAY within the liturgy. What good has over-sexualizing everything from elementary school to church services actually done for America?
“Well, we can have more and innovative forms of sexual pleasure, so there… besides, it’s a free country and she can always have an abortion if something happens.” Something. And, it makes health care busier.
Let’s consider another example: the “trans-gender explosion.”
Hyper-sex has become a tool of the left – perhaps it always was. We can define the left as always attempting to erode freedom and responsibility, turning both over to some form of tyranny, camouflaged or not. Federalizing every personal unhappiness is a clear marker, making tyranny stronger and individuals weaker. Ultimately, spirituality and religion are weakened or lost altogether, as we are experiencing, now. Back to “trans.”
Public schools, so-called, are increasingly federal, government schools, with “the public,” whose offspring are the reasons for their and their teaching staffs’ existence, increasingly excluded from participation or influence. Children, from the age of 5, and even earlier in “pre-schools,” are carefully prepared to distrust their parents, prepared to ignore their own realities, like physical features and even names, IN SCHOOL! Teachers, to whom the kiddos are entrusted for 3, 4, 5, 6 hours a day and more, and who are clear authority figures and sources of wisdom – which every child is attempting to gain – are spending less time educating the kids in preparation for adulthood, and more time guiding, or grooming them, for early-onset sexual experimentation and experience. “Do you feel like a boy or a girl, today?”
“You can feel like both, if you want. We’ll call you by a name you like better and we’ll use the pronouns that fit how you feel.”
“Don’t tell your parents about your new name; they’ll be mad at you. You can change into different clothes when you get to school – to match your new name. It will be our secret.”
Can you imagine such conversations? … from TEACHERS? These are your tax dollars at work. When the kids are older, the boys are taught how to tuck their penises into certain underwear so that they’ll look like girls in their underpants rather than boys. What the Hell do “underpants appearances” have to do with school?
Girls are taught to bind their breasts so they’ll look more like boys. Both are offered drugs to prevent development in puberty, risking permanent physical damage and developmental retardation and likely sterility. Is that the point? To prevent more children? Or is it simply, and cruelly, designed to dissolve tradition and normalcy and family bonds?
Who, or what “institution” benefits from the breakdown of chastity? Casting about in all directions reveals only a single beneficiary: government… and Satan, one might say, often indistinguishable. And as it expands, it is not a government of benign partnership in the success of its citizens; it is a government that almost automatically divides its population against one another, increasing dependence upon… you guessed it, not freedom, but increasingly tyrannical government.
Government of, by and for the government. 87,000 new, armed, IRS agents will do that. None of their purpose is to enhance freedom – it’s to vacuum money from we the serfs.
Interestingly, the strongest political force against this foul creep of foul creeps, is parents, fighting to keep their families intact and their children as pure as possible.
Why the hyper-sexualization of kids, though? There is an overarching control-meme pushing otherwise professional and ostensibly educated people to adopt Critical Gender and Race theories. We can encapsulate it with the term, “ideology,” but that’s the same charge these groomers use against religion: ideology, a belief system without empirical proof. And, they are the first to shout the loudest about “impose your religious mumbo-jumbo on my body…” Yet, the only “proof” that has emitted from Critical Gender Theory is the destruction of lives, families, suicides and lifelong regrets in all but the rarest of cases. And WE’RE the haters?
Dear friends, we are fighting the Anti-Christ, pure Marxism. Marx, who believed in God, believed also that he would go to Hell for his philosophies. He knew what he was doing and advocating. We need to know, also, and reverse the tide on Marxist hatred that seems to have infected much of our American governance. Those who are its advocates have adopted the anti-life, anti-freedom philosophies for the crassest, crappiest political advantage and wealth. For shame.
When tyranny threatens, elections are months away.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MILITIA
The evolution of American constitutionalism responded no more to the several theories of rights and representation of the late 18th Century, as much as to the necessity of freeing ourselves from the shackles imposed by the British Crown and a non-representative Parliament. That freedom would not have been won without “Militias” – home-grown assemblages of armed citizens, by definition, non-governmental organizations. Our Constitution references these quasi-military, self-selected groups of passionate defenders of farm, family and business, in the Second Amendment.
The potency of the Second Amendment is rarely mentioned. Everyone argues over the “… right to keep and bear Arms…” Opponents of gun ownership point to the first phrase, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, …” as if it referenced what we now call the State Police, or even “State Militia” which are controlled and limited by our friendly and benign state governments. Some liken the term to the National Guard, which is even further off the mark. “Militia,” in the Second Amendment, refers to self-declared and assembled, armed, private-citizen organizations. It is not clear that such organizations are legally tolerated today.
In fact, there are a number of such groups around the country: legal gun bearers who come together like clubs, perhaps including some militaristic training. They tend strongly toward white-guys, exclusively, sometimes religious, generally anti-federal government. Unfortunately, there is a parallel tendency toward racism, but the number of incidents in which members of such “clubs” attack blacks or others is very, very small… no way comparable to the numbers of blacks who attack everyone else, although never being charged with “racism.”
Militias have a bad name. Still, they are a part of the patriotic front that challenged and stopped the British in the 1770’s, and which became part of the “official” Continental Army under general George Washington. They were tough people, supported by equally tough wives and relatives, both farmers and merchants. How would they fit in to today’s social fabric and political landscape? They are referenced and promoted in our Constitution, but universally denigrated as, mainly, racist crackpots playing with guns.
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State…” What “state” were the framers talking about?
At the time of the fight for independence, the “states” were colonies: 13 separate entities with separate civil authorities appointed by the King or by his governors. To become sovereign states they had to both rid themselves of British governors and soldiers, who were the “police,” as it were, and then establish their own authorities with elections, appointments, codified laws and relatively independent courts. They had, also, to defend themselves. Automatically it became obvious that the colonies had to stand against the British together, else they’d be militarily quashed separately. Without much debate, they formed the Continental Congress and a sense of “nation” was established across fairly diverse colonies. A common enemy will do that.
Militias, essentially, were folded in to the individual colonies’ “Minutemen” forces and ultimately into the Continental Army, but not all of them. Many Militia fighters served key roles in interfering with British supplies and cavalry, harassing them like guerilla fighters, sometimes providing a flanking force when standing ranks faced off on battlefields. However, by the time of the war of 1812, militias were relatively unheard of. Citizens were still armed, but the U. S. Army and Navy then formed the military wherewithal of the new nation, calling up fighters from the states, each of whom represented their states as much as they did the United States.
The Constitution acknowledged and stipulated the importance of “militias,” and stipulated the right to keep and bear arms, but militias, themselves, faded from prominence.
By the end of the Civil War there was no question that the military forces were U. S. forces, and the federal government took on the costs and administration of veterans’ disabilities and welfare. States had police forces, but no longer raised their own “regulars” or trained or equipped them. Militias, if such can be identified at all, devolved into chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, constantly ginning up anger against negroes – a most despicable era of American history. Roughly speaking, the “Union” army and victorious states were “Republicans;” the former confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan itself, were “Democrats.” Democrats supported gun control laws, among other segregationist restrictions, to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. To maintain power and influence, the Klan, like revolutionary militias, had to constantly exaggerate the presence of a common enemy: free negroes.
“Militias,” now, are perceived as kooks. Any concept of forming armed forces to overthrow “the government,” is inherently illegal, and only a tiny fraction of Americans in either party think it’s either practical or legitimate. Yet the concept of non-governmental militias is Constitutional! Where could “militias” fit in? First, they’d have to meet standards. Their fellow citizens would have to trust them in terms of public safety and support of the Constitution, itself. Then what?
Somehow, some way, militias would have to coexist with police forces, both municipal and state. Participation in “Guardian” training and functions is a good place to start.
The Guardian Program, yet to be adopted anywhere, is designed to “legitimize” concealed carry, in a sense. The Constitution already protects the right to keep and bear arms – carry them around, in other words: to be individually armed. As a Guardian, the person who is willing to carry a firearm would also be trained in handling, safety and safe reaction in the presence of a crime or imminent criminal act. That person would also wear a “9-1-1” transponder that would identify and locate the individual and alert police forces to a possible active-shooter situation. Meanwhile, the guardian would take such action as practical to defuse a conflict or stop criminal action until police arrived.
Finally, the guardian would be shielded by special indemnification for legitimate and proper actions taken to stop criminal actions, whether on his or her own property or in public. “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” The truth of that observation is timeless. Establishing “Guardian” legislation enables the multiplication of police power and effectiveness at very low cost. It also provides vectors for evaluating gun owners and their family environments. If such gun owners formed the core of “militias,” governments and citizens could have confidence in their judgment and rationality.
Militias could also be held to ethical standards. Non-guardians who “joined up” would have to swear to certain behaviors and practices concerning gun ownership, handling and safety inside and outside of their homes. Militia organizations would be subject to fines for failing to adhere to ethical standards or for failing to reject or eject members who fail to do so. Such information would have to be shared with law-enforcement and become part of the unacceptable persons’ records. Most Militias would form through “Rod and Gun” clubs or hunting clubs or “Sportsmens’ Clubs.” Whether they could remain associated with those clubs would be a decision of the club, not of any government. How would a Militia function politically? How would the majority opinions of a Militia or dozens of Militias, enter into public policy or political power? Who would their “common enemy” be?
By definition, the “common enemy” would be our own federal, central government at the moment it is perceived as tyrannical. We have major political forces who are enthralled with government by experts – the bureaucratic state. Decision-making by and for individuals is anathema to these leftist “Progressives.” They are also anti-religious, increasingly opposed to free speech, virulently opposed to the second Amendment as written, and socialist in economics and social organization. Many members of a militia organized to monitor and resist – if not remove – tyranny in our central government, would count “Progressives” among the tyrants. A militia formed by progressives, for such there could be, though unlikely, would see themselves as saviors and conservatives as the common enemy.
Obviously, those most attracted to “militias” would be vilified and hated to greater degrees as members than they are, if at all, as relatively quiet, unobtrusive neighbors and co-workers.
Militias would tend to be somewhat secretive in their meetings and deliberations. Using common social media communications would leave them open to attack and interference. They will want to network – and perhaps coordinate – with other militias through a modern version of “Committees of Correspondence” as was done in Revolutionary times, when their discovery would have resulted in arrest and torture. If not actual secrecy, strict confidentiality would be essential to operation and growth of militias. But, how, short of taking up arms in fact, would constitutional militias influence political, governmental actions and direction?
Clearly they would have to be financially independent of government support or tax abatement or tax-free status on any places of meeting or practice / training. They would be subject to continuous hate from leftists and racists, for they would not be able to control militias from the inside. They would have to be scrupulous about opening membership to anyone who met their standards of behavior and ethics, which standards would include legal gun ownership, by definition. But, again, how would a militia influence political power? Could a militia sway the votes of others?
Communications, communications, communications. As with the Committees of Correspondence, militias would have to present factual and documented positions on the actions of government(s) and of elected or appointed officials. They would have to lay bare the nature of tyrannies large and small that made clear the un-representative nature of those in power including, most specifically, the expenditures of public monies. To do so would mean operating publishing businesses in both print and digital formats. Since a militia would not be a political “party” or be attempting to run candidates of its own, its publications would have to be both historical and current, and easily comprehensible as to how an issue/ topic either resisted tyranny of the state (or municipality) or fit into a tyrannical or potentially tyrannical action that threatened Constitutionally guaranteed rights or the freedoms of individuals.
Would anyone care if they did this work? Would citizens listen? Militias, like those that deposed tyranny at the inception of our country, have an obligation to pursue wisdom and to act upon it. The first militias had the wisdom of recognizing tyranny and of how to multiply their effectiveness in fighting it. It led them to wonderous courage and sacrifice. To fulfill that legacy, Constitutional militias must form with that same sort of commitment. Membership would not be a sport or part-time interest. Just as “the Left” maintains decades, if not centuries, of commitment to upending Biblical truths and models of behavior and governance based on individual freedom and responsibility, Militias must maintain a singular purpose to inform other Americans of the lies and evil of Socialism and Communism, backed up by the ability to risk everything to overthrow tyranny in defense of the American Way.
The creation of one militia, independent and uncorrupted, will bring forth many others, and their creation still more. We have learned after dozens of congresses and hundreds of representatives and senators, that the election of readily corruptible men and women who enter office with pathways of personal wealth and influence providing them all too many comforts and excuses for failure, has not – and will not – bring about the change needed to save and preserve our nation, our Constitution and our integrity. A well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State.
Despite Prudence’ writings over the past 8 years, the nation has not adjusted to the models of governance and behavior she has carefully laid out. Upon the election of the odd Joe Biden and his basically anti-American administration, irritating, family and society-weakening tendencies have become policies, however illegitimately. Now, they’re crises – crises that threaten the survival of our nation and of Freedom, itself. Like the heart of Socialism in every sense, it derives from the avoidance of responsibility.
People say things like, “it’s a new day,” or “Times have changed.” Except “times” haven’t changed, people have. They’ve – we’ve – been taught new ideas to believe, habits to adopt, pleasures to revel in. We can look to a sudden change upon the murder of President John Kennedy. Most likely, the purpose of that assassination was political, not cultural. Kennedy had created powerful personal and political enemies. The abrupt change in culture and morals was an inadvertent one. Lyndon Johnson became president, federal civil rights legislation moved to center stage, for right reasons, but its adoption was made possible by the crassest political calculations. Inadvertently, for some but not all, the Civil Rights bill shifted morality into the metastasizing businesses of the federal administrative state and the court, where it has become enforced amorality.
Prior to the ‘60s, change in living standards and integration was happening due to improvements in individual beliefs in better moral codes… not fast enough, by a long shot, but improvement and progress were being made. The Civil Rights Act and the movement that brought it to fruition, inadvertently changed the nature of federal moral enforcement, even as it made long-overdue corrections to discrimination and segregation. Part of the federal “corrections” included elements of the “Great Society,” which federalized welfare and began the application of laws differently for different groups. This process, in all of its corrupt and socialist pieces, has rendered the federal government a soft tyrant which is hardening daily, while providing $Trillions of support for sub-tyrannies throughout the administrative state, particularly in Education.
Under the Constitution, the only moral adjustments can and should be made through equal justice: Equal protection under the law / equal application of the law. That canary escaped with the passage of the Great Society. Otherwise, our system works only if the vast majority of our citizens and residents share basic morals and mores, a claim that can no longer be made. Every institution that could reinforce the moral strength of our people, including schools and churches, are either hell-bent in the opposite direction, or bending a knee to popular immorality. For shame.
Freedom isn’t freedom without responsibility, it’s mere licentiousness. As responsibility began evaporating in the 1960’s, leftists accelerated, as part of civil rights and the Great society, their domination of public education and colleges of education, themselves. Like Mao’s “Long March,” it has taken decades – well-paid decades – to convert the role of education from conveyance of language, culture, skills, morals and history to our youth, to one of separation by race, class and, incredibly, gender. Everything happening fulfills the Communist Manifesto: separation from God and from Responsibility.
Churches and liturgies have proven to be much weaker than the years of bygone sacrifices to hold to and establish those faith communities would indicate. Just count the rainbow flags that some churches think override the teachings that brought them this far. They are proving every day that it is nearly impossible to convince others of ideas you, yourself, don’t believe. Simple economics can’t take the place of shared moral goodness.
America has been under moral attack for 60 years at a higher intensity than during its first 170 years. As the lessons of Genesis make clear, God’s Word (or, if you find that term more offensive than child abuse) moral truths, are always under attack here on Earth. Christianity has long been the primary target of such opposition, both from within and without.
For centuries those attacks tended to fail because the engine of responsibility kept working. People still, for the most part, paid the price for their own follies and failures. That is, until socialism replaced monarchy. Evil men – almost always men – grasped socialist ideas as a better way to control nations, economies and armies, but they ultimately fell: their bases were evil and so counter to human nature that they became insane. There has never been a government that created for itself political defenses that not only protected amorality and immorality, but learned to erode morality and, specifically, responsibility by individuals. Not until the U. S. federal (and state) administrative states. They’ve made a lot of “progress,” but they are “Progressives” by their own description. It has taken 60 years of “re-education” to bring us to an America facing the corrosive issues we do today.
What are the parameters of responsibility in matters of conception, pregnancy, abortion and birth?
Since the ‘60s we have replaced marriage as the cultural norm, with contraception, abortion, “hooking up,” and fatherless children. Responsibility has shifted to federal and state welfare programs. Women have become convinced that they need not choose a decent, committed and loving man who will provide for his family and children, and who will be in their lives through puberty and into adulthood – and this all before having sex! All they need is the sperm… and other men when they feel like it. It is the destruction of the American family and of children – especially boys: our vote-buying tax dollars of destruction, at work.
Along with hyper-sexualization of grade school children, lewd “Pride” parades and filth in school libraries, the left appears to be obsessed with fornication for “all genders.” To Democrats and other anti-Christian groups, fornication is a “right” as important to freedom as the First Amendment and all the rest. Except, without responsibility, it’s not a freedom at all. Enter abortion “rights.” Except abortion never was a “right,” per se; democratic decisioning at the state level is the “right” our Constitution guarantees.
What are the parameters of responsibility in matters of guns, ownership, self-defense and crime?
Gun owners quote the phrase, “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It is part of the Second Amendment. Some like to ignore the stuff about the “A well regulated Militia…” But, as they may also choose to ignore, the amendment goes on to qualify the concept of a “militia,” as follows: “… being necessary to the security of a free State, …” Above all, the Bill of Rights amendments and their wordings are intensely Prudent in their purposes of preventing a tyrannical central government. Guaranteeing individual armament is crucial to that purpose. Clearly, by simple inference, mindful of why the Constitution was drafted and mindful of the horrendous sacrifices needed to permit its creation, is it not obvious that arming the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT had nothing whatsoever to do with the second amendment?
The only “militias” in the new nation’s experience were those formed by local communities and others to fight off the central government, perceived to be tyrannical toward the colonies. This aspect is never, ever acknowledged by that same federal government. Yes, gun ownership is crucial to individual self-defense, which that same federal – and some states’ – governments appear to discourage, if not deny, to its citizens, even as those governments purposely abdicate their contracted role of public safety. Had the British monarch established today’s same failed public policies, the justification for overturning his authority would have been far more popular.
There is a high expectation of responsibility for Constitutionally legal gun owners. As a definable demographic, legal gun owners are the least source of crime and, by far, the least source of crimes involving firearms. Yet this same group is always the target for restriction whenever a mentally or criminally defective person commits a “mass” shooting. Individual shootings and murders by gang members and drug dealers are of no particular concern to those who attack the rights of legal gun owners.
Maybe the concept of “militia” for legal gun owners is one that should be developed – not by any government, but by gun owners, themselves. “Whoa,” you might be saying. “That sounds like a mechanism for insurrection.”
Well, it’s not, but that threat should ALWAYS be on the mind of the Executive departments, and on the minds of voters. Sadly, and our own faults, the Congress should have it at top of mind, as well. Americans have the RIGHT to replace a tyrannical government with a representative one. One bright light – President Biden – during a press conference on gun control, uttered these non-sequiturs:
“Those who say the blood of lib- — ‘the blood of patriots,’ you know, and all the stuff about how we’re going to have to move against the government. Well, the tree of liberty is not watered with the blood of patriots. What’s happened is that there have never been — if you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”
If these words had been uttered by someone who knew what he were talking about, they’d be chilling to Americans… perhaps, upon reflection, they are. That bozo is President. But the concept of “militia” is not far-fetched. Certainly it is not a federal force, nor should it be funded federally. “Militias” should be local, and the more local the better. In the most Prudent view, those gun owners who choose to carry concealed could be part of an anonymous police-trained force that has been earlier referenced as “Guardians.” (See: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2016/05/30/the-guardian-program/) These same would be the nucleus of local militias. Leadership of each jurisdiction’s militia would be chosen by election within the membership, and thereby granted officers’ titles.
The nature of “Militia,” Constitutionally, is inherently anti-federal. No wonder this aspect of the Second Amendment is never discussed. “Nuclear weapons,” indeed. At the time of its adoption, the concept of “Militia” was understood as the forerunners of the Continental Army ultimately led by George Washington, named a General by the Continental Congress. To make the revolution work required the establishment of a governing body separate from the King and his governors and troops. It was all extra-legal and deemed illegal by the Crown. Militias were already fighting the Redcoats by the time the Continental Congress got down to the business of revolutionary government.
Americans are so reliant upon a steady and dependable government in Washington, that we find it hard to conceive of an autonomous civilian militia, yet that is precisely what the framers were talking about. The colonies had just fought off a tyrant and the framers were determined that we be just as prepared to fight off another, should the tyranny arise. There existed very little affinity for a central government because of the tendency toward tyranny by virtually all such entities. The ability of citizens to check the power of government provided all the justification needed for a Second Amendment. Armed crime in the streets was practically non-existent in 1789, so that wasn’t the reason for it; hunting was so crucial to provisioning of food and even clothing, that no one had to “allow” for it in the Constitution. What was crucial was preventing another tyranny from replacing the British Crown. The twenty-seven words of the Second Amendment guaranteed the ability of citizens to replace a tyrannical central government, and Ratification was impossible without it.
Today, unfortunately, discussion of the true reason for the 2nd Amendment brings forth accusations of sedition and insurrection, “fringe” white-supremacist grouping, and religious fundamentalism. Yet, it is the Constitution we have and that forms us, even now.
To the “left,” constitutionalism is suspect in all iterations. It challenges and exposes the sanctity of the STATE for the hollow proto-tyranny towards which it constantly slithers. The “establishment,” nearly as tyrannical as it could be – economically, morally, politically – is directly threatened by the Constitution, as are all tyrants, everywhere. Our own proto-tyrants fight to make the U. S. as much like every other nation as they can, while patriots recognize and try to enhance the exceptional nature of our constitutional Republic. “America first” sends chills down the spines of the permanently re-elected swine that wallow for decades at a time in the halls of Congress.
Americans have unique responsibilities, including defense and preservation of the Constitution; it is not the task of elected people, specifically, but of THE PEOPLE. The Constitution came not from government, but from “We, the People…” WE ordained it, which is that we gave it life. WE ratified it, but only when the Bill of Rights was appended to it, which is that we entered into a covenant with all who forever after held office upon swearing to Preserve and Defend it – the Presidents merely a handful of those. The ultimate defense and execution of the Constitution is our business: the People’s. We are obligated to preserve it, defend it and live according to its rights and responsibilities on behalf of every American citizen, now and forever after, as well as on behalf of every nation and people, who depend upon the United States to stand firmly against globalism, socialism and communism… and dishonesty. Let’s get busy.
PARKLAND, FL – FEBRUARY 18: Shari Unger, Melissa Goldsmith and Giulianna Cerbono (L-R) hug each other as they visit a makeshift memorial setup in front of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Facts are part of the problems that must be solved to prevent “school shootings.” Everyone who is distraught about yet another mass murder of our most innocent and, in every case, unprotected children, has facts about the incident, about other, similar incidents, perhaps about certain guns or numbers of bullets in a clip, and about what various public or political leaders have said about the same subjects. Facts, however, are often mere data-points and not necessarily good anchors for solutions or even “truths.” Those require judgment, balance, cool reasoning and imagination.
For example, we have learned that Salvador Ramos, the sick, troubled 18-year-old who had considered, if not planned, to shoot up a school for at least FOUR YEARS, had managed to buy two AR-15 model rifles and more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition. Those are facts but they don’t lead us to any solution. Some have said, in effect, “He should never have been able to buy those items!” They are absolutely right, but why? Because no one should be able to buy them? It is a Constitutionally protected right; do we throw out our right to self-protection because a crazed teenager committed a terrible crime? Some believe that removing the rights of law-abiding Americans IS a solution. It’s not that clear.
Ramos was known to be disturbed and dangerous for at least 4 years. He was arrested and held for mental evaluation at age 14. Nothing was placed in his record. Four years later he appeared to be a legal 18-year-old ADULT when he went to buy a gun, BUT HE SHOULD NOT HAVE appeared so! One has to ask why we have background checks if no data is going to be added to that background? Legal, licensed gun owners are fully in favor of realistic registration and licensing… not to punish gun dealers, but to keep guns out of the hands of people too unbalanced to handle the responsibility of gun ownership. If regulations are not designed to assess responsibility and balance in individuals, then they will likely reduce freedom and rights for honest citizens, which is not the covenant the Constitution is based upon.
We could list all the mistakes made on the day of the event in Uvalde, but few will listen because they already “know” some un-Constitutional restrictions are the “real” answer.
Here’s another set of facts: somewhere between 600,000 and 2 Million times a year (fairly steady data over the past 20 or more years, including studies by beloved, official agencies), private gun-owners stop or prevent crimes, almost always without actually shooting a gun. Even if it were only 1,000,000 times a year, that’s an average of 2,740 incidents a DAY that a criminal act is prevented or interrupted before police could arrive on scene. It likely prevents several hundred other crimes that would be perpetrated had the “perp” succeeded in the interrupted one. Civil society would be almost impossible without private, legal gun ownership.
In fact, legal gun owners – MOST ESPECIALLY NRA MEMBERS – are the least likely demographic to commit crimes in the United States! Why is the NRA hated and vilified by so many? Perhaps it’s because they do not compromise on the Constitution, whereas one political party, and politicians individually, are constantly trying to soften the restrictions placed on them by the Constitution… especially on the Left. One can look not so far back in history to see that authoritarians, dictators, fascists and Communists consistently move to disarm their populations. Why are America’s “leaders” always trying to do the same? Perhaps they dream of leaving the home of freedom and its massive responsibility, and joining the club of dominance, repression and never having to answer to anyone or for anything.
A known screwball, virtually unchallenged by those well-paid and trained to challenge and STOP nuts like him, is allowed into a “gun-free” school where, again, he is not challenged for an HOUR or more, during which he completes the murder of 19 children and two teachers. Before the little bodies have cooled off, leftists began clamoring to take guns away from honest citizen-gun-owners, especially if they are members of the NRA! It makes only twisted, leftist sense while offering no solution to mass shootings. Yet anyone who tries to point out all the failures of existing gun laws or of police agencies is vilified and accused of “having blood on (your) hands.” What rot.
No gun, hand or long, has ever shot a bullet by itself, but people who are the most ignorant about guns have labeled the scary-looking ones as “assault” rifles. Somehow, the scarier the appearance of the rifle the more likely it is to have its own intentions. Augmenting the intentions of the shapes, springs, nuts and bolts of a rifle are the declarations of the frightened that “no one needs a rifle that can shoot 10, or 20 or 30 bullets without reloading.” Alternatively, those scared or angered by the shape of rifles climb a little higher upon their dudgeon, claiming that, “no one should be hunting a deer by spraying it with bullets from an assault rifle.” Finally, something that has a kernel of truth, although it’s not the argument that will expose a solution to the vulnerability of school children.
Prudence’ task is not to defend AR-15’s or any other legal weapon; the purpose at hand is to figure out how to keep bullets fired from ANY weapon from traveling toward a child, in school or anywhere else. This is the point, is it not?
First, without destroying any part of the Constitution, let’s “harden” the schools, themselves. Make it a rational process to get into school buildings, and have an armed guard at the point of entry as children arrive and leave. Have facial recognition systems that identify any adults who may be connected to a student, there. Have metal screens that can block doors and windows by remote control, and panic buttons that start recordings of every hallway, office and classroom, as well as immediate surroundings, as they summon police electronically. Along with this there should be at least a handful of staff who are exceptionally trained to fire back at shooters with AR-15-type weapons that are locked in a gun safe or safes inside the school. Schools would become very UN-inviting targets, rather than corrals for “sitting ducks” as they now are.
All of these steps only apply where people who think children are entitled to grow up, live. They aren’t designed to help anyone’s re-election.
What about “common-sense gun laws?” Apparently, there aren’t any since all of those proposed don’t add to anyone’s safety. But there are rational, Constitutional regulations that increase both freedom and public safety, and they should be employed before anyone loses his or her unalienable rights. Here are a few:
First, teach children about guns, safe handling, the law, and responsibility. We seem Hell-bent on teaching kids how to have sex, with NO responsibility, while non-marital sex ruins more lives than guns each year – many time over. Prudence would start gun clubs and teams around the 7th or 8th grades, with severe consequences for irresponsible handling of any firearm, even to the point of delaying the age at which a person can legally buy a gun or be licensed, should he or she not take school gun courses seriously. Such training and practice would also reveal certain psychological problems or tendencies around guns that could bring useful counseling into the picture. It would also prepare youth for later military acceptance should they choose that form of service or career.
Firearm skills can be the basis for healthy competition just as golf, tennis or basketball skills are. Sharp-shooting is hard. Learning the mechanisms, maintenance and proper handling of a weapon is no more likely to turn a teen toward murder than learning how to cook with sharp knives, hot oil or heavy frying pans. But it will reveal tendencies to ignore safety and propriety and some other reasons for denying or delaying later gun ownership. It is infinitely safer than school-age sexual experimentation. Being taught to be afraid of guns is both illogical and immature. Guns are tools, in a sense, like baseball bats. They can’t shoot themselves any more than a bat will hit a pitched ball by itself. They should be learned and understood: it’s part of growing up in America. After learning about them one isn’t forced to own or deal with them later in life; he or she should know the rights and responsibilities that connect to guns… it’s part of the Constitution, after all.
We all should fear the warped intentions of the few who are willing to commit gun-shot murder, itself, or to enforce surrender by the victims of other crimes. Many of these intentions can be discerned well in advance of the commission of criminal acts, including school shootings. Whether in Newtown, Connecticut (Sandy Hook School), Parkland, Florida (Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School), Uvalde, Texas (Robb Elementary School), or even in Littleton, Colorado (Columbine High School) and elsewhere, the troubled mental and emotional states of the perpetrators was well-known to many, sometimes for months or years. Parents knew, school officials knew, fellow students knew. In some cases, police, mental health services or agencies, even the F.B.I.(!) knew of threats to “shoot up” a school and did nothing or blame some bureaucratic error for doing nothing in time to stop the impending murders. To solve this problem, the Biden administration and other dim bulbs want to take away legal weapons owned by law-abiding, stable citizens. That’ll work.
Another approach consists of “Red Flag” laws, where guns might be removed from people who appear to be unstable in some way, or criminally inclined. A strip-mine dump-truck could fit through that legal loophole as currently proposed. But maybe a form of pre-emption would be Prudent; maybe clear heads could craft laws that preserve due process and the Constitution while minimizing the likelihood of future crimes. Instead of punishing people for their political views by accusing broad groups of Americans of some “ism” or other, observations of aberrant tendencies could be acted upon in special, secret hearings that won’t destroy suspects’ reputations. Would this mean executing an arrest warrant? Not necessarily.
What if a plain-clothes officer arrived at a residence to interview the person named – what sort of document would he or she have that might convince the resident to allow entry? Could it be created and presented without creating a permanent “black mark” on a suspect’s “record?” Could the “accuser,” or, at least, suspicious observer, remain anonymous throughout the process to avoid retribution? What about when the suspicious observer is a member of the suspect’s household? Will the revelation of the suspicions aggravate family tensions? These are all factors that must be dealt with before police legally try to take guns away from a licensed owner.
Perhaps gun training in school would help create a profile that would enhance the licensing process for certain individuals, keeping guns away from potentially unstable young adults. We know the profile of instability; couldn’t we be just a little more careful in the presence of that profile? Even Prudence would agree to some limits. Why is the “solution” proffered by leftists ALWAYS confiscation and banning?
One of the “commonsense,” but dopey ideas that is often mentioned on the left, is some form of personalized connection to one’s firearm. That is, a fingerprint or palm-print has to match before the gun is operable. This is so impractical, especially at times of emergency, that it literally negates gun ownership for any of those one-to-two-Million prevented or interrupted crimes each year.
However, as is popular for certain cars, the gun could be rendered usable only in proximity to a key-fob type, RFID device. Even if stolen, the gun would not be usable without gunsmithing work. The proximity could be so localized that children handling the gun would be prevented from accidental wounding.
It seems obvious that “protecting children” is not the purpose of Democrat-proposed “commonsense gun laws.” Protecting children could start in any urban ghetto by enforcing mandatory sentencing for illegal gun use or possession. Hundreds of children, mostly teenagers, kill one another with illegally possessed AND used guns, primarily handguns. If arrested, so-called “gun charges” are routinely plead down specifically to avoid incarceration, which is so unfair if a perpetrator’s skin is brown. Disproportionate impact.
By the same token, they could protect kids who are struggling to be born… if they cared about children. There’s certainly disproportionate impact on unborn babies with brown skin. But those killings aren’t murders – killings with guns are. Yet, they continue, despite all gun laws to the contrary.
Are we interested in preventing school shootings? Protecting our children from sexual abuse in grade school? Protecting our children long enough to be born? How are the children, anyway?
