It seems as though Donald Trump and Elon Musk draw lightning no matter where they go. Put them into the same space and suddenly the whole world draws near to see the fireworks. And like clockwork, discussions swirl around free speech. 

Monday night, X Spaces hosted a conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. 2.1 million people listened in, while the post itself gathered over 54 million views. While these numbers are impressive, the number one Spaces event remains Musk’s discussion with Ron Desantis a few years ago. 

Of course, technical troubles before the discussion with Trump caused saliva to run down the chins of the establishment media. They took no time at all to report about the “glitches” and “technical difficulties” before the program began. 

Musk claims the attack was a DDOS attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack. This type of cyber-attack is akin to trying to fit so many people through the gate that the system crashes and is of use to no one.  

The drooling, lap-dog media put it upon themselves to march out anonymous sources who claim Musk was lying and that he was lying about the attack. 

The hatred for Musk and for Trump showed itself on full display both before and after the event.

The EU Put Their Hat in the Ring 

Hours before Musk and Trump were scheduled to sit down, the internal market commissioner of the EU, Thierry Breton, threatened Musk and his attempt to put EU citizens at “serious harm”. 

In his strongly worded letter, Breton made it his duty to warn Musk that he must do “due diligence” to oblige by the Digital Services Act of the EU. Breton stated in his letter, “As the individual entity ultimately controlling a platform with over 300 million users worldwide, of which one-third is in the EU, that has been designated as a Very Large Online Platform, you have the legal obligation to ensure X’s compliance with EU law and in particular the DSA in the EU.” 

He continued, “This notably means ensuring, on one hand, the freedom of expression and of information, including media freedom and pluralism, are effectively protected and, on the other hand, that all proportionate and effective mitigation measures are put in place regarding the amplification of harmful content in connection with relevant events, including live streaming, which, if unaddressed, might increase the risk profile of X and generate detrimental effects on civic discourse and public security.” 

One wonders how a person might reasonably protect freedom of expression and information, and yet at the same time censor anything possibly deemed “detrimental” to civic discourse and public security. 

Breton posted the letter on X with a caption reading, “With great audience comes greater responsibility. As there is a risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in the EU in connection with events with major audiences around the world, I sent this letter to @elonmusk.” 

The tyrant-in-training finished his letter with a promise. He wrote, "My services and I will be extremely vigilant to any evidence that points to breaches of the DSA and will not hesitate to make full use of our toolbox, including by adopting interim measures, should it be warranted to protect EU citizens from serious harm," the Commissioner added.  

Meanwhile, reports now indicate that Brussels itself did not approve the letter and seems a little miffed that Breton stepped out the way he did. The Financial Times reports that the European Commission denied that Breton had approval from President Ursula von der Leyen to follow through with the letter. 

The Threat Against Free Speech 

Even though Breton seems to have embarrassed himself slightly in the eyes of Brussels, X continues to be under the microscope of the EU. Strangely, it’s as though a platform whose owner talks frequently about free speech, and rights might be a threat to the authoritarian regime of the EU. 

Add in the riots in the UK and the 1984-style crackdown on how information flows on social media, and X has again found itself in the crosshairs of the censors-on-high. 

If the EU decides that X has not followed the DSA discussed by Breton, they could potentially face fines of up to 6 percent of their worldwide turnover, as reported by the Financial Times. This would make for a nice little bonus in the EU coffers. 

The Power of Independence and Free Speech 

Unfortunately, the EU wasn’t the only entity discussing speech censorship BEFORE the Trump and Musk interview. During the press briefing at the White House on Monday, hours before the interview, the Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson Jr. wondered, "What role does the White House or the president have in sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of intervening in that? Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but, you know, it’s a wider thing, right?" 

Imagine, a reporter questioning a White House Press Secretary on the role of the President in stopping “misinformation” from a conversation between a business owner and a presidential candidate. 

Of course, the fact-checkers were out in droves to claim that Trump lied anywhere from 20 times to 200 times.  

But the gall of the progressive and authoritarian camp is on full display before our very eyes. We now witness preemptive strikes by those who deem speech a danger to society and civility, as they clamor for any means necessary to stop a man they hate. 

Regard for citizen’s rights has been flown out the window under the cover of public safety. And they will continue to do so. 

Why? Fear drives panic. Panic pushes people to look for someone to be in charge. When a person steps up and offers their hand, all they ask in return is the obedience and submitted heart of the person following them. Our expert and political class recognizes that society has hit the point at which they can drive fear to build obedience. 

Look no further than Covid, when people masked up and socially distanced by the billions, all because their government told them to be afraid. Now, the new pandemic is not an air-borne illness, but conversations and posts on social media. The infection and sickness are now racism, hatred, and violence. 

Even though the tiny number of cases is questionable, the authoritarian establishment will continue to double down on this danger. At the end of the day, they care so much because they themselves live in fear. They fear the populace. They fear the loss of power. They shake at the thought of falling into obscurity and seeing their aims and goals fade into the mist. 

Never Back Down on Free Speech 

We’ve watched plenty of moves to squash, restrict, and punish free speech. The common individual must grasp free speech with every fiber of their being. If we do not, we will compromise the deepest parts of us – our beliefs and convictions. Once we give in to the bully forcing us to be silent, we will dramatically shift our inner beliefs to match our actions. We will slowly and surely shrug our shoulders saying, “It didn’t matter that much anyway.”  

If we find ourselves in that position, then we’ve already lost. Now is the vital time in which the American spirit can push against any thought of authoritarian control. As a populace, we can make sure those in positions of power give up their own beliefs and convictions instead. 

We can ensure they are the ones who shrug their shoulders and say, “It didn’t matter that much anyway.” 

While we have stock market crashes, war between Iran and Israel, elections heating up, and Olympic boxing controversies, we may learn a couple of lessons from the chaos unfolding over in England.

What Happened in the UK?

A 17-year-old boy is being accused of stabbing three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport.

Axel Rudakubanais currently being charged with murdering three girls while being charged with 10 counts of attempted murder after stabbing others in the class.

Rumors swirled around the event, as people claimed a Muslim immigrant had stabbed the girls in a rampage. Rudakubana’s family is of Rwandan descent, however, it is believed that Rudakubana was not a first-generation migrant. They are also believed to be faithful church-going Christians. Of course, we must be skeptical of any and all information provided.

This event sparked massive protests which included burning vehicles and setting buildings on fire. As a response, roving groups of Muslims counter-protested as coalitions of communists, LGBTQ, and pro-Palestinian protesters also set themselves against pro-UK marches and protests.

Riots in the UK

While the media and government are quick to blame “disinformation” for the uprising in protests, various local sources have expressed what they believe is inspiring their fellow Brits: frustration at a two-tiered system that has seen countless events in which the natives are subjected to arrest and prosecution as immigrants avoid harsh punishments for horrible crimes.

At the same time, the energy and chaos of the boil-over have dangerous consequences. Videos of Muslims attacking white Englishmen, and the opposite have flooded X, along with videos from the riots and protests that have engulfed plenty of cities. Some groups of pro-UK men have torched hotels in which migrants have been housed, and city centers have been torn apart. Muslim patrols are now seeking out white men and beating them in the streets.

Meanwhile, news reports on the scene discuss the danger of “far-right” protesters as Muslim men can be seen in the background carrying machetes and weapons.

During some of these events, police took it upon themselves to politely ask Muslim men to carry their weapons to their Mosque, while 24-hour courts are being opened to try and convict “far-right” protesters.

Contrasts have been made between the reaction of Prime Minister Kier Starmer when the Black Lives Matter riots were happening a few years ago and the current riots of outrage over the death of the three little girls. During the BLM riots, Starmer made certain to voice solidarity with those mostly peaceful protesters. Now, Starmer vows swift and brutal justice against the “rioters” and their violent actions.

The language of the government officials throughout the course of the weekend has been nothing short of unified as they label all of the protesters as violent, far-right thugs and opportunists. When some officials have attempted to link the enraged emotions of the protesters to migration and a seemingly two-tiered system, they have been swiftly censored and deleted from social media. Not just this, but when calls have been made to hear the frustrations of the “native” population, calls are made to remove the license of the news organization and to make platforms responsible for promoting incitement.

Tommy Robinson, a pro-UK native boogeyman of the left, was wrongfully indicted by the media for his supposed role in the riots, even though Robinson was on vacation with his family outside of the country. The news, however, chose to report that Robinson had skipped town to avoid a court proceeding.

Home raids are now being done not just for those who physically participated in the raids but in search of people who are being accused of whipping up sentiments online. This can and has included people who have shared information or posted opinions on the events.

The Danger of Free Speech

In his address, PM Starmer stated regarding the mobility of the protesters, “And we must have a policing response that can do the same. Shared intelligence, wider deployment of facial recognition technology, and preventive action – criminal behaviour orders, to restrict their movements before they can even board a train. In just the same way we do with football hooligans. And let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them, violent disorder clearly whipped up online, that is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises and the law must be upheld everywhere. That is the single most important duty of Government. Service rests on security. And we will take all necessary action to keep our streets safe.”

Various news outlets have taken it upon themselves to write articles asking which horrible people online are behind the riots as they take Elon Musk to task for championing X as a free speech platform. The New York Times has even taken it upon themselves to ask what social media companies will do about riots being fomented online.

Of course, governments and news organizations(are they not an extension of one another?) have cried loudly and often about the dangers of disinformation and misinformation while spilling forth a confusing brew of lies and misdirection. Mind you, they cite each other as credible sources and proper opinions.

In one embarrassing example, Good Morning Britain’s Ed Ball interviewed his wife, MP Yvette Cooper about the riots and the dastardly far-right thugs. Using appeals to emotions and carefully curated content, they uplifted the innocent status of one group and the absolute banality of evil residing in the other group.

The media and government claim that social media must be stopped, yet at the same time peddle their own narratives without a second thought. All while many social media platforms work hand-in-hand with them to curate the “truth.” (For an outstanding source, look up Matt Taibi and his work on the Twitter files.)

They claim that they must be the gatekeepers of truth and that the populace is not trustworthy enough to understand or grasp hold of the truth floating past.

Fear of Free Speech

Entrenched and established powers fear the cognizance of the populace. As a populace becomes more and more frustrated with the agenda of the elites, the powers-that-be escalate their own fear and use it as motivation to then subject the populace to a two-pronged attack.

Scare the populace into submitting by telling them how dangerous they are to be caught with freedoms and enact programs to supposedly alleviate the fear and protect the populace from themselves.

In other words, “I’m scared of you. You’re a risk. Your neighbors are a risk. So, we’ll oppress you and then we can all be safe from you.”

Fear dictates so much in a social group and becomes a powerful tool to entrench agendas once thought to be merely conspiracy theories. Instability provides organizers the opportunity to sell frightened people the illusion of safety and stability. After all, offer a person comfort, safety, and stability in hard times and they will gladly do what you ask or submit to whatever requirements you’ve placed in front of them.

The UK itself has sat under the thumb of a techno-dictatorship for decades. The people of the UK have become largely complacent with cameras on every single inch of their homeland, raids for social media posts, advanced spying tech used on the populace, and draconian lockdown and mandate measures.

Unfortunately, we in the United States do not fare much better.

What Can We Learn from the UK Riots?

We in the United States most likely will not learn much. We are victims of our own success in a way. Those who know about the First Amendment and the protections it affords often believe that our First Amendment will always exist for our safety against tyranny. Little do we understand the efforts the government, media, and private companies make as they look to circumvent a citizen’s free speech.

Lest we forget, the government attempted a program under the Department of Homeland Security titled the Disinformation Governance Board. While officials assured Americans that it only had to do with foreign entities, a furor arose over the presence of people in the government attempting to parse out “disinformation” from “truth” in an official capacity.

We smelled the rat and looked to expel it. But the problem is, that thousands of rats are already crawling inside our walls.

Thankfully, a site such as X provides a powerful resource for ferreting out the truth about events such as the riots. The site may not be decentralized in the truest form, but access to information through millions of people is akin to decentralization. X still struggles with some censorship issues and is not perfect by any means, but the choke-hold algorithms put in place by sites like Facebook and YouTube do far worse damage.

The UK riots were a long time coming. For years, the populace has felt unheard when it comes to vast numbers of migrants. The people still hold frustration and hurt from the absolute debacle of the Rotherham grooming gang controversies and its apparent two-tiered justice system. The citizens’ frustrations have mounted as their major population centers are increasingly filled by migrants. Look no further than the UK’s own reports on the numbers being migrated into the UK.

While media outlets claim the citizens are overblowing the situation, even the IMF has published articles extolling the virtues (and reasons) for massive migration. They cite the falling birthrates of native populations and the economic importance of importing a new workforce.

Debates rage and narratives are constructed on both sides. The power of speech becomes more important as each side recognizes the need to influence people to their side. As the information war heats up, we can easily expect one side to stamp down more and more on freedom of speech, travel thought, and religion.

Those in power do not like that power threatened. Unfortunately, many of those in power only understand the language of power. As our education systems have been handed over to Marxist and progressive minds for the past 120 years, we cannot but expect that those who appreciate and uphold the established structure will defend its very existence.

The system becomes their god. It feeds them, protects them, provides for them, and guides them. After all, it keeps those nasty, brutish invading individualists out and punishes them for the audacious thought of threatening the levers of establishment power.

So do not expect the system to do you any favors. Do not expect the system to give you justice. Giving you justice will only show the system its own immorality and injustice. No man or structure, built up in pride, is willing to become introspective.

While we may hope and pine for the day the elites learn to back off, much like the founders hoped the crown would do before the Declaration of Independence, it will not happen without the populace unified and demanding adherence to the supposed social contract between a government and its people.

If you learn one thing America, it is that the injustice of power oppressing the people cannot rest. If individualists and conservatives must learn the language of power to speak to the entrenched elites, then so be it. It is all they speak. It is all they know. You may not do it willingly or with enthusiasm, but neither were our founders flippantly desirous of the consequences when speaking truth to power. Speak truth to power. Do not let your voices rest. And while of course, we all call for peaceful protest...protest we must.

On the 4th of July, we as a nation reflect on what our founding fathers did to provide us with such amazing opportunities and blessings. We honor our struggle for independence and the dangerous step into a war with Britain to earn that independence. 

Our founders may have claimed independence on the 4th of July, but it took them seven years to prove it true. Thankfully, the war's end justified the Declaration of Independence and started America on a course of becoming a history-changing nation. 

We went from a rag-tag group of colonies to completely changing the face of the world permanently in only 150 or so years. 

Some might say we changed the face of the world the day the Declaration of Independence was signed. 

Either way, on this 4th of July, we at Self-Evident would like to give you a few reasons why we have such a passion for not only America, but its history, foundations, and heroes. 

1) We Were Founded on Liberty 

When King George III chose to ignore the colonies’ last attempt at reconciliation, the floodgates of revolution poured through. Deep within the hearts of the colonists sat a yearning for liberty. After 130 years of increasingly oppressive measures from Britain, the colonies felt they had no recourse but to take up arms. 

Our founding fathers felt so passionate about their rights that they pledged their lives to an ideal in public fashion by signing the Declaration of Independence for all the world to see. These men, coming from all walks of life, quaked the earth with the ink of their pens. The nations of the world felt the tremors and watched with bated breath as a small group of colonies set their face against their own crown. 

Throughout all of it, the call of liberty never waned. Despite being outnumbered and impoverished when it came to food, clothing, weapons, ammo, and soldiers, our ancestors dug deeper and continued to pursue the expansive haven of rights that nestled within the victory of independence. They knew that victory meant striking gold in their excavation of liberty, and the bounty offered at victory meant the possibility of true liberty for their children and future generations.  

Thankfully, when it seemed as though our revolution would fail, the French came to our aid and helped bring the long, protracted war to a close. 

Our desire to create a nation founded not just on the gospel but on God-given rights and liberties inspired the world around us. In the coming years, transformation swept through Europe as people attempted to throw off the shackles of their own oppressive regimes.  

While some of those movements were messy, complex, ill-advised, or downright opportunistic, our own desire for liberty showed the true American spirit. Our heritage did something for us that could not be imitated by most other people who attempted to grasp liberty. After all, the wilderness of the American East Coast, tumultuous global politics, and the correct brew of faith and philosophy forged a truly American identity. 

From the beginning of the colonies until the signing of the Declaration of Independence, American individualism found its form in recognizing individual sovereignty. Personal property, inalienable rights given by God, the prosperity of hard work, and deep faith and reliance on God all shaped the American identity. 

We settled and developed the land. We fought the French and Indian War for Britain. We overcame illness, attack, famine, winter, and hardship. We built a thriving nation that became a light on a hill for the rest of the world.

And liberty made it possible. 

2) We Honored God 

John Quincy Adams said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." 

From the various colonial charters and constitutions that named sharing the gospel our main mission to the words of various founders giving God the glory – our ancestors knew that the divine authority deserved honor, worship, and praise.  

Without God, our nation would not have come to be. From the bluster of hurricanes to the rising of rivers, and the falling of fog – God made His presence known in protective miracles for our nation. As Nathaniel Webster once said, “Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”  

While we might consider the creation of the Constitution a miracle in itself (which it was), the decades preceding that document are replete with stories of God’s hand guiding our nation. We witnessed men become bullet-proof. Our allies arrived to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The land itself fought in our favor.  

Truly, the prayers of both the colonists and our founding generation powerfully moved the machinations of heaven. Anybody who takes a moment to look at history cannot deny the powerful miracles God worked on our behalf. 

Accordingly, our founders knew that days of humiliation and prayer not only petitioned God but joined our nation in a single, prayerful purpose. From the beginning of the colonies, the community knew it must approach God for our daily provision and protection. Those who called for days of prayer and humbled themselves before the Lord fully knew His hand was required for the health of our land.  

Benjamin Franklin himself said, “In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? At the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard — and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend?… I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men! And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”  

But faith in the Lord as the builder of our house did not cease with the ratification of the Constitution. Even when we structured our nation and continued to develop it by adding states, each state constitution gave deference to God. Not only this, but many states enshrined the importance and power of the church and religion in their constitutions as well. 

In other words, God rightfully rested in the foundational identity of America as a nation. 

3) Our Founders were True Men 

They were never perfect. Though neither are we.  

Unlike our leaders today, the founders were men of insight, intellect, and wisdom. We may attempt the sad comparison between ourselves and them, but if we dare try, we may find ourselves sorely lacking. The stain of slavery rests heavily upon the shoulders of our founders. Just as the horrific burden of abortion rests upon us in modernity. 

And while we may attempt some self-righteous superiority, the truth is our founders truly understood governance in a way that may be lost forever. They studied the ancient civilizations as they debated and argued what the best possible structure of government would be. The downfalls and possible weaknesses became obvious to them, and yet they continued to debate on how to best ease the pain of those shortcomings in the system they were creating. 

The beautiful blend of separation of powers, checks and balances, protection of liberty, and respect of rights gave rise to imitation constitutions all around the world. The results of their work proved exponential. 

Unfortunately, most don’t see this. The tireless work of our founders truly is underappreciated when we consider what they went through and the effect they left on generations to come. 

We tend to look at America with the magnifying glass of pride and arrogance, but our ancestors were sober and vigilant in their labors. They weighed it out and debated over every word written in the Constitution. They knew – add a word in one place and it could mar the face of the American experiment forever. Take a word out in another place and it could fundamentally shift the American approach to governance. 

These men didn’t just want to become free. They desired to institutionalize liberty and create a boundary around it that might not fail – even knowing it most likely would eventually fail. 

4) We are Truly Unique as a Nation 

We as Self-Evident do not wear rose-colored glasses. We freely recognize how far America has fallen from the inspirational ideas of our founding fathers. However, we do not lose hope. The heart of America is still there, hidden behind the dark assault of the power-hungry and the wicked. We know our nation’s humility before the Lord lies buried beneath a dirt pile of pride but nonetheless sits ready to awaken. And at the end of it all, we as an organization understand that God can walk us through anything and everything.  

Even if the American experiment collapses to the dust and shudders as it exhales its final breath, the people of God will be ready to carry His will. We will walk as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, no matter whether the borders and government of the nation hold or not. Our earnest prayers are for our nation. But we simply put our faith in God and lean not on our understanding. 

The beauty of America is in its significance on the historical landscape. Much like the words of Solomon, America may only see a season. But it is the American identity, the American spirit that may still live and thrive throughout the darkness.  

As long as the breath of life remains in America’s church, we can rest assured that the deep truth of liberty and rights is encapsulated and preserved for a generation that will unleash them once again. 

Our petitions before the Lord desire that His faithfulness would rest upon our children and our children’s children. We ask Him to give to them the fruits of our sacrifices. We eagerly desire that they would recline beneath the tree of liberty, even if it be nourished by our flesh in a sacrificial gift to secure their blessings for future generations. 

We tell ourselves that if we are in Christ, then we are free. But do we understand what true liberty means? Do we understand that liberty was a gift from God given as a right? 

To show you the development of God-given liberty in Western civilization, I won’t start at the beginning. Instead, we’re going to start with a document that every American should love and cherish. 

The Declaration of Independence 

Our Declaration of Independence makes quite a powerful statement.  

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” 

In other words, our government, put in place by men, derives its justified powers from those same men. More importantly, that government was instituted among men to secure our rights. Not to provide us with welfare. Not to give us safety and comfort. Not to do everything for us. Our founder's most fundamental philosophy about government in America is that government is instituted to protect our rights. However, the government does not give those rights. Their only job is to protect the rights GOD GAVE US! 

Following the truth that our inalienable (non-transferable) RIGHTS come from God and are protected by government is a short list of rights laid out by the founders in the Declaration of Independence. Those vital rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Let’s take a step back and simplify what the preamble means. In summary, it says: 

“There are certain truths that are just ‘duh’ statements.” Those truths include the following: 

1. Men are created equal 
2. God gives men rights that cannot be transferred or stolen 
3. Those rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness 
4. Governments were put there to protect rights. 

This means that it should be a duh thing to all of us that men are equal, God gave all those men certain rights that can’t be taken or transferred, those rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that governments were put in place by men to protect those rights. 

What is the government for? To protect those RIGHTS.  

Included in those rights is liberty. The idea of truly being free in your person, conscience, and action. The right to liberty is the truest sense of freedom within the self and a person’s expression of themselves. 

But how did they get to this idea that liberty mattered? 

Does the church need to concern itself with liberty? 

What is Liberty? 

Plenty of governments across time have provided some sort of recognition of rights. Usually, those rights were not recognized as being given by God but as a blessing from a government viewing itself as a god. 

However, western civilization had a major moment that changed the landscape of governance for all time. A government, which viewed itself as having a divine right to authority, found itself forced to recognize that the people had value and themselves held some form of rights. 

The History of the Magna Carta 

During the early 1200s, King John of England caused quite a stir by warring and feuding with several kings. He pressed for higher taxes on his subjects to support his wars. This forced his officials to become downright oppressive in collecting such taxes. Unfortunately for King John, his barons despised him due to his oppressive and arrogant nature. 

After losing a battle in 1214, the barons had had enough. They forced a meeting with King John. If he wanted to have their support and resources, then he would have to agree to some demands. This was the formation of the Magna Carta. While the document failed, the fact remains that an agreement about rights had been decided between the people and the king. Prior to the Magna Carta, kings had attempted various charters and agreements with their nobles and clergy. However, those charters were a king’s free will promise. 

The elites may have been the first beneficiaries of individual rights, but they were not the only ones. We, as common people today, benefit from the rights the Magna Carta defined. 

Included in the Magna Carta were issues such as: 

• Right to a fair trial 

• Placing the king under the rule of law 

• The property rights of the barons 

The concept of the rights of all people continued to develop over the next several hundred years. After all, the statement “all men are created equal” was not a foregone conclusion throughout Western civilization. 

By the time that statement was written in our Declaration of Independence, the concept of equality of men had been developed by Enlightenment thinkers. Men such as John Locke explored individual sovereignty and individual rights and liberties. 

John Locke and Liberty

Locke became so influential to our founders that his words inspired the Declaration of Independence we cherish today. 

In Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, he begins by arguing that in the natural law or natural state, all men have equality. Locke viewed natural law as that which was the governing law placed into creation by God. To Locke, men under natural law are endowed by God with a state of liberty. However, that liberty ends when it infringes on another man’s rights and liberties. 

Locke said, “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” 

He specifically viewed liberty as the right to steward yourself, what you’ve been given, and what you’ve created. Whatever you think or create, by natural law, is your property. If you take natural resources and mix them with your labor, then you have created private property. Furthermore, liberty is the sovereignty of men over their property, themselves, and their future. 

To protect this concept of liberty, Locke believed governments were put in place to be a protector of our individual rights, which included liberty and possessions. 

Thomas Jefferson said it succinctly by stating, “The policy of American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.” 

This desire to live under a government that truly protected liberty drove our founders to finally push against the oppressive boot of the British crown. They saw British control of their property as the action of a government no longer concerned with liberty, but the control of its people. 

The Road to Declaring Independence and Liberty 

After 120 years of abuses in which the colonies were continually oppressed with increased restrictions, taxes, and regulations, they finally chose to throw off the yolk of their oppressor. The crown attempted to raise money or control the colonies through their actions which the colonists found extremely offensive. Such gross infringements included (but were not limited to): 

• The Navigation Acts of 1651: Restricted trade for the colonies to only Britain 

• King Charles II: Regulated trade and nullified charters when the colonies opposed 

• Molasses Act of 1733: Forced the colonies to purchase molasses from Britain and not France 

• Sugar Act 1764: Cut duties on foreign molasses, retained high duty on foreign refined sugar, and prohibited foreign rum 

• Stamp Act 1765: Required official stamps to be purchased for lots of common documents. 

• Declaratory Act: Gave full powers over the colonies to parliament 

• Townshend Acts 1767: Placed duties on common useful goods and put in a board of customs in Boston 

• Coercive Acts 1774: 4 Laws used to crush the colonies back into submission 

The colonies pushed back at each turn and argued that their rights as English citizens were being abused. After all, the crown chose to not honor either the British Constitution or the Bill of Rights of 1689. 

These unconstitutional acts perpetrated against the 13 colonies drove them to unite as a single entity, represented by a Continental Congress. The Second Continental Congress sent its final petition to resolve the matter in hopes of staving off a war and restoring peace. However, King George III rejected the Olive Branch Petition, labeled them rebels, and parliament passed the American Prohibitory Act. This banned all trade with the colonies and determined to treat all American ships and cargo as an enemy. 

The colonies knew that the decision had been made for them. They wrote the Declaration of Independence to announce before the world that they were separating from England and establishing their nation in the spirit of liberty. 

The Bill of Rights 

Following the war, America chose to create a constitution for themselves. During these debates, the arguments continually revolved around how to provide a framework for a stable government yet protect the liberties and rights of the people. Do not forget, they saw what a government that did not respect liberty could do politically.  

During those debates, a large discussion regarding the inclusion of a bill of rights boiled over. Some argued that writing down any rights would mean the government felt those were the only rights men had. Others argued that not writing them down would mean a government could then believe men had no rights. After all, men are sinful and wicked. 

Eventually, the Constitution was ratified with the promise that a bill of rights would be written by the first Congress. Our nation’s founders held to their word and drafted the Bill of Rights. This document included the first 10 amendments we know today. These rights are considered to be given to us by the divine authority and were written to ensure the government never attempts to infringe on those rights (as well as others not written.) 

Included in the list of 10 amendments are rights such as: 

• Freedom of religion 

• Freedom of speech 

• Freedom of press 

• Freedom of assembly 

• Right to petition the government 

• Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure 

• Right to speedy trial 

• Right to not self-incriminate 

• and more 

   

Our Role in the Fight for Liberty 

For 248 years, our nation has said it values God-given liberty and the government’s role in protecting that liberty. 

However, what happens if no one actively works to protect against infringement of those rights? While we may believe that our rights are self-evident and therefore will always be protected, the truth is a different matter. We must proactively defend the right to liberty and demand our government do the same. 

Today, our fellow Americans deal with unconstitutional steps from our government at every level. The temptation of new laws, programs, regulations, and personal agendas has rendered the Constitution and the Bill of Rights moot in many situations. People pay lip service to the Constitution as they destroy it. These days, our Bill of Rights seems to be more of an obstacle in the way of government “progress” than it does a bulwark to protect our liberties and rights given to us by our Creator.  

But the church can become the voice upholding our liberties. We as the church should understand freedom and liberty better than any other body or organization. We have the opportunity to uphold God’s law without fear of standing against our nation’s founding documents precisely because the founders wrote the inalienable nature of rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness into our nation’s founding documents. 

This means that we as the church may move forward in our protection of liberty for the defenseless without concern or worry that we may be stepping against a righteous authority. We owe those who are oppressed by men not following our nation’s foundational principles of liberty. We as the church hold the duty to defend liberty, as spelled out by our founding documents and given to us by God. 

You thought the worst of it was over. 

We watched the protests on college campuses and allowed the news of it all to blend in with the noise surrounding our everyday lives. After all, we have a 24/7 news cycle that continually brings things to our attention and then erases that with the next big story. 

However, the college campus protests and colonization (see what I did there?) are not subsiding. Instead, they are growing and spreading as students reach their last days of school before summer break. 

It Gets Worse 

Even though we may hope for a burn-out of this “pro-Palestine” fire, we will be sorely disappointed. Not only will the fire continue to spread and grow in the summer months, but the government is now getting more and more involved. 

This will not end well for the American citizen. 

Antisemitism Monitors 

Within the past few days, Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced legislation that would bring the federal government into the action. In their proposed legislation, the federal government would have the ability to track incidents of antisemitism through the use of monitors on college campuses. 

Any college that refuses to hire the government-mandated monitor would see their federal funding stripped. The bill also requires the colleges to cover any expenses related to the monitor’s work. If they refuse the Department of Education’s requirements, then federal funding will disappear. 

Representative Torres said the bill was written “in response to the ongoing demonstrations at Columbia University that have created an environment that many Jewish students view as hostile to their well-being and safety.” 

“Campus antisemitism is at an all-time high, and American universities are not capable of handling it when left to their own devices,” Torres said. “Jewish students have told my office that they feel completely abandoned by their university administrators and they view Congress as the only avenue for accountability and safety.” 

However, Torres is no stranger to antisemitism bills. In December of 2023, Torres introduced a bill that would have included antisemitism in the DEI Act of 2023. He helped sponsor a resolution recognizing Israel as America’s democratic ally. Not only that, but Torres also sponsored the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Within that act, antisemitism is defined to include “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” 

This Isn't the First Time 

House Speaker Mike Johnson energetically came out against the protests and colonization (encampments) on college campuses. He not only condemned antisemitism but also gave credit to the possibility of bringing National Guard troops onto campuses to break up the students. 

Johnson was not done. 

He and other lawmakers met with Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, and shortly after called on her to resign. 

But Johnson still was not done. 

He not only called for the National Guard but also stated the next step during a press conference. Johnson said, “There is a nexus to federal funding. If these campuses cannot get control of this problem, they do not deserve taxpayer dollars. That’s a very serious issue.”  

Bringing it All Together 

On our April 26, 2024 podcast, we discussed the problem with these protests. With names that include things like “People’s Revolution” and “Solidarity”, it’s not hard to recognize the lens through which these students are seeing their role in this mess. 

Some of them probably understand the truth – that a protest will not result in divestment from Israeli companies or the nation of Israel. They most likely get that an encampment on a college campus will not end the war or bring about a ceasefire.  

Then again, that was not the goal of the entire movement. This is revolution. It is agitation. It is passion. The few (who know what they are doing) continue to whip up the useful idiots for their cause of communism/Marxism. The organizers and leaders of these movements know exactly what they are doing. They prey on the college students supporting the cause. 

Most students desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They want to make a change. Many of them likely did not know anything about Palestine before the past few months. However, the leaders saw the opportunity. They incited passion, drew in the sold-out believers, and shifted them with subtle moves into a Marxist movement. 

Our Government is not Helping 

Meanwhile, our government never ceases to take advantage of a bad situation to make things worse. We just watched the FISA Section 702 extension get passed, setting up an obliteration of Constitutional protections. Now, they are doubling down on the idea of hate speech by setting up antisemitism monitors. 

The cure will be worse than the sickness. 

While speech and thought control made great gains with the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the war against thought has been raging since this nation was founded. 

A Quick History of Government Speech Control 

Even before the founding, colonists ran into trouble for writing disparaging things about King George III. Their houses were ransacked searched, and all of their personal writings taken. Due to their own opinions, they found themselves at the center of a royal investigation. 

During the tenure of John Adams, American citizens were prosecuted and imprisoned for being critical of the American government’s actions and attitudes during a tenuous time in the relationship between America and France. Adams became so despotic that even the sermons of the clergy were not outside the scope of his dragnet. 

Abraham Lincoln made moves to arrest journalists, politicians, and private citizens if their opinions on the Civil War became too inflammatory for the likes of the American government.  

When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law, a whole segment of thought and belief became outlawed. While racism is abhorrent, the government saw fit to force people to act against their conscience in governmental, business, and even private affairs.  

Now, we watch the movement-du-jour attach itself to the Civil Rights Act, inspiring each small collective to glue their identity to the “protected classes” of the Civil Rights Act. Whether gay, transsexual, Israeli, Palestinian, physically disabled, or any of the infinite classes of people: a Civil Rights protection designation is priceless. 

The Results 

By attaching the idea of “hate speech” to “discrimination”, a new level of speech control may make its way around the First Amendment and over every way we communicate. 

Adding antisemitism to this idea of “hate speech” clearly shows the government’s hand. Controlling speech by determining whether it is “hate speech/antisemitism” allows the government to further tighten the noose around the neck of the American citizen. 

Do not forget, after 9/11, we put up with threats of criminalizing “islamophobia” and saw movement in that direction. Now, the government is using our tax dollars as a threat against the college campuses to get them to play along with a tried-and-true system of government control: the government monitor/agent. 

This is Not a Defense of Campuses 

Our college campuses have harbored this type of stuff for decades. For too long, no one lifted a finger as protesting students poured out wrath over the idea of whiteness or even masculinity. Being white became not okay, and the faculty and administration supported it. When universities had the chance to stand up to insanity and tell their students to get back in line, they balked. Some say the universities were afraid of their own customers. 

When men were railroaded before kangaroo courts and their lives were spilled before the world, the universities looked the other way. Prosecuting a drunken hook-up became a blood sport for angry feminist administrators and faculty. 

But plenty of us know the truth. They did not want to stop the students or the movement downhill. The student bodies turned progressive, and we are witnesses to the results. Remember, these people in faculty and administration were steeped in progressive, revolutionary, Marxist thinking. They became the next generation of institutional foot soldiers. They were the next disciples of Karl Marx. 

The funny thing about disciples? They believe in the religion they follow. They dedicate their life to it. So, the universities never batted an eye because they were getting the results they were looking for. 

What About These Protests? 

While some college campuses may make some moves to calm down their students, the overarching motive is not to restore the constitutionalist, liberty-minded approach of the Founders. Instead, the problem is in their wallet. High-level donors do not like the imagery of Hamas-scarf-wearing students chanting things like “From the river to the sea” and talking about death to various peoples. The donors are frustrated and threatening to pull their funding. 

We watched this occur with the TikTok divestment bill. What many do not realize is that the TikTok divestment bill was pushed by wealthy donors who saw the algorithms change in favor of Palestine. All of a sudden, TikTok was flooded with pro-Palestine content while pro-Israel content got swept under the rug. Eager to protect those dollars, democrats began going to bat for divestment. All this, despite them fighting Trump about the idea a few years ago. 

The Columbia Act 

This act, the College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability Act, does nothing but put more power in the hands of the government to police and control the thoughts of their citizens. While public universities are unfortunately funded by us, they do not need a government monitor assigned to them.  

This act reeks of moves the Chinese Communist Party makes in assigning party observers to ensure the party values are always upheld. 

Here in America, the best disinfectant for bad ideas is sunshine. Let the horrible ideas be put forward, and let the American public decide. 

Not long after, President Biden signed the bill into law. 

Extension of FISA Section 702 

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides the government with the ability to conduct surveillance on foreign actors for national security. It allows the government to use technology and various means to collect information, data, and evidence. 

In 2008, Congress passed Section 702 of the FISA, which gives the intelligence community the green light to “collect, analyze, and appropriately share foreign intelligence information about national security threats.” 

This bill, FISA Section 702 extension, reauthorizes the government to surveil without requiring a warrant. While this bill will be up for another debate in two years, the general consensus of Americans who care about the Constitution is that a two-year extension provides no comfort or respite. 

However, due to some political wrangling and gamesmanship, the bill allows surveillance to continue until April 2025, even if Congress chooses not to reauthorize the law in two years. 

Did Anybody Fight the FISA?

The House chose not to pass an amendment that would have added some needed reforms to the FISA under Section 702. A few days later, six different amendments were defeated in the Senate. Those six amendments would have put some boundaries on the powers to spy. The amendments considered those powers to be “too broad.” The Senate obviously begged to differ. 

Unfortunately, Section 702 allows the NSA to collect all kinds of intelligence on foreign actors. Even though certain restraints are supposedly placed on the intelligence community regarding US citizens, questions are raised about what happens with incidental information. 

However, that is not the greatest concern in this new law. 

What’s The Problem with the FISA 702 Extension? 

Senator Ron Wyden said it best, “If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy. That means anybody with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a wi-fi router, a phone, or a computer. … If this provision is enacted, the government can deputize any of these people against their will and force them, in effect, to become what amounts to an agent for Big Brother.” 

While the bill originally was intended to deal with the collection of foreign intelligence through warrantless searches, it collects plenty of American citizen’s private phone calls, emails, texts, and other electronic communications. The Brennan Center reports that over 200,000 warrantless “backdoor” searches happen every year. And those searches are with Americans’ private communications. 

Even though the government may tell us that they follow the rules, the truth bears repeating: they are not following the rules. Declassified documents have proven time and time again that the private communications of anybody from activists to Congressmen have been swept up in FBI backdoor searches. 

Not only that, but the intelligence community routinely gives themselves a nice end-around to the pesky 4th amendment. By using data brokers who sell data lists and information, the FBI and other intelligence agencies can bypass the necessity for a warrant and of course: that whole foreign actor issue. 

Unfortunately, Section 702 is a collection of some of the nastiest attempts to destroy American citizen’s civil liberties. 

When the bevy of amendments was shot down, Congress told us that they A) Didn’t see the need for warrants to protect the citizen’s rights B) Felt it was necessary to force Americans to become impromptu spies on their customers, consumers, patrons, family, and friends C) Saw no reason to stop the brokering of sensitive data to intelligence agencies and D) Had no interest in ACTUALLY protecting the American citizen’s God-given rights. 

This is Unprecedented...Right? 

No, sadly this is not the first time something like this has happened. Even though the typical American can recite plenty of events that curtailed our rights (Patriot Act for one…), we may look to something farther back in history and learn from our founding fathers. 

As far back as at least 1604, the idea of unlimited access to the private materials and communications of a citizen was a questionable practice. 

In 1604, during Semayne’s case, Edward Coke argued, “The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defense against injury and violence as for his repose.” 

Writs of Assistance 

While English common law continued to make strides in recognizing the danger of unlimited governmental authority, it failed to truly protect the colonist's rights and liberties. 

The British struggled to control smuggling and attempts to get around their regulations and restrictions on trade. By using Writs of Assistance, inspectors could take a general form and use it to search any property or space and seize anything that was a “prohibited and uncustomed” good.  

However, the colonists hated such an open-ended document. Until 1750, the only warrants even defined in the handbooks of the Justices were general warrants. These gave little to no oversight for authorities. 

In 1756, Massachusetts passed a law banning general warrants as a response to the Excise Act of 1754, which gave tax collectors unlimited powers to interrogate colonists over goods subject to customs. 

When King George II died in 1760, all Writs of Assistance expired six months later, as determined by law. This event led to a major case brought forward by 50 merchants. 

James Otis and The Writs Case

James Otis came to the defense of the merchants in the colonies and fought against the idea of general warrants. 

Despite losing, Otis’ involvement in the case was so important that John Adams viewed the case as “The spark in which originated the American Revolution.” 

Otis’ remarks during the case were beautifully and forcefully argued. They provided a strong philosophical foundation for the concept of rights and liberties versus the tyrannical power of an authoritarian government.  

Otis stated, 

“I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other as this Writ of Assistance is. It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book” 

“Now, one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient.” 

Even though Otis lost the case, he made such an impact on his fellow colonists that he went on to become a member of the MA legislature and passed legislation requiring special Writs of Assistance be “granted by any judge or justice of the peace upon information under oath by any officer of the customs” and banning all other Writs. However, the governor overturned it, seeing it as contrary to English law. 

Two Years Later 

A case was brought before the English courts involving two political authors who wrote critical materials about King George III. Both John Entick and John Wilkes had their houses searched in the investigation, with all kinds of papers and writings being seized by the authorities. The men sued the government for wrongfully collecting private materials and won. 

While in the Entick affair, the government at least carried a warrant with Entick’s name on it, no such papers existed for Wilkes. His home was involved in a sweep of 49 suspects (without his name being listed as a search target.) 

Chief Justice Pratt, who presided over both Entick and Wilkes cases, said, “Papers are the owner's goods and chattels: they are his dearest property; and are so far from enduring a seizure, that they will hardly bear an inspection; and though the eye cannot by the laws of England be guilty of a trespass, yet where private papers are removed and carried away, the secret nature of those goods will be an aggravation of the trespass, and demand more considerable damages in that respect..” 

He further stated, "[O]ur law holds the property of every man so sacred, that no man can set his foot upon his neighbour's close without his leave.” 

Eventually, Pratt addressed the jury and said, “The defendants claimed a right, under precedents, to force persons' houses, break open escrutores, seize their papers, &c. upon a general warrant, where no inventory is made of the things thus taken away, and where no offenders' names are specified in the warrant, and therefore a discretionary power given to messengers to search wherever their suspicions may chance to fall. If such a power is truly invested in a secretary of state, and he can delegate this power, it certainly may affect the person and property of every man in this kingdom, and is totally subversive of the liberty of the subject.” 

 He saw the danger in a government with unlimited access to the private communications and belongings of its citizens. He also took note of the danger of open-ended warrants and general searches. 

The 4th Amendment 

By 1784, eight state constitutions contained some provisions against general warrants. 

The MA Declaration of Rights stated, “Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions. All warrants, therefore, are contrary to this right, if the cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or affirmation; and if the order in the warrant to a civil officer, to make search in suspected places, or to arrest one or more suspected persons, or to seize their property, be not accompanied with a special designation of the persons or objects of search, arrest, or seizure: and no warrant ought to be issued but in cases, and with the formalities, prescribed by the laws.” 

When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the 4th amendment survived the ratification process. Interestingly enough, a slight language change has provided debate within courts. 

The original version, authored by James Madison, stated, “The rights to be secured in their persons, their houses, their papers, and their other property, from all unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated by warrants issued without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, or not particularly describing the places to be searched, or the persons or things to be seized.” 

The phrase “warrants issued without probable cause” was modified to “no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause.” 

In England, there were lawful warrantless searches. However, the language has been read to mean that the only reasonable searches and seizures are those that meet the requirements of issued warrants. 

This has divided courts as to whether searches and seizures can be done without a warrant, or a warrant must be required. The division especially concerned the difference between searching for a suspect incident to arrest vs. searching areas within and without the control of the suspect. 

So Back to Section 702 

The government now has the right to force private citizens to hoover up any information that passes through a wi-fi router, cable box, server, phone, tablet, etc. under threat of punishment. They do not have to worry about the 4th amendment. Instead, we become their spies...much like the Soviet Union did with their own citizenry. 

Sadly, our 4th amendment has lost most of its teeth, and Section 702 is one more punch in the face. The power of the intelligence community (especially the NSA), the power of hidden courts, warrantless searches, oppressive investigations into private citizens, and the chilling effect of the government’s coercive tactics have all laid waste to our rights. 

Our founding fathers, such as Otis, passionately fought the idea that the government had free reign over a private citizen’s personal possessions (which included communications.) The question is: when they recognized such a gross destruction of their rights and liberties...what did they do? 

Differing Views 

Some of us hold a general understanding of the Declaration of Independence. This group views the preamble as proof we have some rights, such as Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. While this first group may come to a consensus that rights are good and we should all have them, they miss more important meanings from the passage. 

 Others believe that rights such as Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness are provided to us by God. Therefore, the government cannot take those rights from us. If only God can give us rights, then surely, He is the only one who can take them. 

 This group certainly stands on truth. If you get them talking long enough, they will most likely point out that governments may not give us rights, but their job is to protect those rights for us. We the people allow ourselves to be governed because of our belief that governments are justly created to secure our rights. 

 However, this second group has a blind spot. 

The Deeper View

It is true. Governments were instituted among men to secure our rights, which include Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. These rights are not exhaustive but certainly create the foundation of rights that have been granted to humans by God. Our founders named these specific rights to give a clear understanding of what the government could NOT touch in our lives. After all, protecting something means ensuring its health and well-being. 

 Unfortunately, the government of today seems to have forgotten its primary role in the American experiment. It was not to regulate every step of our lives, make us safe through the use of bubble wrap, or take our money to spend on their pet projects. 

 Our government truly lost its way and must return to its original calling. 

 Even though we as a people may claim this from the rooftops, we must bear our portion of the responsibility. We missed our own presence in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. 

Our Role. Our Failure. 

We tend to believe a few lies regarding the government, our rights, and our responsibilities. We believe that our responsibility is to vote for our politicians, and they must then do the work of staving off all matters of evil from their tyrannical opponents. We believe that the government’s role is to protect our rights so that we may passively go about our days. 

Our hearts tell us that we are slipping down the pathway into an oppressive, destructive tyranny.
And we may be. But we must help shoulder the blame.

Our government failed and continues to fail. But did we not permit it to do so? While we may trumpet the truth of the rights we have from God, we so often fail to use our consent to be governed as the acknowledgment that the government MUST lead a restrained life. That restraint requires knowledgeable people who understand that government is a tool of defense, NOT a means to fulfill every desire and support every opinion.  

 We turned our government from a bodyguard into our hitman. 

It’s Our Fault. 

For some reason, even the most ardent supporters of individual rights and the “leave me alone” culture seem to have bought into the idea that government must control people on all levels. Especially if those people do not do what we like. We clamor for the government to rezone an area to keep business out. We vote for candidates based on how they vote for new housing projects or apartment buildings. They know they can get our support as long as they promise the new community program or school project. 

When our neighbor’s grass gets too long, we seek out the HOA or the city council to do our dirty work and fine the person. We do not wrestle with what might happen to our neighbors if they refuse to pay the fines or go along with the regulations. 

We created mayhem by deciding that government bodies must compel our neighbors to follow our desires, and yet somehow attempt to stay consistent with our cries of “Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness!” 

It Starts with Individual Rights 

That simple list of three foundational rights has become known around the world. We say them over and over to each other while losing their true grasp and meaning. We fail to recognize our own limitations in upholding those rights, instead viewing them through our own lens and our own reception of such rights. 

Thomas Jefferson said, “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” 

When we use the law, regulation, or codes, we run a powerful risk of producing the exact opposite effect of our supposed attachment to liberty. While that Declaration clearly rebuked the crown for all of how the government had oppressed people’s rights, we failed to keep ourselves accountable. 

If we truly honored and respected individual rights, we would be careful to restrain ourselves when reaching that dividing line between our “sphere” and our neighbor’s. Even though we have a right to voice our opinion on the matters of what our neighbor does, we should hold such terrible power of coercive law and tax with a somber and sacred honor. Their rights to their person, their life, their property, and their sphere should only be infringed upon when the due process of law determines they forfeited those rights through their own instances of infringing on other’s rights. 

A righteous law provides consequences for those who infringe on the rights of their neighbors. An unjust or wicked law restricts the liberties of the individual. We must take an account of our own view of government. Have we decided government is our personal attack dog in the local sphere? Do we “hire” the government to provide protection from inconvenience? Or worse yet, do we hire the government to steal funds from our neighbor to support our own pet project? Is our government the action arm of our own ideas of what constitutes an “enjoyable” community?  

The Truth 

We bungled the job. We the people scream in frustration with a tyrannical government crushing us through legislation, tyranny, and obscene theft of our own hard-earned money. But we are to blame. We practiced the same thing in our local communities and came to believe that the bigger circles of government must act accordingly. 

The HOA’s, county commissions, city councils, and school boards all became a massive popularity contest with our neighbors. People looking to get elected realized they could thread the needle between no new taxes and shiny new programs. They gave us what we wanted instead of saying “No,” like the responsible representatives they should have been. 

But I do not blame them. We made it clear to them: give us what we want, or we will not vote for you next time. So, like any sensible human being, they changed their tactics. And the ones who just wanted power were all too happy to oblige us. 

On the other hand, we suffered the immoral and wicked politicians who only chased positions to climb the ladder into the federal government. They never felt the wrath of the people for stomping on our rights. Instead, we shrugged our shoulders and patted ourselves on the back, saying “At least it wasn’t the other guy.” They walked away with the election victories because we bought into the game of Democrats vs. Republicans. 

We watched the eroding of individual rights because we were the culprits. We promised ourselves all kinds of shiny new laws, regulations, programs, and projects...through our representatives. They told us they would protect us, and we cheered. 

In Reality 

In reality, we were greedy and undisciplined. Plenty of people did not know, but too many of us did not care. Our personal desires were too important. The new park, the new school, the new regulation, or the new street development all glittered before us. We never thought about the theft of funds from our neighbors. We only thought about whether our wallet could handle the increase or whether our lifestyle could avoid the law. 

After all, who would vote for a law that crushes them? Who would vote for a tax that left them destitute? We compromised in degrees, but it burned us in the end. 

Now, the train is running full steam down the tracks, and we are frantically fumbling for the brakes.  

What Now? 

We at Self-Evident do what we do because we have hope. A new generation is rising rapidly, and we believe that they and those who follow them can begin to undo the damage. It will not happen overnight, but instilling the foundations in them WILL reap rewards for our grandchildren. 

More importantly, our faith determines whether the current state (and future state) of this world affects us or not. When fully submitted to Christ, we can find hope, faith, and love in any situation. We can carry the peace of God with us everywhere we go. We can overcome any brutality this world throws at us and know that His kingdom is not of this world. This is living a true life of liberty. When we are free in Christ, we are free indeed. 

 Not just that, but we can love our neighbor as ourselves and can protect their liberty...just as much as our own. 

Imagine that: Loving God with our whole heart, mind, body, and strength opens us up to liberty of conscience. Loving our neighbor as ourselves means protecting our neighbor’s liberty. 

If you enjoy blogs such as these, be sure to check out the Self-Evident blog page for weekly updates!

 A few years ago during the trial of Henry Weinstein the #MeToo move grew up as more women came forward claiming that they too were assaulted by Weinstein. Again during the hearings for confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the #MeToo movement grew in sympathy with the woman Kavanaugh was accused as assaulting back in college. It came about that these accusations were false but it inspired more women to come forward across the board.

The #MeToo movement has truly brought the idea of consent to the foreground of public discourse in the recent past.  Lunatic activists and opportunists aside, millions of American women have a legitimate grievance that men are not respecting their “no”.  Millions of men are violating the consent of women, applying force and coercion to overcome the resistance of women.  The only right and proper rule is that men should NEVER touch a woman without out absolute and unequivocal consent from each woman they meet.   This applies to women we are married to, in a relationship with, women we are only acquainted with and women that we don’t even know.  This means that a woman who is intoxicated cannot give consent.  If she cannot drive, she cannot consent to sex. If she consents to kissing, she still has not given consent to more.  Period.

 The #MeToo movement has done us all a great service in bringing the issue of consent into our conversations.  What they have not realized is that they have exposed the problem with consent across our society and the world.  Consider that religions in many parts of the world and even in this land we call free do not see consent as an important feature of their faith.  The majority of Muslims in the world apply force and violence both against those who leave their faith and against those who do not convert and conform to their faith.  Other faiths like Catholicism and Judaism often apply social consequences as a tool to override consent against those who leave their faith.   They do not respect consent.

What if you come across a diary or journal that you are aware is not your own? Should you read it even though the owner has not consented? If it is your spouse's journal, do you have a right to read it without consent? This is the same issue as noted above with assault. You may or may not know whose journal it is. You may be completely in private with no prospect of discovery. Do you have a right to read it? The question should arise whether you respect other person's rights to their personal sovereignty. If you do not own it then you must gain consent to read it.

Americans claim that our government governs at the consent of the governed.   However, this is not true.  Consider that at all times the majority rules over the minority. This was supposed to be prevented by our government structure as a Republic.  The truth is that our government and elections process function in nearly every way as a pure democracy.  The American electorate is very nearly split 50-50 about how we are governed meaning that at all times a minority of 49% are ruled over by the majority who enforce their governance values on the minority.  The minority has been stripped of their consent.   This is just the same as a man forcing his desires upon a woman, overriding her consent by sheer strength and power.

Some have said that simply living in the US under our current governmental system is implicit consent to be governed in this way.  However, that is the same as saying that women who dress in a certain way or drink too much or flirt too much or walk alone at night are automatically giving consent to be abused.

Many said during the faux pandemic that government should force people to wear a mask or get a vaccination. This is, again, no different than assaulting a woman. That is, the feelings of insecurity lead people to override other people's consent. They are stripping others of their sovereignty over their bodies.

 In America, we claim to be the “land of the free”.  How can we be free when our consent is overridden by others?  If we are not secure in our bodies from our consent being stolen, how can we be free?  If we are not secure in the labor of our bodies from our consent being stolen, how can we be free? If we are not secure in our earnings from our labor, from our consent being stolen how can we be free?  If we are not secure in our property purchased with our earnings, from our consent being stolen how can we be free?

This is most revealed in taxation.  As citizens we vote on whether we should collect taxes.   Consider that taxation, by definition, is force.  Taxation is theft because it overrides consent at the point of force for non-compliance. Some people say that taxation is necessary because we cannot allow anyone to opt out of paying.  By definition this is force.  If an idea for spending is good enough people will contribute voluntarily.  Only bad ideas need taxation.  Or more specifically, fears that ideas are not good enough, or popular enough, need taxation to override consent.  Many people cannot imagine a world without taxation because they focus strictly on the spending side of the ledger.  They cannot imagine that people would voluntarily pay for roads or police or schools, etc.    Since they don’t believe in the voluntary, they believe that force is necessary and justified because the spending side is so compelling in their own mind. Yet the truth is this.  How someone spends or contributes their own money is a true reflection of how people feel about public policy and governance. 

Liberty demands consent.

How can children grow up to love liberty if all they witness is authoritarianism and provision?

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”―Ronald Reagan

In the US in the 1830s many utopian communities arose around Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They believed in an ideal of equal sharing of everything, i.e., tools, labor, the fruit of their labor, etc. These communities would be considered socialist by today’s definition. Very few of these communities survived more than a generation. The apparent reason for this attrition was that the adults of that time agreed on a set of values for sharing for the community and chose voluntarily to join together. However, their children and grandchildren did not participate voluntarily in those decisions. Most were born into it and seeing its inequities, questioned the absence of fairness. Some people worked harder than others yet received the same benefit as those who worked less. There was an equal sharing of the fruit of labor while the labor was unequal.

The challenge for these communities and for communities and nations based on liberty is that these values must be taught often and consistently to each generation if they are to carry those values into their adult life. The history of humanity reveals a tragic flaw. All humans have a need to control their environment and circumstances for their own survival and comfort. This too often extends to attempts to control other people. We all witness the authoritarianism of our parents, teachers, administrators, coaches, etc. as we start our lives and progress toward adulthood. Often these people also provide provisions to us like food, shelter, clothing, education, training, and more. If these relationships are generally positive most people reaching adulthood view that authoritarian experience either as a positive necessity or, at a minimum as a necessary annoyance. These feelings are often transferred to government authorities who similarly set boundaries and sometimes provide resources.

Children from birth need adult oversight and provision. Safety and nourishment and nurture are critical to the viability of human children. Most parents are naturally disposed for this role. Necessary to this role is an exercise of authority to set boundaries for the children for their safety. Often repetitive instruction and discipline is required until the child can make good decisions for their own safety and provision.

What is too often lacking in the raising of children is the teaching of independence and personal responsibility. Many parents define love as saving their children from the difficulties of life that can arise from poor decisions. They may seek to spare their children from the pain that they may have experienced earlier in their life arising from bad decisions. They may even go so far as to protect their children of the criminal consequences of harming others, i.e. theft, assault, and murder. However, experiences of trial and error, even painful experiences, are great teachers. Personal experience is far more vivid and memorable than instruction from others.

Helicopter Parents vs Free Range Parenting

Late in the 20^th century we began to hear expressions like “Helicopter Parent” and “Free Range Parent”. Helicopter parents are seen as those who hover over their children’s’ every moment and experience of life, controlling, limiting, far beyond the cradle and even into adulthood. Some are motivated by fear that their child may be harmed which would be natural at the early stages of development. However, this is not natural later as the child ages into their desire to make their own decisions and accept more risk. The helicopter parent often sees those who do not share their sense of risk as child abusers. Their fear deepens their need to control others including other parents who raise their children with more liberty.

The parent raising their child with a philosophy of “free range parenting” understands the risks in life but allows their children to experience increasing areas of freedom with more diverse experiences.

"Question for parents: do you want to make your children safe, or strong?"¹ – Jordan B. Peterson

A safe environment where security and provision are always at hand makes humans weak and soft. It is in striving, even painful striving with risk of failure that grows strength. What will children do when they shed their parent’s security and provision? Adopt the government as nanny? In their weakness they will seek out new authoritarians and offer their submission and obedience in exchange for the comfort of that safety and provision.

Weakness cultivates slavery. Strength and independence cultivate liberty. Are you weak or strong? Are you cultivating strength in your children?

_____

¹ Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (p. 63).

Most who are even somewhat familiar with apologetics and debate concerning political history may recall the common assertion: “the Founders certainly weren’t Christians! They were only diests!” Such is a phrase often repeated with zealous gusto. It seems the only time the term “deist” even appears in contemporary conversation is in the context of the United States Founders specifically somehow being averse to Christianity. It is interesting that secularists that have pushed this claim do not use the term “theist” as if to intentionally avoid a reference to theism directly. Such a reference to “theism” might imply that the Founders connected the God they spoke of with the God of the Bible, or at the least were inspired by Him. Such would be a reasonable implication and concession, but why stop there? We are after the whole truth. Were the US founders simply “deists”, only vaguely acknowledging a loosely defined and distant “higher power” that set the world in motion than vanished, never again to govern the affairs of men?

The simple definition of what deism actually is simply does not accurately describe the Founders, even those that may have been considered general skeptics at certain points in their life. There is no evidence that most of the Founders were either deists, rejected Christian beliefs, or that “God set the world in motion and then abstained from human affairs”.ⁱ Concerning the civic leadership as a whole at that time in the United States, there are very few occasions, examples, or evidences of them embracing deism or rejecting Christianity.ⁱⁱ Regarding the general populace, there were few non-Christians in late 18^th century America.ⁱⁱⁱ In 1776, each and every colonist, with the exception of approximately two thousand Jews, identified as Christian.^iv About 98 percent of them were protestants, and 2 percent were Roman Catholics.^v During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the vast majority of colonists were Reformed or Calvinist denominations.^vi The “diest” label is frequently applied to only a few of the most famous Founders, treated almost as flags to be captured, while the names of the rest of the Founders are rarely mentioned at all and generally go forgotten in historical discussions. Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Roger Sherman, and John Witherspoon all expressly held orthodox Christian ideas and beliefs.^vii Additional Founders frequently left out of the discussion whom held traditional Christian faith include Elias Boudinot, Eliphalet Dyer, Oliver Ellsworth, Matthew Griswold, John Hancock, Benjamin Huntington, Samuel Huntington, Thomas McKean, William Paterson, Tapping Reeve, Jesse Root, Oliver Wolcott, and Robert Yates.^viii

        Concerning the abundance of evidence related to the Christian faith and religious conviction of none other than George Washington, an entire volume could be written. Here we can examine just a few records of his personal writing that bring his faith to light. A 1790 letter to a Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island alone contained no less than nine scriptural references.^ix The use here of Micah 4:4, which some have called his favorite verse, is further referenced 40 times elsewhere.^x Washington frequently referred to God in invocations of “Providence, Heaven, the Supreme Being, the Great Architect, the Author of all Good, and the Great Ruler of Events”. George Washington referred to “Providence” alone at least 270 times in his writings and thanked Providence for literally saving his life through divine protection.^xi This directly contradicts the assertion that he was simply a vaguely detached diest, whom merely credited a non-benevolent and unknown force that had no divine interference or direction in the affairs of men.^xii Furthermore, in 1791 Washington signed a letter drafted by Jefferson to the emperor of Morocco that offered a prayer by “God...under his holy keeping”. A French friend of his once noted of Washington that “every day of the year, he rises at five in the morning; as soon as he is up, he dresses, then prays reverently to God.” One of his most beautiful expressions of conviction regarding Christianity was made in his General Orders on May 2^nd, 1778. It is recorded as follows: “While we are zealously performing the duties of good Citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of Religion—To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian—The signal Instances of providential Goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labours with complete Success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of Gratitude & Piety to the Supreme Author of all Good.” Washington used the word "God" 146 times in his personal writing and public speeches. A popular secularist myth persists that Washington never mentioned or referenced Jesus Christ specifically, despite having clearly done so several times in his General Orders and in his "Circular Letter to the Governors" of 1783: “…and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

Much has been made of the beliefs of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson which require their own dedicated article, though even a brief examination of their expressions display an attitude inconsistent with mere deism. Franklin noted during the Constitutional Convention that “in the beginning with the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible with danger, we had daily prayer in this room for divine protection…Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered…the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God governs the affairs of men”^xiii. Jefferson went to significant lengths to keep his opinions of personal faith private in his letters^xiv, however it is clear that he respected the bible’s moral teaching in general (a far cry from new age non-moralism in the vein of Nietzsche) indicated by an 1816 letter where he wrote, “the ten commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my Religion”.^xv Jefferson is quoted in his first inaugural address “may the infinite power which rules the destines of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.”^xvi

A claim persists that Thomas Paine’s philosophically diest work The Age of Reason provided direct influence on the Founders or was at least a positive contribution to their way of thinking. However, the historical record shows this as patently false. American civil leaders held extremely negative reactions to the book^xvii and Paine was subsequently vilified. When he returned to the US he was abandoned by all his friends with the exception of Jefferson. Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Witherspoon, William Paterson, John Jay, Benjamin Rush, Charles Carroll, Zephaniah Swift, Elias Boudinot, and Patrick Henry openly criticized the book.^xviii  Only six people came to his funeral, in which he was buried on a farm because of the Quakers refusal to allow him a grave with the church cemetery.^xix 

The common deist assertion appears to be primarily used in the past by proudly atheistic secularists as an apologist angle of discrediting Christianity’s heritage. It is as if the bible having a foundational influence on the United States founding was not acceptable. One can understand their reason for zeal- the reality of Christianity’s influence conflicts directly with their insistence that godless atheism, lumped together with the concept of “enlightenment humanism”, produced the freest nation in the world. The fact of the matter is that unrestrained rejection of morality and militancy towards Christianity produced the chaos of the French Revolution and the massacres of the Reign of Terror. In contrast, the Founders typically targeted as being detached deists are on record as either being outright Christians, embracing Christianity’s moral influences, or in the least wrote concerning God’s direct intervention in the affairs of men and the world.^xx The typical rebuttal to all this is usually “well, everyone was religious back then!” Well, if everyone was indeed religious back then (being mostly part of various Christian denominations) then does that not show that religious men built the foundations of the modern world rather than a-religious men?

“It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.”

-George Washington

Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789 

References:

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1

One of the crowning achievements of Christianity in the discussion of its legacy and influence throughout history is undoubtedly its systematic opposition of slavery since its beginning roots. The initial question starts with: does the bible oppose slavery directly? The answer is yes. The conquering and sale of peoples for the slave trade is explicitly condemned in 1^st Timothy 1:10. True equality between people regardless of social standing or wealth, being united by the bond of Christ, is described in Galatians 3:28-29: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Other bible verses espousing intrinsic equality of value and a spirit incompatible with slavery include Proverbs 22:2, Colossians 3:11, Romans 2:11, 1^st Corinthians 12:25, Ephesians 6:5-9, James 2:2-4, 1^st Peter 1:17, and Philemon 1:15-16. In the Old Testament, the Law was unique in extending rights to slaves and commanding provisions of freedom for slaves, as described in Exodus 21:2, and Leviticus 25:39-40, which was simply unprecedented in the rest of the ancient world by any measure or standard.

Christians specifically were the first organized people in history to oppose slavery, in contrast to the entire ancient world. Official state-sponsored slave systems were present in Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic States and Caliphates, the Islamic Ottoman Empire (even as late as the early 1900s), Egypt, Japan, India, Africa, Assyria, and China. Leaders in Christian abolitionism emerged as early as the 3^rd century such as Saint Augustine. In the 4^th century, St. Chrysostom stated that Christ’s appearance has done away with slavery, saying “in Christ Jesus there is no slave…therefore it is not necessary to have a slave….buy them, and after you have taught them some skill by which they can maintain themselves, set them free”. This Christian practice of buying slaves in order to set them free proliferated as a subculture in the Roman Empire. Pope Callistus himself was a former slave. 

Moving forward to the 7^th century, the Franks under the Christian queen Bathilde became the first kingdom in history to begin the process of outlawing slavery. In the 9^th century, bishop Agobard of Lyons proclaimed: “All men are brothers, all invoke one same Father, God: the slave and the master, the poor man and the rich man, the ignorant and the learned, the weak and the strong….none has been raised above the other…there is no…slave or free, but in all things and always there is only Christ.” During the 11th century, Saint Wulfstan and Saint Anselm campaigned to remove the last remnants of slavery in Christendom, and thus it was said “that no man, no real Christian at any rate, could thereafter legitimately be held as the property of another.” In the 12^th century, Thomas Aquinas declared slavery a sin, against natural law, and completely immoral. When slavery surfaced again overseas, the Catholic Papacy condemned it through papal bulls on no less than six separate occasions- in 1462, 1537, 1639, 1741, 1815, and 1839. 

Slavery and human sacrifice were both part of Latin American culture before the Europeans arrived. Africa supplied the Arab world with slaves before the arrival of the Europeans and Britain’s subsequent outlaw of slavery there in 1833. Slavery in India was outlawed by Pope Paul III through the 1537 bull Sublimis Deus, which confirmed that "their souls were as immortal as those of Europeans", and that “Indians were to be regarded as fully human, and they should neither be robbed nor turned into slaves.” During Spanish and Portuguese colonization Popes Eugen IV, Pius the II, Sixtus the IV, Paul the III, and Gregory XVI forbad slavery. The travesty was that these orders were not always followed because of the challenge of enforcement thousands of miles away from Europe. Christian missionary, evangelical activist, and abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was the central figure in ending slavery in Europe, giving anti-slavery speeches for twenty years. In 1823 he presented a petition through his associate Thomas Buxton “as a resolution declaring slavery repugnant to Christianity and the Constitution.” This led to the Abolition Act in 1833, that resulted in the freedom of 700,000 slaves in the West Indies Colonies.

Though slavery persisted in the United States, Christian abolitionists led the way in challenging the moral legitimacy of such an institution. The Presbyterian minister Elijah Parish Lovejoy became the first martyr for the abolition movement in 1837. Other famous Christian abolitionists include Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Angelina Grimké, Sojourner Truth, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, John Brown, Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, Methodist theologian John Wesley, Presbyterian minister Charles Finney, Theodere Weld, John Quincy Adams, and President James Garfield. Secular educational textbooks and mainstream articles often fail to mention altogether how many of these individuals held their faith in Christ as their key motivating factor for their ministry of freedom. 

In 1754, the Quaker John Woolman launched a campaign against slave trading in America and by 1771, Massachusetts outlawed the importation of slaves. In 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed, with 9 of the 12 founder members being Christian Quakers. In 1791 North Carolina declared that the killing of a slave was murder, and Georgia did the same in 1816. In 1801, American Methodists made anti-slavery sentiments a condition of church membership. In 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded by Presbyterian clergyman Theodore S. Wright and William Garrison. Anti-Slavery International was formed in 1839 by English Quaker and activist Joseph Sturge to fight for the global elimination of slavery. Christian abolitionist writings utilizing the bible include "A Condensed Anti-Slavery Bible Argument" (1845) by George Bourne and "God Against Slavery" (1857) by George B. Cheever. Cheever wrote a speech titled, "The Fire and Hammer of God’s Word Against the Sin of Slavery" addressed to the president. Regarding the influence of Abraham Lincoln himself, whom issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, it has been made clear by his own statement on the bible: "In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it." Christians continue to free slaves to this very day in places like Sudan through organizations such as Christian Solidarity International. 

Times exist in our lives, in which the pressures and struggles of life seem to come crashing down on us all at once. While a lot of times we can navigate life with a few issues cropping up, here or there, we will periodically come across the avalanche of “all at once.”

These times are perfect for us to truly test our strength, and see where our real convictions sit. Most of us believe that we carry the foundational truths well enough to react the way Christ wants us to, but until we are immersed in real life, we can definitely believe the illusion that we are responding the way we are supposed to.

Right now, I'm learning a lot about faith, promises, prayer and the Lord. I'm not going to get into details about my life, but needless to say, a lot is happening. I'm feeling the press of life in a lot of different areas, and certain areas are impossible to overcome...in the world's eyes.

For the past few weeks, my wife and I have been hit by one thing after another. Vehicles, major life changes, house repairs, medical issues, work problems, scheduling conflicts and all the rest. Work problems have mounted up against me and have slowed my progress on different projects rather drastically. Some people have become disgruntled against me for reasons beyond my understanding, and of course the ridicule and attacks from our organizations detractors has picked up quite a bit.

Plenty of people point to the old Christian adage that when spiritual attack increases, it means you're on the right path and having an effect for the kingdom.

This can placate someone for a little bit, but when you're in the thick of it, telling yourself that it's spiritual attack doesn't necessarily remove the pain and struggle. Unfortunately, people don't know what to say or how to console, and so they resort to platitudes with a hail mary pass attempt, in hopes that they can some how help you out.

It's not their fault, though they're following in the same foot steps as the friends of Job.

In case you don't know the story of Job, let me fill you in.

Job was a righteous dude. The most righteous. In fact, he was so blameless, God let Satan attack Job, to prove Satan wrong. You see, Satan thought that Job was only righteous because God was so kind and good to him. Take away the family and the wealth, and Job would turn on God.

God said, “Go ahead, try him.”

So Satan attacked Job and made a mess of his life. All his kids died. All his livestock died. He lost his wealth and reputation. His health got attacked. Even his own wife told him, “Curse God and die.”

But Job never cursed God. Instead, he cried out a lot, basically asking, “Why, God?” Job's friends in turn tried to tell Job that he must have done something wrong, and that he was unrighteous. God would only do this if Job were a bad person.

Bad theology aside (God makes it rain on the just and unjust alike), the friends did something that not even God Himself did.

The friends tried to answer the question “why.” God came in, and gave a big ol' slap to Job with his response. Instead of saying, “This is why I did this...” He said, “Where were you when I...”

What kind of answer is that?

God answers Job by saying how Job wasn't there when God did all these great things, and Job couldn't possibly do God's job? Seems a little arrogant. Just answer the question for the guy. He's in pain.

But when we stop for a moment, we see that God was in fact striking down Job's desire to ask the question “why?” Job was intent on getting an answer that he could understand, and God was telling Him, “You couldn't possibly understand why I do what I do. Stop asking and just focus on my greatness.”

This question of “why?” can sink us before we ever get a chance to float. When the world comes crashing down on us, we revert back to our most basic functions. Most of us want to know the answer to “why”, as though this will somehow aid us in dealing with the stress and struggle at hand. But it's a false answer, because having that answer so rarely does anything meaningful for us. Instead, it just gives us something to ruminate on, clogging our focus and attention on the one thing that matters: God.

Going through everything the past few weeks has been illuminating. It has not been easy, and I've hit a couple moments where I felt I truly was pushed to my brink. But the entire time, I'm thankful to say, that my heart fought to keep focused on faith in God, His promises, my faith in the fact that He'll answer my prayers, and gratefulness for His hand in my life.

My heart position in the past has been grumbling, frustration, anger, bitterness, and plenty of “Why God? I don't understand!” These fits of heart chaos only created in me confusion and separation from God. They provided me with no tangible progress, instead leading me to feel guilty and ashamed when the situation resolved itself.

I would look back in the aftermath and realize that I had reacted in a truly immature manner, and felt ashamed that I could act like that towards the Lord.

This time around, I've pushed myself to go deeper in having faith that the Lord will provide, and that the deep chaos I'm being surround by will not take me down. My prayers have been prayers of promise and speaking to exactly what I need. Once those prayers are prayed, I hold faith that God will answer them and provide exactly what I need. I refuse to allow myself to doubt that He would give what was needed to solve the issues happening. I continue to move forward, and am thankful in the midst of the struggle. I thank Him for what He is about to do. I rejoice in the fact that my Father is there for me.

Have all of my problems been solved? Not by a long shot. But He has truly come through in some cool ways that are truly testimonies to Him.

I don't want to divulge the testimonies of what He's doing for my family, but let me be clear: things have happened that cannot be explained away, except by recognizing that God has His hand intimately in my affairs. I'm so unbelievably grateful that I get to see how He's working through all of this, and He's bringing glory to Himself, as well as turning what is dead into something with life. I know that when we come out of this situation, we'll be better for it.

And the ending is just as important as the events. In the story of Job, God doesn't just leave him sitting by the side of the road. After checking Job's wrong mindset, God goes and gives back to Job everything he lost...in double. Twice as many kids, twice as many livestock, his reputation was rebuilt and his whole life was restored.

Our faith in the Lord's goodness means we keep ourselves available to receive the blessings He's prepared for us, if only we'd continue in faith with Him and see everything through.

I've learned quite a bit through this season, and I get to watch God move in real-time. There's no  bigger blessing than getting to see Him actively move on your behalf, and to be reminded that the God of all Heaven and Earth is on your side and moving for your favor. His heart is for His children, and despite what the enemy tells us: God doesn't want us to be miserable. He may know that problems and deep times of struggle are coming, but those times can be beautiful when we move in faith in Him, rely on what we know of His character, and continue to pray with spiritual authority.

So the question to you is: is it time for you to shed off the old ways of doubt, struggle, complaining and “why”?

This is his story, and his own teaching on the topic. 

At World's End?

In the early months of 2021 I was looking on in fear of what I perceived as an ever darkening Geo-political landscape worldwide. I feared war with China and/or Russia, the threat of nuclear war, and the loss of our rights and freedoms in the face of advancing Socialism and medical tyranny. 

In February or March of 2021 I became aware of a bunker community in South Dakota. 575 2,000 square foot retired army bunkers from WWII. It is a growing community of freedom and constitution-minded people in a defensible position in the middle of nowhere and far from any strategic route that any army would ever take.

For just $30k I could own a bunker and secure a place of safety and security for my family. I convinced my wife to also be afraid of what was going on and so we agreed quickly to buy a bunker. I pulled as much as I could from my retirement and financed the rest in house. 

We were in! 

Well... four months go by and God is not providing for it. We never missed any bill or monthly installment on any of our loans and we never wanted for daily provisions, but there was nothing left over. We would routinely chew through our tithe just to make it all work. Around that time, God led me in my Bible reading to Luke 12:16-21. Jesus is telling the parable of the rich fool whose land produces bountifully and he stores his grain houses up, then thinks to himself that he will rest securely and drink and be merry. The Lord then says to him "Fool! This very night you're soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"

After reading that and perceiving that God was showing me that I was doing the same thing as the rich man, we ran into our first budget shortfall since signing on to the bunker community. My wife at first suggested we drop our support for Compassion international; to which I responded, “No, if we're dropping anything, it's the bunker.”

She then revealed that the spirit of fear was no longer on her and she had wanted to be free of the bunker for some time. I called the guy who runs the community. I was prepared to walk away from it and count my losses; however he wouldn't let me do that. He made an offer to buy it back from me fifty cents on the dollar of what I had already invested in it. This was an offer I quickly accepted. Right away, we could see God rewarding our obedience. We gladly took a half bath instead of a full bath on our fear based decision. 

For over a year, God has revealed depths of His Grace I never knew! He is replacing our fear with trust in Him. I used to read Psalm 11 and focus entirely on verse 3 "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" now I read that Psalm and my focus is verse 1 "In the Lord I put my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?" 

God has shown us in His Word, and all throughout history, that in every case where His judgment comes on a people, nation or even the entire world, He always saves and sustains a remnant of His people through the judgment.

He does this for His Namesake. He does it to show the world that their gods do not have the power to save and sustain. Only He can save and sustain; and He will! The Lord's people are allowed to endure the pleadings of God and the judgments of God on a people, nation, or the earth.

Hear me: the Lord's people are not appointed to His wrath. His wrath is appointed against the wicked who, having every opportunity to repent and turn to Him, have instead lifted their fist in defiance to Him and sought to work their salvation out by their own means. 

Consider Luke 21:25-28. 25, “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; 26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 27 And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”

Jesus will not present to Himself a bride who is unrepentant, unfaithful, distracted, idolatrous, disobedient, and weak. He is going to present His Church to Himself awake, glorious, and proclaiming His Name; and His Church will meet Him with well trimmed lamps burning; awaiting His return.

I believe that is our call at present. To prepare the Church for the wedding feast. That means bringing more souls into the body AND sanctifying those already in the fold. We truly do not know the day or hour that the Lord will roll up this current creation like a scroll and destroy it and build the new earth and Jerusalem. However, we must advance His kingdom now. We must be wholly His, awaiting His return. We must proclaim the Gospel all the louder as the hour draws nigh; for Jesus is worthy of the reward of His suffering that all should be saved.

You can take a deep breath, and now you can relax. Or, if weeping and gnashing your teeth is more your thing, then go for it. But, for the next year and a half or so, you can rest and keep your mind on other things than a mid-term election.

I'm glad it's over. I've been waiting for this moment. I understand the importance of an election, and the absolute necessity of getting involved in the whole process, but it brings out the worst in all of us.

The power and influence that flows underneath elections represents a rather wicked sense of control over other people's lives. It entices and draws the worst of our populace into the limelight. The slick smiles (and slicked back hair), the promises to people's most base desires, and the arrogance all culminates on stages, screens and newspapers all over the nation.

These positions are supposed to be held by servants. A man of unique nature is the ultimate statesman. A man who is humble, wise in decision making, who hates ill-gotten gain, who defends against tyranny, limits himself, and defends the defenseless against the powers of corruption. This man brings to the position of representative the necessary qualities. How many people can we honestly say represent such qualities?

Unfortunately, we as humans buy into the King Saul dilemma. Saul was the tallest man, good-looking, and charismatic. But he lacked character. People looked at the physical representation, and wanted a ruler who would look the part, and despite God's warnings that he would become an uncontrolled tyrant and coward, they wanted to go forward.

In America, these positions of “power” are in-fact managerial positions. Each “seat” is one that is there merely to ensure the government runs the way it is supposed to. The tech manual, the rule-book, or the procedure lay-out of the government is written down in the constitutions of our states and nation. Just as the first five books of the Bible lay out the law and how the people should be governed, our constitutions and law structure are there to determine the responsibility of our governments. 

If our elected representatives do not manage our governmental affairs in line with the constitution, they need to be removed. This means we have to actually understand the spirit of our constitution.

Just as the Jewish people got themselves into trouble, we are doing the same thing. They stuck their noses so deep into the law, that they missed the forest for the trees. Christ came and told them repeatedly that they were missing the bigger picture. His sermon on the mount amounted to, “You think you're following the law, but you're missing the more important piece: the spirit of it!” When we say, “I didn't murder someone today!” we think we're being lawful citizens. But our heart murders constantly with hatred.

It's the same way today with our government structure. We say, “We stopped the deficit from rising even more!” When the spirit of the constitution was, “Government should balance costs at all times, because people should only pay taxes for the government to keep the lights on.” We look at our representatives, and we want them to tell us what they can do for us, and how they're going to solve a problem.

In all actuality, their job is to tell us, “I can't do that. That's not how government works.”

Government is a tool. It manages the fabric of society, and that's why it's such a contentious issue. We all view society and how it should run in varying ways. But our laws and constitutions determine how we all interact in our society, and what the society will tolerate, how it functions, and what will not be tolerated.

Our officials unfortunately must be otherwordly men. They must recognize the power that is available in such a position, shirk that power, and yet uphold justice and the laws in order to keep society functioning. 

This is a pipe dream. A true utopia (which means in the Greek, “No place.”)

But, a standard remains vital. Having a perfect standard helps us aim our sights on something, and gives us feedback on where we need to correct. When we hold that standard, such as the concept of liberty in America, our decisions become easier.

A similar idea is found in the mission statement of a business. A great mission statement becomes easily accessible at all times to all employees. A great mission statement gives the employee a clear answer in the times of a difficult decision. 

For instance: Let's say our mission statement is, “Customer experience, at all costs.” A customer comes in, and they truly need something, but it's going to cost the company to the point of a loss on the sale or service. Immediately, your employee knows the answer, “If a customer's experience conflicts with costs, and I have to choose to prioritize one or the other, I'll always prioritize the customer's experience.”

It's the same with the standard of liberty. If the question becomes, “Does this improve safety at the risk of liberty?” Then it's much easier to say, “I must defer to liberty.”

Today, we chafe at believing such a difficult conflict of convictions could show up in our lives. These dangerous conflicts show up because deep down we believe we can have it all. We tell ourselves we can enjoy freedom and liberty, WHILE being safe and protected. Rarely do we truly give ourselves an accurate accounting, and determine how much liberty and freedom that safety will really cost. If America were to truly believe in liberty (at all costs?), probably 75% of the laws, ordinances and regulations would be toast in a matter of hours.

This is why, when Christ is asked what the greatest commandment is in the law, He responds, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Why are those the greatest? Why do the law and the prophets hang on those two? Because they answer all of the conflicts that could arise from the law. Whenever a conflict happens, we look to love. Love of God first, and then love for our neighbor. And guess what, our neighbor includes our enemy, considering we're called to love our enemies.

The mission statement of Judaism and Christianity is such, “Love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor as yourself.” And you want to know how to love God with everything you are? Accept Christ. (There, now no one can say I'm not putting the gospel as vital.)

The mission statement of America is liberty. And while it's never upheld the ideal, we must present to ourselves the measurement stick in each and every scenario. Does this improve or hinder liberty? Will allowing this infringe on another's rights, therefore infringing on their liberty?

If America can use this scale in our voting, our legislation, our ethics and our social interactions, we will instantly create a more cohesive society. Our valuing of liberty creates more love for our neighbor, not less.

As I stood in the line waiting to vote, I played a game of wondering how people were going to vote. I recognized a couple of women who seemed to be a lesbian couple, and of course the assumption was that they would vote straight democrat. Intriguingly, I was not offended by the thought of their vote. I honored their difference in point of view, and celebrated that they were acting out the responsibility of choosing our leaders.

I vehemently disagree with the democrat position to infringe on liberties, and disagree with the democrat view of the role of government, but I never wish to restrict the participation of those who vote differently from me.

Sadly, I hold the hardest position to hold. I honor the right of others to hold views that would oppress and crush my own. I play by my rules that hold me to a high standard, while others won't agree to those rules, and therefore could crush me.

At the end of the day, however, my conscience is clean. I have faith in the Lord, in the truth, and the final truth that all of this will end someday anyways. So my participation is my stewardship and my responsibility, but the outcome is not my responsibility. I steward what I'm given, and will fight back those who infringe on my rights and liberties, but I will do it with a clean conscience and conviction.

I refuse to break the greater law, my morals and my convictions, in order to uphold such things that I hold dear. For if I attempt such a feat, I have defeated them myself. I have laid waste to their validity in my desperate act of protecting them. I've proven they hold no value while professing their immense values at all costs. The man who has no morals and convictions, holds his power and tyranny as the ultimate reward. He will crush all who stand in his path and will decimate the entire world to achieve his desire. What that man doesn't realize is he will ultimately destroy that which he prizes. When he finally achieves ultimate control, he will find his hands are full of ashes, as he cannot but burn it all in order to win it.

The desire of the tyrant is power. He can achieve it, but the more he achieves, the more ultimate control eludes him. In essence, he is cutting the branch that he sits on. As the nation he rules over compresses under the weight of his tyranny, the people lose spirit, and some revolt. He must then press harder with his thumb, attempting to stamp out the reaction to his tyranny. At some moment, his strength, resolve and abilities will waver against the onslaught of attack from the opposing reaction. Remember, every action has an opposing reaction.

Eventually, the tyrant can't help but crumble (or straight up die). His life is fleeting, and even if he reaches old age, he will clutch the sheets of his deathbed, and raise a fist at the sky, cursing God. The tyrant can never conquer God, and can never conquer himself. The destruction of truth within him leaves him decimated, and there is no peace to be had. Untold amounts of pleasure can be consumed, but never true peace.

And that is why the nun can sit in the gulag with utter peace and contentment on her face as she starves to death, while Stalin shakes his fist at the sky as he dies and curses God. The nun held her conviction to the death, and her conscience remained fast in God. She wasn't running from God, she was embracing Him.

The tyrant runs from God, and never escapes. Truth compounds within his breast, until he bursts...whether in this world or the next.

The point of it all? Your convictions are tantamount, and reject any man who will compromise his convictions for the sake of a temporal win. The men of highest conviction cannot be bought, and when liberty is their conviction, they will never attempt to buy your conviction from you.

Uphold the mission statement, and never compromise.

By Paul Garner, author “Yearning to Breathe Free: Questing for Liberty in a World of Authoritarians”. 

Without the ownership of private property there can be no freedom. Our bodies, labor, earnings, and our property are private.

Everyone has property.  Bodies, labor, earnings and property.  The only question is whether we have sovereignty over that property. 

Without the ownership of private property, there can be no liberty.

John Locke, the greatest influence on the founders of America, wrote “Every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” He continues: “The great and chief end therefore, of Men’s uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.”

He continued, “Government can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subject’s Property, without their own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all.”

And yet, in America,

The feds and states own our bodies as is demonstrated by the fact that they have final say about what you can put into your body and what you are allowed or not allowed to do with your body. 

The feds and states own your labor. They decide the minimum price that you can charge for your labor and they decide what activities you can and cannot labor at for money. 

The feds and states own your earnings. They take their cut of 30-50% off the top of every dollar you labor for. Like the mob who extorts protection money from businesses, the feds and states use the threat of force to gain compliance. 

The state and local governments own our homes and cars and boats charging us rent (taxes) to continue living there or operating vehicles. 

If the feds and states really have the final say over all of these things then you must admit that the people own nothing, not even their own bodies, and have zero sovereignty and therefore zero true liberty. Is that ok with you?

Worst of all the feds and states only have this ownership because most American people support it.  

Permits and Permission

Just yesterday as I was driving in our local community, I saw a sign posted about a community meeting to decide if permission would be given to a building owner to paint a mural on the side of his building near our downtown.  If you are not outraged by this, you are likely an authoritarian.  Permission and liberty are incompatible when it comes to someone’s property.  In a state of liberty, someone who buys property with their own money has the sovereign title to that property, whether it is a home or a business or a recreation property. That sovereignty allows the buyer to do with that property as they choose as long as they do not directly harm someone.  Authoritarians will differ.  Authoritarians will gather in their community and declare that they have the sovereignty to decide the limits and requirements for all property in their community.  They will contrive many hypothetical scenarios to manipulate and scare people. What if someone chooses to put a pig farm or slaughterhouse on their property?  Certainly, that is a possibility along with many other activities or aesthetics.  That is the nature of liberty and sovereignty.  If some people do not want such activities in their community, they are free to purchase the land themselves and use it for activities that they prefer. That is their liberty. However, they would not be allowed to confiscate funds from others to accomplish it.  Perhaps they can persuade some to voluntarily contribute their earnings to the effort. 

Several years ago, I lived in a neighborhood with a wooded area adjacent to it.  I was disappointed one day to see a sign that that land was for sale. After a time, someone purchased that land, cleared some beautiful trees, and built a large gym and a small retail strip alongside.  My neighbors and I knew that this would lead to increased traffic along the road between the developed property and our neighborhood.  I differed with my neighbors in what should be done.  I pointed out that we did not buy the land and therefore had no sovereignty or right to limit what anyone should be able to do with their property, duly purchased with their own money. Authoritarians in the neighborhood disagreed and used the local city government to force limits and requirements on the new owners.  This is a violation of liberty.  

Towns and cities across the nation are famous for building codes and zoning.  Authoritarians declare that they can decide the standards of building processes and limit what activities properties may be used for. The town authorities can’t be expected to understand all of the “right” techniques for building and so they often hire an individual, who claims to understand, to make those decisions. This always turns into a private tyranny and sometimes to corruption. Inspectors are nearly always authoritarians as few libertarians are likely to hold the position with the view that they will not interfere with what property owners choose to do with their own property.

In the town where I currently live, we must get “permission” from the town authorities to cut or remove any tree from our property with a trunk diameter greater than 2 inches.  Other town authoritarians will limit what color you are allowed to paint your house.  A city recently found itself in the news because they were fining the resident owners for having a vegetable garden in their front yard.  Their neighbors found it below their aesthetic comfort. 

A man in Miami not long ago found his house completely demolished by a bulldozer hired by the city.  He had lived in the house over 50 years.  The city had decided that he must upgrade his house to more current standards that they had set.  An elderly, retired man, he did not have the money for these repairs and ignored the many notices by the city. The picture highlighted in the report showed him sitting in a patio chair in the midst of the rubble that had been his sovereign house.  Did the city really have the sovereignty to demolish his house?  Authoritarians will say yes.  Are you an authoritarian?

Property is purchased from the earnings derived from the labor of our bodies.  No government of a free society has the right to limit or require what we do with our property.  If, like authoritarians often do, we disagree with this, we are admitting that no one owns their own property. In that case, there is no fundamental difference between renting a property or owning title to a property.  Authoritarians have seized all property.  Authoritarians declare that they are the final determinant of the purposes for property, the aesthetics of property, the value of property and the taxation that they will require to operate in their role as authoritarians. 

Folks in communities across the country are acting in everyway as though they have the right of sovereignty to limit and coerce what people do with their own property, for moral, aesthetic, or nostalgic reasons.  They use the cover of democracy to deprive property owners of their rights.  Democracy and liberty are not equal.  Liberty existed long before democracy.  Government was created in the US to protect the liberty of the individual from the tyranny of democracy and government.  

The liberty solution: If you object to how some property may be used, gather some like-minded folks and buy it. Then you have the sovereign right along with your partners to decide what to do with it, even if that is nothing. 

You are hostile to liberty if you seek to use force, like govt, to limit or coerce what someone else does on or with their property, their earnings, their labor, their body. This is immoral. 

There is no human right to the way that it used to be.  There is no human right to limit and force others to comply with your vision of your lifestyle. That is immoral, authoritarian and hostile to American values. 

Who told you that this was ok?  How can this be supported in the land of the free? 

Is America the land of the free?  If so, then each of us must stop seeking to control what others do with their bodies, labor, earnings and property as long as they don’t directly harm others.  Offending someone’s aesthetic or nostalgic sensitivities doesn’t count as harm.

Is the sky blue? 

Of course. We all have. Our first reaction might be to believe that falling down a rabbit hole means coming across crazy conspiracy theories, like Elvis shot JFK or alien lizard people wrote Shakespeare. 

Thankfully, I will not be reporting to you about Hitler still being alive in Argentina or bases on the dark side of the moon. My rabbit hole goes deep into the labyrinth of helpful tips, tricks and outlooks on life.

While doing research for a book I'm putting together, I rediscovered an idea that I thought was extremely helpful when working towards self-improvement (or personal development if you don't want to sound like a Tony Robbins infomercial). But my research naturally began to modify the algorithms of my internet browser, which likes to pop up articles on the home page. Pretty soon, I was being inundated with a wide selection of ideas and philosophies that are similar to the original one I researched.

So, I thought, in the spirit of writing what may help you become a more powerful Christian, contributing member to society, or at least a little better at making your bed; that I would share with you what I've found and come across in a couple of articles.

Self-Improvement Bonanza

If you're a perfectionist, these articles are for you. If you feel like you're a lazy slob and need some help getting out of the muck, then these articles are also for you. I'm hoping at least something here helps you modify how you live in a positive way. Sometimes, all we need is a little nudge in the right direction to improve our day-to-day life.

I think many of us can get nervous about such articles, because we feel as though we're either a) insulting God's creation by trying to “self-improve”, b) buying a scam-style philosophy or some psychobabble claptrap, or c) about to pick up something we'll fail at in a matter of days.

To me, all three actually take quite a lot of pride to internalize and use in the navigation of our lives. To say that because we are a creation of God that we need no improvement is to say that we are not sinful. Saying such lacks the humility of saying, “Lord, I'm not where I know I could be, but I'm going to continue to focus each day on becoming more of what you meant me to be.”

Scam-style philosophies are everywhere, but that doesn't mean that every idea or concept is a scam. These ideas and methods I'll be giving to you have been in practice for centuries, and have a long history of success in helping people improve, if only a tiny bit.

Third, our success or failure cannot be used as a judgment. When we approach a new habit or behavior, it is an absolute certainty that we will fail at some point. Your job is to get back up and keep trying. Binding together a string of successes amidst the failures is what sets you apart from the people who truly failed by giving up. 

So, take on these methods that I've been researching and implementing in some way, and let me know if any of them have worked, or work for you.

Kaizen

Despite the Japanese sounding name, this idea didn't actually originate in Japan, though they did end up naming it.

During the Depression, American business and government set out to change their business management methodology. Instead of seeking out major, revolutionary inventions and changing the entire landscape, American factories instituted a mission of small, continuous improvements. This idea caught on so well that quality and craftsmanship defined American products, especially military equipment.

Since materials and money were hard to come by both during the Depression and World War II, the best way to become a better business meant looking within, not outside. Small improvements created new levels of efficiency, and compounded to create higher levels of quality, craftsmanship, reliability and durability. 

After World War II, the concept was taught to Japanese businesses in an American mission to rebuild the Japanese economy. Japanese companies latched onto the idea (doesn't it sound very Japanese to the core?) and in fact, surpassed American businesses in the 70's and 80's. In case you're too young to remember: Japanese cars and electronics had a horrible reputation for being utter crap. But as American businesses were tempted and enticed back into looking for the next “radical innovation”, the Japanese surpassed them with what the US had taught them. American companies floundered when competing against the suddenly reliable, durable, high-quality products coming out of the former enemy nation.

Japan named it Kaizen, which Kai means change, and Zen means good. The literal meaning is "change for the better"; and it truly is. The idea is that there are tons of small little improvements that can be made. As each one is ferreted out and improved, the whole becomes better and better.

This idea was proven by the cycling team in Great Britain. Known for being utter garbage in competition over the decades, British cycling hired a new performance director, in 2003, by the name of Dave Brailsford. His approach was very Kaizen. In 110 years, the team had never won a Tour de France, had only one gold medal, and even sponsors were afraid for the team to use their equipment. Brailsford began with small little changes. Instead of switching out all the athletes, or completely upending every single part of their training, he started looking at the parts no one else might have thought of.

They redesigned the bike seats to make them more comfortable. They used electrically heated shorts to keep the muscles of the riders at the perfect temperature. They tested fabrics and picked indoor racing suits, which were lighter and more aerodynamic. The team tried out massage gels to help recovery. The team selected the perfect mattress and pillow for each rider. And they even painted the interior of the team truck white in order to spot dust or contaminants that might harm and degrade the bikes. 

In 2008, Great Britain won 60 percent of the gold medals available in road and track cycling. In 2012, they set nine Olympic records and seven world records. Also in 2012, Bradley Wiggins won the Tour De France. In 2013, Chris Froome won, and continued to win in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

From 2007 to 2017, Britain won 178 world championships, 66 Olympic and Paralympic gold medals, and 5 Tour de France victories.

One of my favorite examples of Kaizen success is found in a story about John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil. In the 1870's, he was walking the floor of one of his factories (as he was apt to do) where kerosene was put in 5-gallon cans. At one station, the cans were soldered to seal the lid. He asked the man working the station how many drops of solder were used. The man responded, “40.”

Rockefeller thought for a second and asked, “Have you ever tried 38?” The man shook his head no. So, Rockefeller asked him to try some cans and see what happened. They found that 38 drops of solder were too weak and some of the cans leaked. However, at 39 drops, the cans remained stout and sealed.

The company implemented the change, and by Rockefeller's own reporting, the company saved $2,500 dollars that first year. In 2022, that would be roughly $56,000! Rockefeller reported that over the coming years, the savings were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars...in the 1870's!

I love this story because it speaks to Rockefeller's ability to sense out problems or improvements that nobody else might have thought through. He was known for rectifying financial mistakes worth a few cents...whether for or against his company. Even as president of a global company, he kept a keen eye on all of the accounting, and was extremely observant to problems others might not notice.

We can do this too, but we must train ourselves to do so. In using the Kaizen method, a person begins to look at the smallest, easiest changes they can make, and perfect those areas. Imagine a Japanese samurai practicing a single stroke of the sword 10,000 times. Or a famous violinist practicing for 10,000 hours, and always going back to the smallest errors on her scales. 

For a more practical application, you could look at your finances. The wife and I have been focusing tightly on the budget, and I've found that this is a great way to begin taking control of the tiny little leaks in our wallets. Often times, we think we have to wipe the slate clean of all spending, and that will save us. The problem is, we never stop to think about all those little moments of spending here and there, which add up extremely quickly.

For instance, the other day, I realized that I leave coffee in the coffee pot after I make it. Most times, I heat up another cup the next day, but some days there is some leftover coffee that gets thrown out. Instead of brewing 6 cups (which is really 2 ½ for me) I could begin brewing 4 or 5 cups, and focus on finishing what is in the pot by the next day. As well, I could always take a day or two and not drink coffee. Considering I go through a container in about 2 months, stretching that to double it would save me 25-30 bucks every couple of months. You may think that's not much, but simply by slowing down my coffee intake, I can save perhaps 100 dollars in a year.

In the realm of food, I love dressings and sauces. I plow through them. Especially if it's a buffalo sauce and I have some blue cheese crumbles sitting around. But what if I decided to slow my intake down by being more measured in how much I put on a meal at a time? You may say, “That only saves you, what, 5 bucks?” But that's five dollars that I've now saved, and the habit spreads to everything. In our economy, being as efficient as possible is going to be a necessity.

Think about the method and how it started. During the Depression, people didn't have the luxury of waste and excess. Businesses didn't have a bunch of money to spend on development and innovation. Notice, after World War II, America was the richest country on earth, and all of a sudden American companies felt it necessary to spend big bucks on finding the next biggest thing. A method of necessity was jettisoned as soon as it wasn't needed.

I firmly believe all of us are going to need to implement this in some way, and it is a practicable skill. As you learn to look for the small things you can change in your life, you'll find joy in being able to maximize each component, which equals to a massive shift over time. You could change things in your:

• Work life
• Family life
• Spending habits
• Learning skills
• Driving
• Faith life
• Finances

Think about gaps, inconsistencies, spots where energy, finances or focus are sucked up, inefficiencies, or undisciplined areas.

The rule of 1% sums up the Kaizen method. Get 1% better each and every day. If that means one more push-up each day, you'll have 60 within two months. If you improve 1.01 percent each day, that means you'll be 37% better by the end of a year. You don't need to go for the big, dramatic changes. Kaizen, or the 1% method. Dramatic, massive changes actually work directly against such an idea.

We tend to get focused on a single, major change that needs to happen, and then become depressed and despondent when it fails or we fail. The small, continuous changes will give us feedback, let us know what works or doesn't work, and the risk is small. The reward compounds over the long-term, and you don't have to ever make a massive gamble.

I urge you, start keeping your eyes open to the small things, and you'll find your life becomes more disciplined, more controlled, more efficient and more prosperous.

Kaizen is more fully explored over at Four Principles.

LIBERTY AND EDUCATION

By Paul Garner, Author of Yearning to Breathe Free

If you send your children to Caesar for education do not be surprised when they return as Romans.

So many people are wondering what has become of the American education system in this century.  What if I told you that it was designed this way 180 years ago?  It was not a conspiracy.  It was not even a secret. It was the work of true believers done in the light of day and the public eye with all good intentions. It was done by elitists who believed that they knew what was best for children to learn in this relatively young republic. Would you stay with me to the end of this to see what I mean? 

Ask anyone around you if you were required to read either or both of the Federalist Papers or the Anti-Federalist papers in any of your history classes in school.  I did such as survey before starting this book.  Most people had heard of the Federalist Papers.  Some had been required to read them in high school. Few remembered anything about them.  Fewer still had even heard of the Anti-Federalist papers. The Federalist Papers written in support of a strong central government to which the states should delegate some of their sovereignty. Anti-Federalists opposed such an idea largely under the suspicion of what such a large central government could grow into over time. 

The lack of awareness of 20th-21st century Americans of their own history and foundational beliefs about liberty reveals one of many biases that have been present in the American school system for over 180 years. It was never about liberty for the organizers of American schools.  It was about compliance to government and business. It was about removing any tendencies toward critical or independent thinking.  Let me explain.

The common rhetoric about America’s founding as told in American schools, paints a romantic picture of a unified group of men working to craft a constitution that would protect the people’s lives, liberties, and pursuit of happiness.  The truth is that they were very far from unified.  There was great disagreement within many early Presidential administrations over how much Constitutional power the central government has.  

By the middle of the 19th century, there were some who claimed that the residents of the thirteen states were largely ignorant and illiterate.  They used this argument to justify a US government sponsored school system.  Their argument was false. In fact, nearly all white European men were well educated in reading, mathematics, history, philosophy, music, art, and agriculture.  This enabled Hamilton and Madison to publish the Federalist Papers attempting to persuade the populace to support the new Constitution and central government as well as the authors of the Anti-Federalist papers to counter them with their own persuasion.

Private and religious education was common in the colonies from long before the revolution.  Nearly all the colonists who had come over from England were already practiced in reading the Bible.  Many also were well read in the ancient Greek classics like Homer, Cicero, Plato, and others. Such teaching continued privately and through churches throughout the colonies.  Some communities raised funds voluntarily for their own local schools.  There was very little distinction in the average American’s mind at that time between religious schools, private schools, and community schools.  Nearly all used the Bible and Greek literature for their curriculum.

In the thirty years between 1820 and 1850 a couple of million immigrants from Europe flowed into America, nearly half from Ireland and a substantial number were Catholic. Until that time America had been dominated by protestants.  This led to some of the similar rivalries and hostilities that had plagued both groups in Europe since the Protestant reformation in the 16th century. Besides Catholic churches rising where none had been, Catholic schools were also expanding in cities and settlements.  Over this period there arose a new view about religious schools distinct from community schools. A belief grew that Catholics were more loyal to the Pope than to America.

Some began to see a need for an American identity school.  That is, schools that would teach foundational principles of what made America unique. Given the Protestant influence dominant in the US, the new American schools, “Public Schools”, started out using Protestant hymns, prayers, and the King James Bible. Later, these items faded out in favor of a non-religious civic virtue curriculum. 

The narrative of the Public Schools was the Federalist view of the benefits of a central government over all the states.  This was accelerated after the war between the states when the 10th amendment became impotent and largely forgotten. There was little discussion about liberty.  

While not the earliest assault on liberty, there came one from Massachusetts that remains with us today, government schools. Certainly, anyone who has spent time in Massachusetts is well aware of their long history of authoritarianism.  

As with many authoritarians, their ideas can sound excellent. They can be articulate and persuasive. In the first half of the 19th century, many were becoming increasingly concerned about education and schools.  Education and schooling are not the same thing.  A child may grow up in an agricultural home and become educated in the things necessary for a farm to succeed and prosper.  That child is becoming educated in important things but may not know how to read. Education is the learning from the sum total of human knowledge.  Schooling on the other hand is the control of what is learned, how it is learned and who teaches it. 

Horace Mann (1796-1859), considered by many to be the father of the American school system, was the first Secretary of Education overseeing the first State board of Education in the country.  This happened in Massachusetts in 1835.  The purpose for Mann and this board was to develop a universal education process for the children of Massachusetts.  

In addition to traditional subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, there was strong sentiment pushing for teaching the fundamentals of a democratic republic.  He started out in agreement with Thomas Jefferson believing that no republic can endure unless its citizens are literate and educated.  Underlying that education was a strong belief in morals and civic virtue. 

As noted above, the nation was experiencing a new diversity in the first half of the 19th century.  This was introducing a variation in values and understanding what the new nation was about.  Further, the founding generation was aging out leaving the next generation in place who had not experienced the oppression by the British crown that had led to the revolution. Religious, ethnic, language and political differences were coming to the shores of the new nation.

Mann had heard for many years about the success of the Prussian educational model.  In 1843, he traveled there to find out what this was about and to learn their techniques.  

Prussia was one of the European states that later merged to become Germany. In 1806 they fought a bloody war defending themselves unsuccessfully from the armies of Napoleon.  The Prussian army had had great success in wars in the prior century under Frederick, the Great, but had become fragmented since then with multiple chains of command.  Many younger soldiers had little training and were deciding for themselves how and when to fight and when to obey orders or not.  

After that war with Napoleon, they undertook a process of reforming their military by reforming their educational system beginning with young children.  This process was strongly influenced by Johann Fichte, a German philosopher.  The Monarchy of Prussia sought to instill strict social obedience in their citizens. Every citizen must be thoroughly convinced that the King was always just and right, and that social obedience was of highest importance.  They designed their school system to instill loyalty to the government and to train young men for the military or for government bureaucracy.  Fichte said, “The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."

Mandatory government school attendance by all children between five and thirteen had already been implemented in Prussia by 1763.  Such compulsory schooling combined with the reforms after the war unified the country under common principles of duty, discipline, respect for authority, and to follow orders.  

"Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled, they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished." – Johann Fichte

 “The Prussian mind, which carried the day, held a clear idea of what centralized schooling should deliver: 

1) Obedient soldiers to the army. 

2) Obedient workers for mines, factories, and farms. 

3) Well-subordinated civil servants trained in their function. 

4) Well-subordinated clerks for industry.

5) Citizens who thought alike on most issues. 

6) National uniformity in thought, word, and deed.” 1

- John Taylor Gatto

Horace Mann returned from Prussia and set about lobbying the state government of Massachusetts to implement these methods and practices.  By 1852, Massachusetts was the first state to implement free and mandatory school attendance for elementary school.  Other reforms Mann implemented during this time included teacher training. New teachers in colleges in Massachusetts were trained in common curriculum in every subject.  The state chose and composed the curriculum that every child would learn which supported the principles of the Prussian model. 

A year after Massachusetts adopted the Prussian model, New York followed.  The governor of New York at the time had received his PhD from a university in Prussia as did many other political and social leaders in the 19th century.   

As noted previously, Mann was a supporter of many of Thomas Jefferson’s ideas about the role of government and education.  Mann had great intentions to instill in students in government schools the values of democracy and the Constitution.  He wanted the students to grow up with a love for country and government that leads it. 

His goals could easily be seen as positive and beneficial both for students and for the nation.  

However, his methods were very much that of an authoritarian.  The words mandatory, obedience, unquestioning, conformity, uniformity and many synonyms must send chills down the spine of everyone who understands and loves liberty.  Mann brought an authoritarian practice of schooling run by government to the US.  He advocated for a state (government) based school system where the state decides what the child should learn, how and when they should learn it. He created an army of teachers trained in such conformity, uniformity, and compliance.  These teachers became administrators and politicians and leaders spreading their authoritarian model across the country. By 1900 every state had the same mandatory schooling model. By 1900 nearly all PhDs in America were earned at universities in Prussia/Germany. 

One of the most significant revelations of the agenda of the Prussian model in American schools can be found in the pledge of allegiance recited by nearly all school children in America for over 100 years. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy, a socialist Christian minister, in 1892 and that year the pledge was first recited in American schools. The original salute to the flag was the same as the Nazi salute to Hitler.  Congress passed a law in 1942 changing it to the current hand over the heart position. 2 

Are we surprised that America’s school system is so very authoritarian and breeds so many authoritarians? 

The curriculum they developed and used in these mandatory schools carried a single view portraying the state and federal governments as good and moral and right.  They reinforced the Federalist model of a powerful central government as protector and even savior of the people.  

Many Americans today wonder how it was possible that an unknown corporal in the German army in World War I could rise to power in 20 years convincing a whole nation of its superiority, ethnic and moral, and convince that whole nation that the Jews were nothing more than animals that needed to be slaughtered.  The answer to the question can clearly be found in the Prussian educational model.  Critical thinking had been crushed out.  Obedience to society and the government had been instilled in every German for over a century. Conformity and uniformity were prized.  

The same could be asked in America.  How is it that Americans have allowed so many violations of their natural and Constitutional rights from the very beginning of the republic? How is it that so many Americans have conformed and obeyed governments at local, state, and federal levels in the recent virus outbreak.  Government, health officials, and the media seek to use legal and social force to gain compliance to a common agenda. Our American school system has created this conformity and obedience.  The American school system is the heart and soul of authoritarianism.  It crushes critical thinking.  It either paints romantic notions about government and law enforcement or uses authoritarianism to paint the govt and law enforcement as all totalitarian and supremacist. It teaches people that they are free when they are actually slaves of the state. Teaching degrees and credentials ensure that the uniformity, conformity, and obedience values are transmitted to the students.  A common curriculum of history limits access by students to the “rest of the story”.  The mandatory nature of schools reinforces authoritarianism as the preferred model for achievement and success. 

Liberty is either hidden or redefined.  Students are taught that they live in the “land of the free” from within a mandatory, authoritarian structure. Students are taught that our military is fighting for our liberty overseas. Yet our schools are educating our students to conform and obey. 

To restore any concept of liberty in schooling in the US we must separate school and state.  That means abolishing the Federal Department of Education and each state’s similar department and return control of schools to local and parental control and even equip more families for private and homeschooling. 

We also must make our curriculum more liberty focused before Constitution and national focused.  Liberty is our highest priority. All other things are secondary. 

 _____

1 The Underground History of American Education John Taylor Gatto, NY State Teacher of the Year 1991

2 https://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm

The term “fascist” gets thrown around more than a football on Sunday, and it gets wielded as a weapon any time a conservative does something a lefty-progressive does not like.

Considering what we discussed in last week's column which covered Sam Harris' obsession with Trump, it is not surprising that a term like “fascist” becomes the go-to label to slap onto anybody who disagrees with the current administration. Conservatives at the moment are considered extremely dangerous, and should be treated as such.

Enter Joe Biden, the unifier-in-chief, who came to heal the political divide and step above the divisiveness in America. 

Our unifier-in-chief, speaking not too long ago, said something that dripped with love and compassion for every American. "What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy," Biden said. "It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism."

And in case you thought it was Biden's supposed stuttering issue and not his sometimes...incoherent thoughts, we can look to Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to clarify Mr. Biden's meaning.

"So what we're seeing from Republicans and what we have seen from Republicans these past several years is that they are attacking our democracy. They are taking away our freedom. And they are trying to put on the chopping blocks Medicare and Social Security. That's what we are seeing, and it's being done — if you look at the Republican Party, it is being done by this element, this MAGA element of the Republican Party. And that is what we are trying to prevent. That's what you heard from the president today,"

I feel so much better. Don't you?

Labels, Labels, Labels

Political rhetoric is nothing new, and it is beneath us to believe that some how political slander and labeling did not exist for centuries. Conservatives cannot get caught up in the game of “They called us such and such!” Though, as a possible counter-argument, I do believe Hillary Clinton's “Deplorables” comment may have cost her the election. It became quite the slogan for Trump and his supporters.

At this point, you're more than welcome to ask, “So if we shouldn't care about political labels, then why write a whole blog about it?”

I'm glad you asked. My answer to you is: we still need to participate in the language war. We just cannot sit on the step and complain that they're calling us names. Progressives are keen on using language to demean, confuse and destroy their opponents. The common man creates massive assumptions with a single word, and the progressive is always looking for that one label, that one name which creates movement against their enemies.

They've tried it with nationalism. White supremacy. Racist. Sexist. Homophobe. Look no further than Hillary Clinton. She said in a campaign speech, “You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call, 'The basket of deplorables,' right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic... you name it.”

The term “ultra-maga” was actually the result of a 6-month, progressive-funded, focus group research project. It took them 6 months to figure out what label they wanted to lob at conservatives this week.

Trump understands this, and has used similar tactics with varying success. His names for people like “Lyin' Ted Cruz”, “Crooked Hillary”, or my favorite, “Low Energy Jeb,” (Please clap) stick harder than anything the candidate themselves can attempt to achieve. Trump knows that a catchy, derogatory nickname lobbed at his opponents will consume a person's mind and push out any nuance as to who that person is.

Why should we care? Because language matters. But we cannot be surprised when it happens. We also need to care because our fellow Americans deserve to know the nuance behind such a name, and hopefully can be persuaded that the people lobbing the label have less than righteous intentions.

What is a fascist?

Are you a fascist? A semi-fascist? Before I get into a brief description of fascism, I want to explore the label of “semi-fascist.”

After WWII, some scholars created labels to categorize people who did not neatly fit into the fascist or neo-fascist political parties, yet “displayed some characteristics of historical fascist movements and regimes,” as reported by Britannica.com.

These various labels used behaviors and attitudes, and were applied to people who seemed to resemble various fascist leaders. Of course, Donald Trump was described by Britannica.com as “borderline fascist,” due to his “contempt for democratic values and the rule of law, demagoguery, appeals to racism, incitements to mob violence...attacks on the legitimacy of the press and of established institutions of government, and the exploitation of scapegoats.”

The Britannica.com description of Trump's “borderline fascist” record pointed to the Muslim-majority immigration ban (written in the Obama era), separating children from parents (also done during the Obama administration and used to confirm a child was not being trafficked) building a wall, a reinvigorated militia movement, and the claim that he never disavowed neo-nazis or the KKK (which is an outright lie. He disavowed David Duke, the neo-nazis, and white supremacists.)

If you narrow in the lens enough, you can make anyone look like a fascist. The description is wide and all-encompassing, and the history spans across plenty of nations. 

However, a few similarities seem to work their way through different fascist regimes. They tend to include a call to a national identity, an authoritarian approach that pushes into a dictatorship, a firm belief in the group over the individual, and the preparing and training of the people to become unified and strong under the national banner. 

Fascism tends to have an open economy when compared to communism, but often congregates power over the industries through government and committee means. While personal property and wealth are still considered privatized, the ideology or race of the owner could quickly see them lose such privileges.

Fascist parties, when coming to power, tend to outlaw other parties, and work towards a single-party system. They are more than happy to use violence, and in fact tend to encourage violence to crush their enemies. Most often, the biggest enemies are Marxists and communists, and such groups attract the strongest ire of the fascist regimes. Typically, this is because both parties are fighting over the same piece of pie: complete control over the nation-state, economic system and the identity of the people.

The fascist will use the democratic system to his advantage, and many times will become a wolf in sheep's clothing to garner the support of the masses. While some fascist movements outright spurned the common man, most invigorated the common man with dreams of becoming a greater man. Such language swirled around the idea of creating the ideal man or race, and sometimes built on humanism and materialism as it's backbone. Hitler's idea of the superior race found it's pillars in Darwinism, Nietzsche and materialism.

While some fascist movements embraced Christianity and Catholicism, the Nazi party tended to have a disdain for true Christianity, instead linking itself to it in certain cases to win the opinion of the people. The parades, celebrations and events that the Nazi movement revolved around, tended to use more iconography, symbols and rituals from secular, roman, and pagan influences, as opposed to Christianity. The Nazi party also pressured families to ideologically train their children with education that replaced Christian prayer with sun-worship and Teutonic rituals. 

Britannica.com reports, “Martin Bormann, the second most powerful official in the Nazi party after 1941, argued that Nazi and Christian beliefs were 'incompatible,' primarily because the essential elements of Christianity were 'taken over from Judaism.'” Which makes sense. Would the Nazi party really support a religion that had a Jew as its messiah?

Hitler himself, saw warrior paganism as a driving spiritualism, and there are plenty of reports of the occult in his circle.

These defining characteristics are not the only ones that describe the political ideology, but they do enough to clearly define the central aims of the movement.

Question is: Who is using the label?

The concept of a fascist swings so widely that it is in danger of losing definition. In America, the term is thrown at everyone; and the hope of those who lob it at their enemies, is that everyone will immediately picture Hitler, his soldiers goose-stepping, and the American infantrymen standing against the obvious evil fascists.

What many may not realize is the storied past of using the term as a title for an enemy. Unemployed, college-educated, slacker blue-haired kids who pass themselves off as adults are now joining a movement that has loosely titled itself “Antifa.” This is not a recent invention, but the group known as “Antifaschistische Aktion” popped up in Italy and Germany in response to the fascist dictatorships taking hold. The Antifa movement is, at its central core, communist. The battle between the communists and the fascists, especially in Germany during the post Weimar-republic days, was for control of the government and the nation. In Germany, the communists were crushed by the fascists, and the rest is...history. The use of the term in America is a continuation of communist rhetoric.

It becomes the label of anyone who does not come into alignment with the communist movement, and then gets parroted by unsuspecting folks who are just angry with Trump or conservatives in general.

Many who use it, believe that Trump was a dictator who just barely missed taking power over the government. They conflate restricting access to abortion with taking away individual rights (although communists only care about individual rights when they need to) and the restriction of illegal immigration as racism. Communist and progressive elements have decided that all white people are racist, and the racist history of America is a sign of the current conservative movement's attempt to re-establish racism in today's culture.

Semi-Fascism

This title: semi-fascist, was a shot by Biden to begin to strengthen people's assumption that Trump, the MAGA faction, and conservatives in general are all “Literally-Hitler.” But I assure you, the connection is tenuous and may in fact show more of the democrat party's intimate ties with communism/Marxism, than it does the conservative base's fascist leanings.

The vast majority of conservatives, and especially the MAGA base, abhor authoritarianism, battle increased governmental influence on systems and institutions, hate the politicization of law enforcement, do not endorse racism, and would rather see a truly free market established, Christianity as the guiding spiritual foundation of the people, and a individualist spirit regain its place as the people's ethos.

None of these things are close to fascism. They are not semi-fascism. What does look fascist, though, is: a plea to blindly obey experts and create unified government systems in order to enforce the judgment of the experts, the use of emergencies to curtail individual rights in the name of safety, the criminalizing of political opposition, the attempt to create a single-party system, and the demonizing of an entire group of people because they do not align with the values and ideologies of the ruling class.

You, as a conservative, are watching gas-lighting in real time. You're called a fascist, when you want nothing of the sort, but they do. Do you want the family supported and uplifted? Yes. Do you desire to have the spiritual nature of the nation restored? Yes. Do you wish your nation could be healthy and have a unified vision? Yes. But none of this rises to the level of fascism. You are not required to take on that title, and there is no reason to accept it.

The title is filled with history, and it is intended to associate you with that history. If you believe in liberty, individual rights, limited government, free markets, reduced regulation, equality for all men, the precious nature of life, and controlled immigration to protect the health of the system...then you are probably a conservative. 

Be a conservative with pride, and pick apart any argument that attempts to attach “Fascist” to you.

To keep your reading to a minimum, I will provide quotes and do my absolute best to use them in context. I will provide my text of the relevant interview section at the bottom of this blog post, and I will include the full Youtube interview. The relevant clip begins at around 35:30 in the full interview. 

Please note: my quotes are cleaned up for clarity, understanding and context. I did my absolute best to re-write them with Harris' intended meaning in mind.

The Quiet Part Out Loud

On August 17th, a Podcast that has been seen as fairly balanced on social issues and cultural events hosted Sam Harris. The Triggernometry Podcast is hosted by two comedians, Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, who, “create honest conversations with fascinating people.”

They've hosted others, such as Matt Walsh, Peter Zeihan, Jaron Lanier, and Project Veritas.

The Harris interview was a typical Sam Harris segment, complete with wheels turning deeply as he puts together complex threads of thought. The man is extremely smart, soft-spoken yet direct, and weighs out the things he says carefully. Not too long ago, he did a debate series tour with Jordan Peterson, and both seemed to carry a respect for the other's intellectual heavyweight title.

However, people blew their lids when this particular interview aired on August 17th, and the reason was simple: people felt Harris had finally said the progressive quiet part out loud. Until now, most progressives had slapped away any indication that there was a concerted movement to shut down Trump. As the Trump base and wider conservative circles claimed censorship, conspiracy and agenda on the part of the institutions, progressives continued to retort that the conservatives were full of crap and were just salty about the nation's dislike for such an evil man.

A thread of “speech regulation” worked its way through the discourse, and built on the notion that speech could be violence. Therefore, to save our democracy, we must limit the truly evil and catastrophic voices...such as Trump.

What caught people about Harris was his comparison of dangerous actions taken by the two camps.

“Hunter Biden literally could have had had the corpses of children in his basement,” Harris began, “I would not have cared. It's like, there's nothing. First of all, it's Hunter Biden. It's not Joe Biden. But even if, whatever scope of Joe Biden's corruption is like; if we could just go down that rabbit hole endlessly and understand that he's getting kickbacks from Hunter Biden's deals in Ukraine, or whatever else, or China, it is infinitesimal compared to the corruption we know Trump is involved in. It's like a firefly to the sun. I mean, it doesn't even stack up against Trump university. Trump university as a story, is worse than anything that could be in Hunter Biden's laptop, in my view.”

Take a moment, let your jaw return to normal, and let's continue.

Forgetting the fact that there are accusations of heavy drug use, pedophilia, kickbacks and federal offenses covered up by a government led by his father in Biden's laptop, let's look at Trump's world-ending controversy.

What was Trump University all about? National Review reports in 2016, “Trump University was never a university. When the “school” was established in 2005, the New York State Education Department warned that it was in violation of state law for operating without a NYSED license. Trump ignored the warnings. (The institution is now called, ahem, “Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.”) Cue lawsuits.”

When the article was written, National Review reported that Trump University was in the middle of three lawsuits. Two were class action lawsuits filed In California, and one was filed in New York by the then attorney general Eric Schneiderman.

Schneiderman claimed, “We started looking at Trump University and discovered that it was a classic bait-and-switch scheme. It was a scam starting with the fact it was not a university.”

Former “students” claimed they were scammed out of numbers including $20,000 to $60,000 dollars. The language from the New York suit states, “The free seminars were the first step in a bait and switch to induce prospective students to enroll in increasingly expensive seminars starting with the three-day $1495 seminar and ultimately one of respondents’ advanced seminars such as the “Gold Elite” program costing $35,000. At the “free” 90-minute introductory seminars to which Trump University advertisements and solicitations invited prospective students, Trump University instructors engaged in a methodical, systematic series of misrepresentations designed to convince students to sign up for the Trump University three-day seminar at a cost of $1495.”

Instructors were encouraged to tout Trump's personal involvement in picking mentors and trainers. They were instructed in a confidential playbook to get attendees of the free seminar to purchase Trump University course packages.

Now, the reporting from the National Review leaves out several questions. Did the people receive the educational material? Was the material presented by high level real-estate moguls? 

A year later, Trump settled for $25 million dollars to 6,000 Trump U students. NPR's reporting uses student claims that the instructors were unqualified, information was the type you could find in a general internet search, and that some of the information was illegal in some states.

So that's what Harris considered to be the most destructive action? The sun vs the firefly? Considering Harris even included in his argument the Joe Biden controversy of Ukraine (where Joe Biden said on camera, “I remember going over, others convincing us that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th  time to Kiev, and and I was supposed to announce that there was  another billion dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatskov that they would take action against the state prosecutor, and they didn't. So, they were walking out to press, I said, 'I'm not going, or we're not going to give you the billion dollars.' They said, 'You have no authority, you're not the president.' I said, 'Call him.' I said, 'I'm telling you're, not getting a billion dollars.' I said, 'You're not getting a billion. I'm gonna be leaving here,' I think it was about six hours, I looked, 'If the prosecutors not fired, you're not getting the money.' Oh son of a b****, he got fired and they put in place someone who was solid.”)

He considered the Hunter Biden laptop, alleged to include emails of kickbacks of international dealings to Joe Biden, presumably because of Biden's international political influence in countries such as China, to be insignificant compared to Trump's university.

I've gone in depth for a reason on these issues, because it makes it fairly apparent that Harris is not looking through the sober-minded, clear-eyed objective observations that he thinks he is. He compared a scam university that misrepresented itself, to the Biden's global business and political influencing (considering Harris doesn't even contradict that the withholding of 1 billion was a retaliation to investigations into Burisma, which Hunter happened to have been promoted to the board.)

While the statement about corpses of children in Hunter Biden's house is extremely shocking, it was extreme on purpose. Harris is letting the truth out in more ways than I think he wished to. He's admitting that he sees Trump as more dangerous than anything else on the face of this earth.

He continues, “That doesn't answer the people who say, 'It's still completely unfair to not have looked at the laptop in a  timely way, and to have shut down The New York post's twitter account. That's just a conspiracy left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump.'” He responds to the imaginary complaint by continuing, “Absolutely it was, absolutely. But I think it was warranted, and again it's a coin toss as to whether or not—”

At this point, he's interrupted by one of the interviewers, who states, “Sam, I'm sorry, that particular piece...I'm really sorry, I was the one that said we should move on, but you've just said something i really struggled with that which is...I'm interested in democracy. You're saying you are content with the left-wing conspiracy to prevent somebody being democratically re-elected as president?”

This is the moment that Harris knows he has to navigate a minefield he just laid for himself. He struggles to find his argument's consistent path, and lays out as follows, “It was a conspiracy out in the open. It doesn't matter if it was, it doesn't matter what parts conspiracy, what part's out in the open. I think it's like, if people get together and talk and talk about, 'What should we do about this phenomenon?' You know, it's like if there was an asteroid hurtling toward earth and we got in a room together with all of our friends and had a conversation about what we could do to deflect its course; is that a conspiracy? Some of that conversation would be in public, some of it would be in private. We have a massive problem, we have an existential threat, politically speaking. I consider Trump an existential threat to our democracy right now. He's not going to destroy the world, very likely he destroyed democracy in the process of protecting democracy. But that doesn't destroy...no...”

In fairness, he added, “At no point was I suggesting we should stuff ballots or actually break the machinery of democracy, but all political opinion is already being just completely inundated with misinformation bias, half truths, and outright lies, and or just the amplification of bad or misleading information based on you know the algorithm.”

But the damage was done, and Harris caught himself in a nasty trap.

The Truth Rings Clear

Harris presented himself as the objective arbiter who is only interested in “saving democracy,” and feels as though he recognizes that drastic measures must be taken. He conflates the idea of conspiracy with a hidden conspiracy. The movement with which various government branches, and the major pillars of social media were able to move in concert and cooperation speaks to a “conspiracy” against Donald Trump.

Sam Harris does not have to endorse ballot stuffing in order to subvert the machinery. In his mind, the machinery is of utmost importance, and he defends these institutions. I think I could take the liberty to say that he feels it is vital and necessary to protect these institutions, and considers them invaluable to the health of the nation. He pivots and attacks the vague boogyman of “misinformation and half-truths” as though these are agreed upon by everybody.

The institutions themselves have a vested interest in restricting and limiting anything that might chip away at their establishment. If anybody should be distrusting of the current system, it should be the progressive...but I digress.

I don't know if Mr. Harris would consider himself a progressive, considering his intolerance of the woke movement. However, if we're to say the establishment institutions have used their power for evil in the past, should we not consider them to have the same evil intent today? So why put the judgment of “misinformation” in their hands? It's a conflict of interest.

But Harris aligns himself with the institutions and establishment, and determines that a moral position is to limit a person's influence in suppression and restriction. After all, Trump is literally Hitler, and would you not do everything in your power to stop him? Even if it meant less than “moralistic” means?

Why It Matters Concerning Harris

I think a conversation can be had about what means a person might take to stop an evil, wicked force. We have to assume that those on the left tend to see Trump as truly evil and malevolent, not just a conservative leader.

But I want to re-state something Harris said. “Hunter Biden literally could have had had the corpses of children in his basement, I would not have cared. It's like, there's nothing. First of all, it's Hunter Biden.” 

Such a comment is chilling, and obviously for dramatic effect, but I believe more truth sat at the center of the comment than he cared to admit. In saying it, he was admitting that there are more important things to stop than even a child murderer. Not that he would not want a psychopathic Biden stopped, but it would still be tiny in his concern. His attempt to disconnect Hunter from Joe Biden was the second glaring admission: separate personal connections when they aren't convenient.

We all do it, and we all attempt to draw the lines at what matters and what does not. But Harris seems pretty clear that no matter what dirt comes to light about the Biden's, it can't be as bad as Trump. His awful comparison between the Biden's and Trump University makes it obvious. Further on, he names Hilary Clinton as a better option, and does not consider any of her dirt and conflicts of interest.

This is indicative of a deeper issue that I've noticed creeping up through Harris' rhetoric. In past debates with Peterson, he passionately concluded that the framework and foundation of Judeo-Christian's influence on values are of no use to us anymore, and should be wiped from the cultural slate. He feels we have organized and engineered our values and morals on an evolutionary plane, and therefore now have no need for the role religion played in the hearts and minds of the uncultured, unscientific swine of past ages.

His statements during this Podcast show the “evolution” of morality for Harris. He quickly jettisons things such as liberty, free speech and righteous conduct in favor of a righteous end. The ends justify the means. What if the only recourse to stop Literally-Hitler was to ballot stuff? Would Harris agree to this compromise?

My concern with the atheist mindset is that it sits on the branch, and then takes a saw to the branch. As they attempt to remove the underpinnings of Christianity and Judaism, they must then rely on a morality developed by their own soul. There becomes no standard to weigh every situation against. Every situation becomes it's own defining moment, and when pressed: the atheist has the opportunity to change their morality to fit the desired outcome. Hence, the ends justify the means.

The consuming fire of a fear and hatred for Trump has twisted many people into moral knots, and some have escaped the confines of morality completely. While Harris seems to attempt to retain some semblance of a morality in terms of not outright destroying the “democractic” process, he has made it very apparent that a more forceful social pressure is necessary to keep evil from winning. This sells two very fundamental rights: free speech and liberty. His callousness towards comparing evil situations, ie –Trump U vs dead children seems to show a lack of objective comparisons between two wrongs.

Harris fell a major step in his own philosophy by making such statements. I think people need to realize, he just endorsed moral-relativism, and despite his claims that morality is evolutionary: he provided us ample evidence that just because a thing evolves, does not mean it is evolving to perfection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDqtFS_Pvcs

https://audioboom.com/channels/4991237

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-university-scam/

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/31/522199535/judge-approves-25-million-settlement-of-trump-university-lawsuit

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/21/fact-check-joe-biden-leveraged-ukraine-aid-oust-corrupt-prosecutor/5991434002/

https://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-joe-biden-forced-ukraine-to-fire-prosecutor-for-aid-money/C1C51BB8-3988-4070-869F-CAD3CA0E81D8.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY

I do not know if enough storage is available on Earth to contain all of the records of the massive corruption, bias, civil rights violations, incompetence, and criminal activity of the US FBI.  This post only intends to provide a small buffet for consumption showing sufficient evidence to the reasoned mind that they cannot be trusted.  

Corruption and Political Bias runs strong in this agency.

Just this week the FBI raided President Trump's home in Florida seeking classified documents and publicly suggesting that he might be indicted under the Espionage act of 1917. Trump has asserted that no such classified documents exist because as President he had full authority to declassify them under the Constitution.  Clearly the Dept of Justice and the FBI are acting as henchmen for the Democratic party leaders doing their bidding in a politically partisan manner. 

The FBI has been slow to investigate Hunter Biden as the current President's son and even before his father was elected. They have denied having a certain laptop belonging to Hunter Biden and then asserted that there was nothing worth investigating on this laptop.  They have declined to investigate the activities of Joe Biden while he was Vice President in relationship with the legal system of Ukraine.  He blackmailed the President of Ukraine with US aid to fire a prosecutor looking into his son's business dealings.  

According to Special Counsel John Durham, hired to investigate the FBI's role in the Russian Collusion Hoax, "The FBI knew the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was utter bunk even as it suggested otherwise to Congress, the courts and the public early in 2017."  "A seven-page internal FBI memo dated March 8, 2017, shows that "talking points" prepared for then-FBI Director James Comey for his meeting the next day with the congressional leadership were riddled with half-truths, outright falsehoods, and critical omissions. Both the Senate and the House opened investigations and held hearings based in part on the misrepresentations made in those FBI briefings, one of which was held in the Senate that morning and the other in the House later that afternoon."  

"Quoting from the reports, Comey told congressional leaders that the unidentified informant told the FBI that Manafort "initially 'managed' the relationship between Russian government officials and the Trump campaign, using Carter Page as an intermediary." He also told them that "Page was reported to have had 'secret meetings' in early July 2016 with a named individual in Russia's presidential administration during which they discussed Russia's release of damaging information on Hillary Clinton in exchange for alterations to the GOP platform regarding U.S. policy towards Ukraine."  But previous FBI interviews with Carter Page and other key sources indicated that none of that was true – and the FBI knew it at the time of the congressional briefings.

Now 6 years later no one in the leadership of the FBI has suffered any consequences for their actions.  In fact, while Andrew McCabe was fired by the FBI losing his pension, a Federal Judge ordered the FBI to reinstate his pension.  Comey was fired by President Trump but has not been prosecuted for lying to Congress and to a Federal judge. 

The FBI was spying on Carter Page, a former campaign advisor to President Trump, in hopes of catching him giving national secrets to the Russians.  They had no evidence. They were fishing for dirt on Trump associates to discredit him. 

The FBI doctored an email to submit to a Federal judge to extend a wiretap on Carter Page, a campaign advisor to President Trump.  When this was discovered, another Federal judge stated that he did not believe that the FBI lawyer acted with political bias but rather to save himself some work.  I'm not sure suggesting that a lawyer is lazy, or incompetent is really better than political bias.  In any case, the lawyer confessed to what could have been 6 months in jail but instead received a sentenced to community service.  

The FBI lied to General Michael Flynn when he was nominated as President Trump's National Security Advisor.  They lied in an attempt to get him to lie about his involvement as a consultant to Russia and Ukraine.  It is a heinous miscarriage of justice that it is a felony to lie to the FBI, but it is legal for them to lie to a citizen of the US with impunity.  Nevertheless, the FBI uses this method often with the strategy of getting a suspect to incriminate themselves for lying then negotiate a plea to some other charges.  This is what happened with the FBI and General Flynn.  This prevented him from taking the job that President Trump nominated him to.  This was entirely predicated on the bias of Director James Comey. 

In 2018, Robert Mueller, the special counsel looking into the Russia collusion matter found zero evidence to support the allegations by the FBI.

I could go on about Hillary Clinton's emails and other ways that the FBI protected her obvious criminal behavior and role in paying the source for fake information on Trump, but this could go on too long for this post.  

Origins

Founded in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation by President Roosevelt.  They were initially commissioned to investigate corporations for abuse of their monopoly power.  Roosevelt used them as tool of his Anti-Trust campaign.  The FBI's roots were always in partisan political power. 

From there the bureau's authority and power extended to prostitution and interstate car theft.  As WWI commenced, they expanded into domestic security.  In 1917-18, President Wilson pressured Congress into passing the Acts authorizing the Committee on Public Information and the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act.  All of these were designed to issue propaganda to the people about the Government's involvement in the war and to punish anyone who spoke out against the war.  Fines and imprisonment were the punishments.  The FBI was the tool of the government to enforce these laws.  

After the war, President Wilson and his FBI continued to focus on dissenters, suspected communists, radicals, and other undesirable elements in society. All were Americans. Wilson's Attorney General, Mitchell Palmer, used the FBI to round up these undesirables. The largest of these raids happened on Jan 2-3, 1920.  Four thousand Americans were caught up in these raids on a single night with the help of his deputy, J. Edgar Hoover.  Beatings and abuse of suspects in custody was common in those days.  There was no Miranda reading advising them of their rights. Many were detained for extended periods without being charged, a violation of the fourth amendment.  Many were starved and tortured including watching their family members beaten in front of them.  This was all done by the FBI.

The first Director of the FBI to hold that title was William J Burns.  Under President Warren Harding's administration occurred the "Teapot Dome Scandal" where Harding's Interior Secretary was accepting kickbacks from oil companies for allowing them to tap into the emergency oil reserves of the US Navy.  Senator Burton Wheeler discovered this and began investigating.  At the request of Harding's Atty General, FBI director Burns was requested to stop the Senate investigation.  He sent agents to find dirt on the Senator.  Failing that he invented corruption charges against Senator Wheeler. This backfired and Burns was fired and replaced by J Edgar Hoover in 1924.

Hoover presided over a vast growth in power and scope of the FBI from 1924 to 1972.  He focused heavily on intelligence gathering, i.e., spying.  Spying on everyone.  All Americans from Presidents to street sweepers and housewives were swept up in his agents' surveillance. Files were compiled of the details.  

Hoover was convinced Martin Luther King, Jr was the “most notorious liar in the country.”  He intended to gather intelligence on King that would force him to step down as leader of the civil rights movement. He used illegal wiretaps on King's phones and had him followed everywhere.  The FBI’s file on King is full of hostility, sexual innuendo, and gossip, with plenty of references to King’s numerous extramarital affairs. 

Hoover used his intelligence gathering on elected officials to blackmail them into cooperating with his agenda, funding and to keep his job.  He informed President Kennedy that he knew about Kennedy's affair with Judith Exner who was also sleeping with Mafia boss Sam Giancana.  Such information certainly helped Hoover keep his job.  President Kennedy had discussed with his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy about firing Hoover. 

This collection of intelligence by Hoover and the FBI was often not used for prosecution of corrupt politicians and gangsters.  It was used to keep them in line with Hoover's agenda which was mostly about keeping his job. He allowed corrupt politicians and members to operate without interference from the FBI to preserve his edge in controlling them.

Hoover died with an estate valued in today's dollars at $2.9 million. He maintained and remodeled his home over his years as director through the use of FBI staff. He ruled over politicians and criminals and staff like a king.  

In 1972 L Patrick Gray replaced Hoover as acting director and was nominated by Nixon to serve as permanent director.  He resigned after admitting that he had destroyed Watergate files to protect Nixon.

In 1987, William Sessions, became director.  He used FBI resources for personal trips and home improvements.  He refused to resign during the 6-month ethics investigation.  Finally, President Clinton has to fire him in 1993.

In 2017, Director James Comey was fired.   

Incompetence

* The FBI made “fundamental” errors in investigating sexual abuse allegations against former USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar and did not treat the case with the “utmost seriousness,” the Justice Department's inspector general said Wednesday. More athletes said they were molested before the FBI swung into action.

The long-awaited watchdog report raises troubling questions about how the department and the FBI handled the case and it highlights major missteps at the FBI between the time the allegations were first reported and Nassar’s arrest.

The inspector general’s investigation was spurred by allegations that the FBI failed to promptly address complaints made in 2015 against Nassar. USA Gymnastics had conducted its own internal investigation and then the organization's then-president, Stephen Penny, reported the allegations to the FBI's field office in Indianapolis. But it took months before the bureau opened a formal investigation.

A total of 265 girls and women were ultimately found to have been abused by Nassar.

* The federal government will pay a $127.5 million settlement over the Parkland, Fla. school massacre — after it admitted the FBI didn’t follow up on two tips that could have prevented the massacre.  17 school children were murdered.

* Internally, the department has documented issues with workplace sexual assault and harassment — problems that have also, like the rape cases that come across an FBI agent's desk, been largely ignored. A 2020 investigation conducted by the Associated Press identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials that occurred in the past five years — none of the officials were disciplined. Instead, several were "quietly transferred or retired, keeping their full pensions." Following the report, FBI Director Wray reassured agents that the bureau won't tolerate sexual misconduct in the workplace, "regardless of rank or title."

Conclusion

No one should trust the FBI.  There may be people of integrity in the bureau, but you will never know who they are.  Everyone of them is legally allowed to lie to you about anything.  You will go to prison for lying to them if they don’t successfully intimidate you to confess to something.  They have been a completely politically biased agency for their entire history.  They have been tools of the government and special interests to silence or even destroy you.  They will never suffer negative consequences for their behavior. They effectively operate above and outside the law. 

Sources: 

• Kessler, Ronald.  Hoover's Secret Files

• Garner, Paul.  Yearning to Breathe Free

• https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/06/09/fbi_chief_comey_misled_congresss_gang_of_8_over_russiagate_lisa_page_memo_reveals_836434.html

• https://nypost.com/2022/06/11/the-fbi-knew-russiagate-was-a-lie-but-hid-that-truth/

• https://nypost.com/2018/05/26/carter-page-the-fbi-ruined-my-life/

• https://nypost.com/2020/04/30/fbi-agents-tried-to-get-flynn-to-lie-to-get-him-fired-report/

• https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/07/10582933/larry-nassar-fbi-sexual-assault-claims-ignored-history