Opus 2022-083: Headlines: So What?

I read in American Thinker a link to Newsweek which claims 40% of generation Z identifies as being LBGTQ.  Some people will publish anything.  Some people will read it.  Some people will believe it.

Let’s assume that the information collected in the survey is accurately reported.  I know that is a gigantic leap of faith, but stick with me.  It doesn’t mean that 40% of Generation Z are LBGTQ.  We keep falling into the trap of accepting the vocabulary and assumptions of the Proregressives*.  What if 90% of thinking conservatives identified as fully vaccinated.  Would that make any difference to the leftists?  Would it have any correlation to truth?

One of the advantages of things that are published on line is that it doesn’t waste paper.  Often it is just waste.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-082: Election 2024: A New Contender

We may need a Constitutional Amendment.  If we get started right away we might have time before the 2024 election.  We need to make it possible for a person not born in the US to become president.  No, I am not talking about Arnold.

Zelenksy for President.

We might need to send in the Navy Seals to kidnap him and get him to safety.  The campaign would depend on getting him out alive.  As of now that is up in the air.

I had thought we could run him for congress, elect him as Speaker of the House, impeach Biden and Harris and put him in office but we have still have the problem of changing the Constitution. It states clearly,

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

So we may still need to chose between Trump and De Santis.  I can live with either one.  Actually I think I could thrive with either one and if you look at the straw vote at CPAC there are quite a few names on that list that I could vote for.

Zelensky will never be on our ballot but a man can dream, can’t he?

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-081: On the Issue of Wealth

What is the moral high ground in economics?  We are constantly bombarded by the Marxist rhetoric of redistribution of income.  It is watered down and disguised but all this talk about how rich people are evil is part of the Communist desire to put all wealth in the hands of the state and their elite cronies and make it impossible for the average citizen to accumulate wealth.

Some wolves wearing the sheep’s mantle of being Christian thinkers will go along with this idea.  As someone said, “You can prove anything you want out of the Bible.”  It cannot be done honestly but it can be done.  One of their favorites pushing Communism is,

(Act 2:44 KJV)  And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

They totally ignore such things as,

(Gen 25:10 KJV)  The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.

There are many references to owning property and doing business in the Bible.  When there is a problem it is not with the concept of making a profit but cheating or defrauding in order to benefit.

C.S. Lewis makes this observation in a chapter called “Social Morality”,

“There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews of the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages.  All these people told us not to lend money at interest; and lending money at interest - what we call investment - is the basis of our whole system.”  p. 85

He goes on and discusses that this might be just the private money lenders that would squeeze the poor.  I think he is right is that because of Jesus and His parable of the talents.  Toward the end he says this,

(Mat 25:27 KJV)  Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.

I would not build a doctrinal statement on this but it does have something to say about investing at interest.

Our current version of capitalism may conflict with Christianity but like the Bible comments on wealth it isn’t the system of joint-stock investments but the willingness of people who use the system to enrich themselves while adding nothing.  I think of terms I have heard such as “corporate raiders” and “hostile takeovers” and such.  What they do may be legal but it is not moral.

As always, don’t just take the word of gurus.  Do your own reading and thinking.  Everything cannot be explained in a twenty second sound bite.  

Lewis, C.S.  Mere Christianity.  Norwalk, Connecticut:  The Easton Press, 2002.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-080: Election 2022: Half a Paper Trail Is Better Than None

I voted on Tuesday.  Although I don’t approve of the extended early voting I still make use of it.  It went smoothly and I was pleased to see something new.

Paper ballots.  

The machines were still there.  I had to get a number to put in the machine but when I finished making my wishes known the machine printed out the results of what I had marked.  So far, so good.  Then I was told to take it to another machine, check to see if it was accurate and put the paper in the second machine.  That was when it was counted.  Cool.  

I did not get a copy.  Not so cool.  My paper stayed in the machine.

But it was still better than just electronics.  There will theoretically be a trail that can be followed.  The problem for me is that I don’t know if my vote was tallied honestly.  I should be able to check that someway and with modern technology it is doable.  If nothing else I should be able to take the number I used to get my ballot, go on line and check to see if what they have matches what I did.

We are making progress.  I hope it does not stop here.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-079: Headlines: March Madness in February

Today the Soviet Union, excuse me, Russia invaded the sovereign country of Ukraine.  The original justification was that the people living there were really Russian and were calling out for relief from the persecution of the Ukraine government.  At first Putin said he was going to guarantee the safety of those provinces.  Now we have a full scale invasion.  Or we think we do.  Keep in mind that we are getting all our information from sources controlled by the Proregressives*.

Now take a breath and see if you can look back a few years to February 20, 2014.  What is this?  Is the Soviet Union, excuse me, Russia invading another area that is part of the sovereign country of Ukraine, the Crimea?  It would seem so.

Take another breath and see if you can look back a few more years to August 1, 2008.  What is this?  Is the Soviet Union, excuse me, Russia invading the sovereign country of Georgia?  For those were not listening in school this is the country Georgia on the border with Russia, not the state in our country between Florida and South Carolina.  That invasion may come, but not yet.  The reason Russia invaded Georgia was the same rational that they used in Ukraine.

Take another breath and look back to March 7, 1936.  The military might of Nazi Germany entered the Rhineland.  Guess why?  The same reason they later invaded Czechoslovakia and Austria and any other place they wanted to visit.  Strangely enough their logic was the same as Putin.

I would wonder how many totalitarians in history have used this kind of logic.  Or they might have had even more clever themes.  Putin may smile and act like a responsible leader.  The press may give him excuses.  It appears that he is just another in a long list of empire builders.  My guess is that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are next.

It is great to have a strong leader in the White House.  (For you liberals that was a joke.)

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-078: So Many Videos

I continue to explore You Tube.  I am currently about a forth of the way through Joe Rogan talking to Bill Maher.  I am not sure I am going to finish.  The topics they are covering are of no interest and their adolescent use of four letter words insults my vocabulary.  We will see.  I may watch the whole thing to see if it gets any better.

I arrived here because I watched a three hour conversation between Rogan and Jordan Peterson.  I found it interesting.  It took me probably a week to get through it but I kept coming back.  I am watching the one with Bill Maher to see if Rogan is worth pursuing.  It may be that when he is talking with someone who knows words with more than four letters that he comes out of his potty mouth mentality and actually discusses issues.  

I have listened to Simon Sinek, Eric Metaxas, and plan to look further for people who are willing to listen.  I am finding this useful for the time of day when my brain lacks acceleration.  It may come to the place where I become used to it and need to keep changing.

To paraphrase, so many videos, so few worth the time.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-077: How Many Tornados Does it Take...

A key concept that ties liberals together is evolution.  I am hearing it from psychologists and they talk about the evolution of the mind.  Currently I am listening to a discussion hosted by Jordan Peterson and joined by Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt.  I had never heard of either of them but I find that our local libraries have their books.  They are all steeped in evolution and it is their fall back position.  What was fascinating was the referral to Pascal’s “God shaped vacuum” and the inference that it somehow evolved.  They admitted that it existed but somehow felt that it improved our survival somehow.  

Evolution is a world view that is necessary if you are going to elevate the primacy of man and discard the existence of the God of the Bible.  It is supposed to be factual and yet even on this podcast of three scholars they could not agree on how it worked.  Where I come from that is called brainstorming and imagination, not scientific research.  They are unaware of the conflict.

As a philosophical concept evolution seems very useful as a word for change and variety.  As a principle in micro-evolution is can be of value in science.  As a scientific fact it is bogus.  Keep in mind two important bits of information:  First, there is not enough time for evolution to have happened.  One of my favorite comments on this is offered by Michael Crichton in one of his novels.  I concede that it is a novel but Crichton believed in evolution and I believe was a trained medical doctor so it isn’t like it is coming from Facebook.

“And to imagine all those things happen purely by chance is like imagining that a tornado can hit a junkyard and assemble the parts of a working 747 airplane.” p. 227

Second, all the links are missing.  Yes they have found a few things that have scales and feathers and I found reference recently of a fish skeleton that seemed to have fingers, but those are the results of thousands, possibly millions, of changes that are totally missing from the evidence.  I would also question the interpretation of what the fossils show.

In spite of that they keep believing.  And at the same time claiming Christians are against science and reason.

Crichton, Michael.  The Lost World.  New York:  Ballantine Books, 1995.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-076: On the Street: A Moment of Pink

Creation can freeze your toes or liberate your heart.  I have a note written down from a morning I got outside just in time to enjoy.  I wrote down that I got there just in time for the pink.

If you have ever been out early enough, you know of what I speak.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-075: The Cans of Life

I have mentioned deconstructionism before.  It is a philosophy that fuels our Proregressive* institutions.  It basically boils down to saying that words mean whatever you want them to mean at the time you mean it.  It gives them total control over the conversation if you waste time talking to them.

That is not to say that words do not mean different things at different times.  I am guessing that many of you have a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus on one of your shelves.  If not you have seen them at school or the library.  It is a tool for looking up the variations of meanings or for synonyms if you are trying to be creative.  One of my favorite simple words that has multiple meanings is the word “can”.  I looked it up in the thesaurus and was reminded of a meaning that had left my world.  It can mean jail.  Also of interest I did not see any mention of the containers that soup and soda come in.  I guess you can’t even trust reference books any more.

This is just a reminder that language can be used to confuse and distract as much as to clarify and explain.  Much of it depends on the attitudes and motives of the speaker.  Everyone does it to some degree but you can almost assume that anyone who doesn’t believe in God will take a lot more liberties than a devout believer.  The Christian knows that God is listening and he will be held accountable.  The non-believer or cultist will feel like they are their own judge.

Be careful out there; it is a jungle.

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-074: More Than the Border

One of the big topics of discussion among historians is why Rome fell.  If you know much about the date of AD 476, you know it is an arbitrary date picked because the new emperor was non-Italian.  It doesn’t mean Rome went away on one day or in one year.  

Arnold Toynbee was at one point recognized as the greatest historian of his day.  I am reading an abridgment of one of his major works.  I find him a bit dated, uniformed on some issues and a bit of a Proregressive.  In spite of that there are insights he gives that are food for thought.  One of them had to do with the fall of civilizations.  He was addressing the fall of Rome but there is a principle I found interesting,

“Why did the Barbarians ultimately break through?  Because, when a frontier between a more highly and a less highly civilized society ceases to advance, the balance does not settle down to a stable equilibrium but inclines, with the passage of time, in the more backward society’s favour.” p. 10

Think about this in regard to our southern border.  If he is correct the thing we have to fear is not people trying to get into the country but the question of whether our culture is dead.  If so then we are simply looking at another time of change and chaos.

Do we need to enforce border security?  Yes.  Is that the major issue we face?  Not even close.  We are in a death struggle with an enemy determined to destroy America as it was founded and they are not willing to wait and see if illegal aliens can do the job for them.  If we want to have hope for the future there are things we need to do.  The simple, obvious ones involve putting on trial all the miscreants that locked up citizens for trespass on January 6, have a murder trial for the policeman that shot an unarmed woman for no reason, start trials for Comey, Hillary and the seemingly unending list of traitors who have worked to undermine our election process, oh yes, and don’t let illegals vote.

What we also need is spiritual revival.  That is the hard part because it can’t be legislated it must be lived.  The churches need to step up to the plate and start swinging for the fences.  Otherwise it is the handbasket for all of us.

Toynbee, Arnold J.  A Study of History, abridgment by D.C. Somervell.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1946.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-073: Have It Both Ways

Let me teeter on the verge of heresy for a moment.

There are certain questions regarding salvation that keep coming up.  I am not going to weigh in on the question of the millions who have never heard the gospel.  What I am looking at today is the question of the Old Testament sacrificial system.

Most people I talk to either state or imply that the law and sacrifices could not save you from your sins and grant you eternal life.  In one sense that is obvious because nothing you do through your own effort guarantees you eternal life.  You cannot be saved by works.  The problem comes when people equate the sacrificial system with works.  This is based on the teaching of the New Testament that we are saved by grace, through faith.  Jesus Himself said,

(Joh 14:6 KJV)  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Their reasoning is that Jesus had not shed His blood in the days of David and Solomon so there was no way to the Father.

The big problem with that position is that the Old Testament is constantly referring to atonement that can be had through the sacrifice in the temple.  How do we put this together?

Here is where the heresy swings our direction.  Look at this verse,

(Rev 13:8 KJV)  And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

It would seem to me since God is outside time that He could apply the blessings of the shed blood to those who lived before Jesus.  In this thinking the blood of the sacrificial animals becomes a type for the death of Jesus.

Jesus died on a certain day.  His death applies to all sin from that time forward.  Why would it not be a possibility that it could also be applied to the past.  If you read the Old Testament you will find many references to the fact that a sacrifice is pointless if it is not accompanied by faith.  They may not have known the terminology but they understood the concept that blood must be shed but it was the sincerity and repentance of the heart that gave it force.

So don’t worry about Abraham, Moses, Isaiah and the rest.  Jesus died for them too.  They may not have known all the details but they understood that salvation came as a gracious gift from God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-072: Mush Battles

My mind starts turning to mush about half way through the morning.  

I am finding that listening to podcasts can firm it up a bit.  It is a risk.  Podcasts can also turn your mind to stagnant pools by the content they feed you, but if you have a solid foundation you can see the nonsense and move beyond it.  Use at your own risk.

This is of even greater worth in the late afternoon and early evening.  If I find myself watching a spot on the wall with my mind turned off I reason that I have nothing to lose by putting a couple of talking heads in front of my face.  Usually it stimulates my brain enough that when I get restless watching the screen I can go to reading again.

Occasionally I even learn something.  It isn’t necessarily important or even true but at least I can learn the mindset of people who don’t seem to believe that there is a God or that He is active in our world.  At best I can be informed by people who actually have something to tell me.

A win/win.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-071: Naturally

We hear about “natural immunity”.  The CDC and MSM want to deny that such a thing exists even though it has been part of the medical understanding for centuries.  

We don’t all mean the same thing when we say “natural immunity.”

Natural to me means “God given” or “God designed”.  When I talk about Mother Nature I am really referring to Father God.  When the subject is resistance to disease I assume that when God designed the human body He put in the proper responses.  Before sin brought death and disease into the world there were still things that needed to be dealt with but the immune system did a marvelous job.  With the defects introduced by original sin the design was weaken and things that would have not been noticed became an issue.  As human society became more degenerate the issues became more real.  Keep in mind that in the days of the Patriarchs it was consider desirable to marry a cousin.  Not so much today with all the genetic pollution that exists.  Natural is the way God made it.

To the pagan world it means a chance solution that seems to work.  Evolution is the process of progress by chance.  Life as we know it is just the luck of the draw.  That is why they think science and human ingenuity can improve things.  That is why they prefer a vaccine to gradual exposure.  Well, that and the fact that the drug companies are gaining incredible wealth in the process.  

These same people often believe in genetic engineering.  That means selective breeding to improve the species.  If it works with dogs, cows, horses, corn and tomatoes, it should work with people.  For the deplorables there is either sterilization or euthanasia.  Either one of those solutions could easily be administered, say by a vaccine.  Old fashioned communists used a bullet.  Modern Proregressives* may use a needle.

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-070: Censorship Is the Excuse, Not the Problem

In a recent Zoom conversation someone brought up the significant number of Americans who claimed if they had known about Hunter Biden’s laptop they would have never voted for his dad.  There were a whole list of topics that brought that response.  The big question we have is, “Why didn’t they know?”

The primary answer I always hear isn’t worth much.  People always say that the MSM is filtering the news and distorting what they report.  That is true, but so what?  If the news can’t be found then how did everyone on the Zoom meeting know these things?  

We have the same thing going on now.  The Canadian government has moved in and convinced the Canadian banks to freeze the assets of anyone that is on “The List”.  I read today that none of the major legacy networks have covered it.  I hear the same about the study by John Hopkins University reporting the lock-downs did next to nothing to save lives.  I hear this ad nauseam.  At the risk of repeating myself I ask, “Then how do I know?”

The news is out there.  It is available.  All you need to do is want to find it.  And that is the issue.  People don’t want to know.  They continue to think if they keep their heads down, don’t make a fuss and act nice that all the trouble will pass them by.  I would bet that everyone who says they did not know had at least one conversation where they heard things that made them uncomfortable and instead of checking it out had another cup of coffee, maybe with a cinnamon roll.

It is similar to people who attend church and don’t seem to be aware that the pastor is watering down the truth and sometimes advocating heresy.  They will say, “I didn’t know.”  That is pretty weak when there was a Bible in the pew in front of them and probably a pile of them at home.  When someone claims that a loving God would not send anyone to hell it doesn’t take a lot of brainpower to look up all the references to hell in the Bible.  

So speak up.  Be as polite as you can but don’t let people get away with acting like they didn’t know.  The risk is great of losing our liberty in this life and our life in eternity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-069: Trust Me

One of the common mistakes that people make is that things like science are based solely on indisputable facts and religious belief is based only on blind faith.  I am qualified to make a statement like that because of two pieces of paper I have in my files.  One says that I am qualified to teach life science and general science from kindergarten through 12th grade.  The other says I was ordained as a minster of the gospel in a Bible believing denomination.  I am aware of my ignorance but I am even more aware of the ignorance of many people I listen to.

Mathematics is rooted in faith, or it was when I was in high school.  Someone decided that I had a high math aptitude and enrolled me in the experimental program that was developing what became the New Math.  I never had a commercially printed textbook from 7th grade on.  What we used had been run off with mimeograph machines and bound with staples.  We were supposed to be cutting edge.  I share that because part of what we covered were the foundations of mathematics.  We eventually would get around to working through proofs of everything we were learning but before that they gave us some startling information:  There were some foundational concepts that could not be proven, they had to be accepted as fact.  I don’t remember how they structured the hierarchy.  I can’t remember if the lowest level was postulates, theorems, hypothesis or something else but we were told to take them on faith.  Of course they didn’t say “faith” but that is what they meant.

My guess is that in every area of study you will eventually get back to that something that you just have to accept.  In the process of study you will come across areas that you cannot prove and must move on.  There will be concepts that appear impossible but they work when the picture is put together.  Some things cannot be answered.  Any five year old knows this.  That is the reason they keep asking, “Why?”

So keep asking, “Why?”  It is a good question whether you are wondering what caused the Big Bang, what the square root of -1 could be or how Jesus could be fully man and fully God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-068: Autopsy Reports

PJ O’Rourke has died.  He was 74 and apparently had lung cancer.  That is unfortunate but makes sense.  Sidney Poitier was 94 when he died so there was no shock involved.  We ended 2021 with Betty White just missing 100.  But there are others that make you wonder.

Recently Bob Saget died recently.  He was 65 and I think in modern, Western terms you could say, “only 65.”  There is controversy over how he died.  The official story was that he fell and hit his head.  The rumors are there was severe trauma involved which makes you think about murder.  One wonders if he knew something about a certain presidential candidate.

Louie Anderson, 68, died of cancer and Meatloaf at 74.  I must admit I did not really know who these were.  Since I am 74 I take these things seriously.  I am entering the age when the other shoe can drop at any time.  

Every time I hear of someone dying before their time I wonder what they knew and whom they knew it about.  I wonder if they took any of the experimental vaccines or boosters.  I wonder about their long term consumption of alcohol and their past history of illegal drugs.  There are a lot of behaviors that can add little bits of damage.  Eventually those little bits can coalesce into something deadly.  It is a good thing I am totally ignorant, healthy and a prude.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-067: A Question of Philosophy

I continue to have a love/hate relationship with philosophy.  It can be the most boring of all ways to spend time reading, a perfect sedative.  It should be the most stimulating of conversations.  I continue to maintain that we are all philosophers, but most of us don’t know it.

I am currently reading Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy.  I believe Durant is primarily known as an historian, along with his wife.  He writes well.  Even a good writer cannot always make philosophy worth reading.  I started the book in July of 2020 and in spurts have made it as far as page 314, about half way through.  I am currently on the chapter dealing with Immanuel Kant.

On Kant he basically says the average layman can’t understand him.

“Kant is the last person in the world whom you should read on Kant.  Our philosopher is like and unlike Jehovah; he speaks through clouds, but without the illumination of the lightning flash.  He disdains examples and the concrete; they would have made his book too long, he argued.  (So abbreviated it contains some 800 pages.)   Only professional philosophers were expected to read him; and these would not need illustrations.” page 277

So he recommends others who will explain and of course goes on to give an overview himself.

One problem is all the picky definitions that you must embrace to follow his thinking.  Giving definitions is not a bad idea.  We need to know what words mean and often we don’t.  Take this collection of ordinary words,

“Sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life:  each is a greater degree of order, and sequence, and unity.” pages 295-6

Maybe that lights your fire.  Durant takes several pages explaining what this means.  I have no idea how many pages Kant used.

I ran into this trying to read Spinoza’s Ethics:  Obscure definitions in which I understand each word but the combination is confusing.  It remains to be seen if I will get any further.

Part of the problem may be the inadequate translations.   Few of us today could read the Bible if it was not translated well.  The same goes for the Koran.  Translation is always a stumbling block in any reading.

Is a great thinker really a great thinker if no one can understand him or is he just a guru?  I guess that is a philosophical question.

Durant, Will.  The Story of Philosophy.  Garden City, New York:  Garden City Publishing Co., Inc.,  1926.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-066: Really? Again?

Did we just have a super-bowl?  I am afraid to look but I keep seeing memes about it.  I would ask who won but I am surrounded by people who would just give me a blank look.

If I missed it I must confess that I don’t.  It is right up there with the winter Olympics.  There was a time in my life when I would have watched both but those days are long gone.

I am better for it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-065: Setting an Example

It is frightening watching what is happening in Canada.  No, I am not worried about being attacked or invaded by Canadian truckers.  I am concerned that the Proregressives* in the United States are watching the totalitarian actions of Justin Trudeau and licking their chops in anticipation.  If he can pull martial law in Canada then they figure they can do it here.  

I don’t know if Americans understand the fact that a prime minister under a parliamentary system is a different animal than the president of our ex-republic.  Biden is elected for four years.  He can be removed by impeachment but the process is so difficult and time consuming that the chances are almost nil.  Trudeau could be gone this afternoon if Parliament had the desire to do anything about him.  All it takes is a vote of no confidence and he is out.

So far the members of parliament seem to be trying to decide whether they want a position in the secret police or the regulators of banks.  Their lack of action is a mystery but a dangerous example for our country.  It does not bode well for our future.

Equally scary is the fact that most Americans don’t even seem to be aware of the danger.  We have fallen so far that as long as they can get their favorite shows on the internet connection of choice and the supply chain keeps supplying beer and potato chips then all is well in the world.  You may not have noticed but it is the dandelions sticking their heads up that need to worry about the lawn mower, not the worms crawling in the dirt.

Pray for Canada.  Pray for the United States.  Speak up if you get a chance and vote in the primaries on the chance that it will make a difference.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-064: The Motivating Nature of Hope

I earlier wrote about how destructive hope can me.  Like many things in life it has another side.  Hope can also bring about the changes that make life worth living.

Look at our history.  What kept the American Army going through Valley Forge?  Hope.  But it wasn’t just blind wishing.  It was hope with a focus.  
    In an ideal
    In a God
    In a general

The patriots of the Continental Army had inadequate equipment, little training and few victories.  What they had was a belief in the cause of liberty.  They knew that English citizens were supposed to have certain rights.  Most of what would be called the Bill of Rights in our Constitution were already listed in the English Declaration of Rights from 1689.  They weren’t just causing trouble, they had an ideal.

The rebels had a faith in God and a hope found in the Bible.  Unlike today when the pulpits of America are filled with the Go-along-get-along crowd, many pulpits of the colonies were filled by men who wanted more that being subject to the whims of an English king and his parliament.  The ideals of the Declaration of Independence were rooted in a Biblical understanding of the importance of the individual and how all stood on level ground before almighty God.  They rejected the class structure of European society.

And they had a general.  Actually they had lots of generals but they were held together by a man named George Washington.  Washington would never be rated as the military genius of a Caesar, Napoleon or Lee.  What he had was character.  He generated trust in the troops and repeatedly demonstrated that he deserved that trust.  He could have been king.  The army tried to force him into it.  He rejected the honor.  He stepped down after two terms as president to become a private citizen.  

We see this kind of thing in the American spirit of entrepreneurship.  Small businesses don’t fail because the people had no hope but because they didn’t do hard planning and put in hard work to make it legitimate.  It came through as immigrants moved west to homestead and build communities.  We saw it in colleges planted and nurtured by self-sacrificing patrons and professors.  

It is always important to place your hope in a worthy object.  Don’t count on the good nature of your fellow man.  Don’t hope just because it makes you feel comfortable.  Be aware that for hope to be effective it must demand something from you.

There is hope.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-063: Immortal Quotes: Eye Opener

Every once in awhile I wake up to something I am reading and have a hard time not laughing.  Since I am usually alone in the house, I guess I can laugh with no downside.  I came across this on According to Hoyt and thought it was classic.

“This is transparently false and the only people who can’t see it are those who can check for polyps when they open their eyes.”

If you don’t get it, don’t ask me to explain.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-062: Peterson: Renaissance or Post Modern

I have been dipping my ears into Jordan Peterson.  At this point I have two observations:

He is a Renaissance man in the field of knowledge.  I watched the short video that was labelled as the one that made him famous.  I watched an interview with GQ magazine and an interview with Skavlan, a Scandinavian talk show host.  His grasp of the literature and research in areas he speaks to is just short of awesome.  He knows his stuff in the areas that he knows his stuff.

He is also a Post-Modern man with all the gaps in knowledge that go with that status.  His basic foundation is still that of a liberal.  He uses references and sources that are part of the anti-Christian academic environment.  To his credit he is still studying and thinking but it is an uphill battle.  Most of what I have seen is from several years ago.  I sense he is growing.  Time will tell.

My hope is that he is really seeking truth that he is open to learning.  

I am not afraid of what he has to say.  He is either very stimulating or very boring depending on whether he is actually following the truth or repeating the things fools have fed him.  If given a chance, truth will win.  I am currently slowly working through a series of lectures had made on the Bible.  There is a lot of psychobabble that makes sense to him and his fellow psychologists but he tends to allegorize like a modern day John Bunyan.  I keep listening because he comes up with some insights and witty remarks.  I find the short videos rather boring.  They are supposed to be the clever use of videos with his words running over them.  The long lectures and interview give him more range to nuance and explain.

We will see how long I keep listening.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-061: The Many Civil Wars of America

There is a lot of talk about dividing the nation.  You’ve all heard it.  Sometimes it is parsed as civil war.  Another term I have heard is “national divorce”.  I have seen maps.  Realize, this is nothing new.  This is not a novel concept.

Several states were “independent” at one time.  Vermont was a self-declared republic for about fourteen years before it entered the union in 1791.  Texas was an independent republic for years before being admitted.  There is also a reason why the state flag of California says “California Republic” across the bottom.

New England was talking about splitting off around the time of the War of 1812.  They wanted to return to the fold with England.

The Mormons set out to establish an independent country.

Aaron Burr was accused of trying to start an independent country.  Part of that was a political witch hunt propelled by Thomas Jefferson but it went to trial.

The Midwest threatened to secede over the issue of slavery.  The difference from the South was that they were going to leave if slavery was allowed to continue.

South Carolina was going to leave over tariffs before slavery was the big issue.

And these are just the ones that come off the top of my head.

So don’t get too excited about all the talk.  Keep praying.  Keep speaking up.  Keep doing all you can to exercise your freedom.  We have an election coming up.  If there is a big shake up don’t let that lower your guard because there are changes that need to be made and there is no guarantee that those claiming to make the changes will do so.

We have a long struggle ahead.  Let your light shine until the end of the tunnel gets bright enough to read by.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-060: God’s Pronouns

Why does the Bible emphasize the Fatherhood of God and not the Motherhood?  Although I understand there are a few places where a female pronoun is used the overwhelming mass is for a male figure.  Is this just cultural or is it an eternal truth?  I did a quick search for the words “father” and “God” and came up with 160 matches.  It seems that most of the matches had the words separated and the “father” was an earthly father.  There were a few exceptions though.  One stands out,

(Isa 9:6 KJV)  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

There are no apologies, watering down or compromise in that statement.

A second search for the exact phrase “God the Father” came up with twelve matches, all in the New Testament.  A typical one was,

(Gal 1:3 KJV)  Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,

So the testimony of the written word is that God is a masculine not a feminine.

This seems to offend the logic of our post-modern generation of 47 genders.  Wouldn’t a trinity of Father, Mother, Son make more sense?  After all it would reflect the reality of the family.  Maybe that is why the Muslims think Mary is part of the trinity.  It seems more logical.  Ignore that they got the idea from the heretics of Egypt.  It isn’t logical to our way of thinking.  That is one of the differences between a God who made man and a god made by man.

Keep in mind that the Bible was not written to “make sense” to the average skeptic.  It was written to reflect truth.  It was written to teach truth.  It is considered “God breathed”.  That is what inspired means.  To further confuse the issue we have

(Gen 1:27 KJV)  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

For those who tend toward male chauvinism this wall is put up to be run into.  While God is distinctly male the woman is also created in His image.  This was not an issue when I was growing up and I don’t think it was an issue for the preceding 6,000 years.  It is an issue today when we have our major institutions controlled by people who hate the God of the Bible.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-059: The Power of No

Are you familiar with the term “jury nullification”?  If you aren’t then you should be.  Here is one reference,

“It is not widely known that even if a jury determines the the defendant broke the law, if the jury believes the law itself is bad or stupid or wrong, the jury can still come in with a verdict of not guilty.  This is known as ‘jury nullification.’” p. 104

I don’t know if you have ever been on a jury.  I made it through the selection process once.  Usually I am ruled out because I don’t drink and I have known some police officers.  For some reason this seems to make you unable to decide guilt in a case.  The one time I was impaneled it was a civil case coming out of an automobile accident.  I guess the fact that I drove a car did not disqualify me.

For me one high point in my service was when the judge instructed the jury.  It has been a long time but paraphrasing my memory, one of the things he said to us went something like, “I will tell you what the law is and the choices you can make.”  Since I am a rebel at heart I could not stop my hand from going up and asking the question, again I paraphrase, “Then what do you need us for?”  

The basic idea in jury nullification is that citizens are just as capable as someone in a black robe on deciding what is just and what is criminal.  Keep in mind that judges are nullifying the law on a regular basis.  Take it a step further, they are constantly nullifying the Constitution.  Their reason is not some object bit of justice but advancing their own political position.  In my opinion, and the opinion of others, juries should have that same right.

There are good people on both sides of this concept.  I would put my hat in the ring that says my responsibility as a juror is to see justice done.  This is important because in the days ahead we will continue to see the Proregressives* try to use the courts and what used to be a legal system to intimidate and coerce the population into submitting to tyranny.  If we want to avoid the fantasy that violence will solve the problem we are going to need to man up and use the jury system if they ever let us get there.

Ayoob, Massad.  Deadly Force.  Iola, WI:  Krause Publications, 2014.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-058: Problems and Solutions

America has problems.  At the root of all that is coming apart is a rejection of spiritual values.  I lay the blame mainly on the church.  The church has refused to be the church.  They have been busy being accepted by the pagan world and looking for ways to water down the message.

If America faces the kind of oppression and violence that I see coming it will not be because we did not get involved in politics.  It will because we have rejected the demands of a holy God.  It will be because of millions of abortions.  It will be because pornography has gone mainstream.  It will be because we now accept all the different versions of homosexual behavior and will soon be accepting even more.  It will be because pedophilia is coming close to being accepted.  

These are spiritual issues and there are spiritual solutions.  We could have revival.  In the Bible you have the example of Nineveh responding to Jonah.  God would have spared Sodom if only a few righteous could be found.  The preaching of John Wesley kept England from disintegrating like the French did.  Societies can be changed but they won’t be changed until individuals are changed.  

Get involved politically.  Vote.  Speak up.  But most important humble yourself before the God of the universe and repent.  The principle was presented to Israel,

(2Ch 7:14 KJV)  If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

We are not Israel.  We are not the chosen people, but God has blessed us and used us to be a blessing.  The principle still applies if you are one of those who follows Jesus and lives a life of obedience.

It is not too late.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-057: Ode to Old: Better Reheated

Have you noticed how older people tend to repeat themselves?  I am an older person and I notice it both in others and myself.

That is perfectly fine.  The reason is that the stories usually get better every time they are told.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-056: White Supremacy 101

We need a program, federal or state, that introduces into our educational system a series of classes exploring the attitudes, practices and principles that are labeled white supremacy.  It could be a required part of the middle school curriculum like conversational Spanish.  It could be a freshman level course in college.  Remember when civics was required?  Remember when homemaking was offered?  It could just be another class.

If it were taught as an exploration, the principles could be introduced one at a time.  How many young people have never been threatened by the concept of being on time?  How many would find the idea of hard work offensive?  For those who are pushing racial divisiveness and identity politics it would be a great tool for expressing their hatred.  Give it a shot.  Tell the whole world all the oppressive things that are a part of white supremacy.  Most will rebel at the idea of picking up their own sox.

At first.

But give it some time.  It won’t take long before some black kid says, “Hey, that’s what my grandma always told me.”  Or the young lady who says, “There is a problem with two parent families?”  In the long run the part of the population that can tell when a shirt is on inside out will begin to see that the principles are not “white” but plain common sense.

Keep in mind that you never need to be afraid of the truth if you accept that truth is a good thing.  That kind of fear is reserved for those who want to hide and manipulate.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-055: Growth or Petrification

One of the books I am slowly working through is an abridgement of A Study of History by Arnold Toynbee.  At this point he is looking for the reasons why some relatively primitive societies will develop into more advanced civilizations but most of them continue on with little change.  What is the spark?  He discounts race and environment for the genius of development.  He then goes on into some weird talk of myths and such.  That is not what caught my attention.

I was interested in his discussion of the time period leading to the beginnings of the Egyptian civilization.  You may not have thought about it but the Sahara Desert in northern Africa was once a vast, well watered grass land.  It was covered with game animals and the primitive hunter-gathers lived an idyllic life.  Then you had global warming.  The glaciers melted and the rain patterns changed.  The nomads of the north African steppes had to make some choices.  The two groups he follows are the same racial stock and they were dealing with the same environmental issues.

One group moved east to the Nile valley and Delta and began to use human ingenuity to transform it into a food producing area.  This laid the groundwork and was the catalyst for the next several thousand years of advanced Egyptian civilizations.

A second group moved south into what is modern Sudan and evidently found a similar situation with a river and a delta but instead of transforming it they settled down to the same hunter-gatherer culture that they had lived in the north.  They never developed.  

“At that time, it would seem, the ancestors of the modern Dinka and Shilluk parted with their heroic neighbours (sic) and followed the line of least resistance by retreating southwards to a country where they could continue to live, without changing their way of life, in physical surroundings partly identical with those to which they were accustomed. They settled in the Tropical Sudan, within the range of the equatorial rains, and here their descendants remain to this day living the self-same life as their remote ancestors. In their new home the sluggish and unambitious emigrants found what their souls desired.” page 72

This made me wonder if the panic over global warming and climate change could be an opportunity for humanity to make another big cultural advance.  So far the trend is to preserve things as they are.  Could it be that the path to the future is adjusting to the change and applying the innovative genius of the race to moving ahead.

The ones who tried to keep things the same petrified their culture.  The ones who adjusted reached new heights.  Perhaps what we need to do is get over the fear and look at moving forward.  Of course both sides in the dispute could use these arguments.  

Viva la climate change.

Toynbee, Arnold J.  A Study of History, abridgment by D.C. Somervell.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1946.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-054: Finally Too Far?

People seem to be listening to Jordan Peterson.  I tried watching a few of his short videos but don’t find them satisfying so I am trying to listen to some of his longer conversations.  They take a lot of time so I parcel them out.  Currently I am listening to a conversation between Peterson and Joe Rogan (#1208).  

Peterson was commenting on how people in business are more socialized than academia.  I think his explanation for the academics was that they can evaluate each other based on their published research.  He called it science.  He said business people are much more socialized.  They need to constantly be socializing to find out whom they can trust.  

Business people need to develop a relationship with their employees and customers.  If they make the wrong choices in employees then they fail.  If the customers find the businessman cannot be trusted then eventually they fall from their positions and go broke.  I think of the ways in which companies have lowered the quality of their products and I have found other sources.  Multiply that by a few million and you have serious money.

This made me think of the major players in our culture, the social media gurus.  They have betrayed the trust people had in them.  The masses are slow to wake up to this because they are already so woke, but the day will come when they say, “Hey” and admit to themselves they have been lied to and manipulated.  Will these corporate giants fall because of it?  It is interesting that we are currently seeing some significant losses in the stock market and in usage.  Is this an indication that people are feeling betrayed or just a blip in the market?  Only time will tell.

People don’t mind being lied to when you tell them they look good today.  I think that they have a little different response when they realize that the actions of the government and crony capitalists are slowly eroding their liberty and freedom of choice.  Please note that I say “crony capitalist” not “capitalist”.  The first is an agent of fascism the second is someone who sells stock in their company.

Markets work if they are allowed to.  Get involved in the process.  If you are tired of being lied to by Facebook and Twitter then look for alternatives.  I can’t give you much advice on that because I have almost no involvement with either one.  If, on the other hand, you want advice on the best Bible translation I can help you.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-053: The Destructive Nature of Hope

America as a whole continues to act like Christian gentlemen.  They are walking softly and have not yet resorted to the big stick.  Many have reached for it and are polishing it but are not serious about it yet.  This waiting seems to be a tendency in many people.  Think of times of persecution and ask yourselves why people too it for so long.

Why didn’t the inmates of the holocaust overwhelm their guards?  Why didn’t the kulaks of the Ukraine fight back against the Soviet police?  How did Pol Pot murder millions of Cambodians?  It is a recurring theme.

The culprit is hope.  Yes, hope.  Clever tyrants always keep a spark of hope alive in those they wish to oppress.  We tend to think that if we just put up with it a little longer it will go away.  One more time will satisfy the abuser.  I think this is the kind of thinking women have around men who beat them.  I don’t know if it is carefully thought out or just automatic instinct.  

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn understood the process.  I found the quote I remembered at Brainy Quotes,

“You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.”

My big issue with sites like this is they are too lazy to tell where they get the quote or I am too lazy to dig through to where they have it hidden.  The point is that hope must be kept alive.

Thomas Jefferson put it this way in The Declaration of Independence,

“all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves”

Why?  Hope.  

I think we need to realize that the Proregressive* tyrants understand this about us and are working it as hard as they can.  It is good to have hope.  It can be destructive to allow our brains to be anaesthetized by that hope.  

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-052: Wildflower Watch: Ice Trees

We just went from a day of 70 degrees to ice storms.  Texas keeps you on your toes.

Last week we had the grandchildren over and I took them for a walk.  I asked my granddaughter if she saw any flowers and the answer, of course, was, “No.”  We kept looking but only found a couple of dried out seed pods.

The morning after the ice storm hit brought another kind of “wildflower”.  Outside my window is a mesquite tree and as the sun came up I noticed that it was incased in ice.  It was beautiful.  Looking out other windows I could see other trees around that looked the same.  

Nature is capable of presenting beauty even in the most deadly situations.  I was not going to go out and contemplate the icy branches.  Looking from afar was enough but I am constantly awakened to the creative variety that God has given us in our world.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-051: Pushing Electrons

God oversees all of creation.  He keeps the electrons in their tracks and monitors their speed.  With this kind of thinking we need to be careful to avoid pantheism where God is everything and everything is God.  Creation is the material universe that God created out of nothing and outside Himself.  He designed it to be managed.  Think about spinning a top.  Eventually it slows down and falls over.  The same does not happen with the electrons spinning around the nucleus in every atom.  It could be like the mechanical watches where the spring gives just a bit of a push each cycle.  God does that.

I don’t think He sits there with a finger behind each electron.  I think almost everything is designed to function without supervision.  Think of the three types of muscle in the human body.  There is voluntary muscle, also called skeletal.  There is cardiac muscle, totally involuntary.  There is involuntary like the intestines.  Then you have things like the lungs that function automatically most of the time but can also be influenced.

Perhaps the universe has similar divisions.  I am not committed to three.  There may even be more than three types of muscles but you get the idea.

The key point that most people have trouble with is the God factor.  He is in control.  He can choose to push, pull or just watch, but He is in control.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-050: Follow the Rules

Progressives* as a group present a problem for humanity and civilization.  They are driving identity politics and all of its destruction through the institutions we live in.  It drives me crazy when people say they are really good people but just misinformed.  That is not possible.  I have come to the conclusion that they are either stupid, ignorant or evil.  I have written about that opinion before and will again, I am sure.  

What I want to suggest today is that we have to set aside the idea that they are stupid.  That can’t be the case.  They know what they are doing.  They are well studied on who traditional Americans are and they know exactly how to play us in order to win the game of politics.

These people know that we are guided by truth, justice and integrity.  They know that we will play by the rules.  They know that they can cheat and we will still play by the rules even if it means we will lose.  The most damaging demonstration of this is in the court system.  A clear example has to do with abortion and Roe v Wade.  The leftists on the court made up an entire new set of rights and privileges.  They ignored the fact that there was no precedent or even logic in their position.  So abortion became a new right declared by the Supreme Court.  They completely ignored all of the standards of the law.  They ignored science and biology.  They did this knowing that the conservatives would find it almost impossible to change because the standard is to evaluate new decisions on the precedent of previous decisions.  Thus by ignoring the law and creating a new precedent the left knew that they were winners.  

Fifty years later we are still waiting for a court that will overturn Roe v Wade.  I keep reading the optimists who think that maybe we are there.  Dream on.  The liberals know the rules and how to manipulate the conservatives.  We keep playing by what we think are the rules.  They keep making up new rules.

I think it is time we start playing by the real rules, the ones they play by.  It seems fair.  It even seems more honest that abiding by some old rules that don’t apply any more.  If we don’t we will never come out on top without violence and that means no one wins expect the ones out to destroy America.

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-049: Majority Rule

We keep hearing about the insights of historic writers.  You may have heard of Alexis De Tocqueville and his Democracy in America.  He was aware of the dangers of pure democracy and the rule of the majority.  He was French and although he was born after the terror of the French Revolution he knew about its excesses.   

I came across this warning that appears early in his work.  

“If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.” p. 260

The Proregressives* of America are hyping what they call Democracy and they are doing it because they want the result De Tocqueville is warning about.  Thinking people have always been in a minority.  When the elites get enough people lined up at the public trough they will just keep pushing the rest of us at an ever increasing pace.  He points out that it will go so far that the only possible response left is physical force.  

It is what they want because anarchy and the destruction of the evils of liberty is their goal.

Stand up when you get a chance.  Speak out when you can.  If we wait too long then the only option left will be force.  

May the day not come.

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

De Tocqueville, Alexis.  Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Translated by George Lawrence, Editor, J.P. Mayer.  New York:  Harper Perennial, 1969.

homo unius libri

 Opus 2022-048:  The Church Needs to Be the Church

One of my daily prayers is for the church to wake up and become salt and light again.  At the root of all the problems in our country is a failure of the church.  One of the calls that will often go out is for the pulpits to stand up and declare truth.  The problem we get into is not wanting to get political.  The weakness of the church is that they refuse to address moral issues such as homosexuality because the secular culture says they are political.

How can the church change society?  I came across this statement as I was re-reading Mere Christianity.  I think Lewis gives the pastors too much of an escape clause but I totally agree with what he is really trying to say.

“People say, ‘The Church ought to give us a lead.’  That is true if they mean it in the right way, but false if they mean it in the wrong way.  By the Church they ought to mean the whole body of practicing Christians.  And when they say that the Church should give us a lead, they ought to mean that some Christians - those who happen to have the right talents - should be economists an statesmen, and that all economists and statesmen should be Christians, and that their whole efforts in politics and economics should be direct to putting ‘Do as you would be done by’ into action.  If that happened and if we others were really ready to take it, then we should find the Christian solution for our own social problems pretty quickly.  But, of course, when they ask for a lead from the Church most people mean they want the clergy to put out a political programme (sic).  That is silly.  The clergy are those particular people within the whole Church who have been specially trained and set aside to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live for ever:  and we are asking them to do a different job for which they have not been trained.  The job is really on us, on the laymen.”  p. 83

The times when the Christian church has been most influential was not when the pulpits were the most political or even when the laymen were most political.  It has been when the average Christian has been serious about applying their faith to their daily walk.  It means speaking the truth.  It is to be spoken in love but that does not mean watering it down to the point of vacuity.  

If we want the United States to once again be blessed by God then each of us who claims to be a follower of Jesus needs to become salt and light in our daily activities.  It may not be sexy but it is righteous.

Lewis, C.S.  Mere Christianity.  Norwalk, Connecticut:  The Easton Press, 2002.

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-047: Out in the Open

What you see on the left if not hypocrisy but transparency.

They are not being hypocritical.  They really do believe that truth is dependent on advancing the Proregressive* agenda.  They believe in the Golden Rule which can be understood either as “He who has the gold makes the rules,” or “Do unto others, then cut out.”  This is a sincere mindset.  Get used to it.  You are not important.  You do not even rate the label of “human”.  They are on a mission.

And they are simply trying to be transparent.  It is always amazing how terrorists can tell you what they want to do, books can be written laying out the roadmap, celebrations break out spontaneously at some atrocity and so many Americans still say, “They don’t really mean it.”  Yes, they do.  When the media stand in front of a burning building and declare the protests are mainly peaceful and then celebrate throwing people who trespass into prison they are being very clear in what they believe and what they will do.

By now you should have seen the trip AOC took to Miami and the maskless partying she indulged in.  One article is found at the Daily Mail.  Keep in mind that this is not hypocrisy, it is transparency.  It is an often repeated verse in the Liberal National Anthem, “Do As I Say, Not as I Do.”

Keep in mind because they care about us and know what is good for us.

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-046: Seconds, Please

We tend to fall into government manipulation very quickly.

It starts with the small things.  It is for our own good.  Each little hiccup eliminates a little liberty.

We are accustomed to restricted water flow.  I have gotten used to it.  I didn’t realize how bad it was until I was staying at a house that had old style faucets.  I went to the bathroom sink to fill up my oral irrigator, Waterpik clone to you, and was amazed at how it filled up almost immediately.  It takes four or five seconds at home.  I realize four or five seconds isn’t very long but compared to instant it seems like an eternity.

Just another example of how your government is looking out for you and doing it for your own good.

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-045: And, So?

One thing I notice as being very common:  We all like to complain about what is wrong but we don’t offer solutions.  Even worse, if there are potential solutions we don’t act on them.

Mea culpa.  

One of the questions I have for people at times is, “And, so?”  What do they want me to do.  My wife usually waits until we are almost at the restaurant to point out some flaw in my grooming.  Someday I will turn around and drive home to deal with it.  I am not sure if I will leave her at the restaurant or make her ride with me.

In some areas doing something is relatively easy.  While some people live in an area where they have no alternative to shopping at Walmart, I don’t think that is the case for everyone.  Contrary to popular belief there are places to get things besides Amazon.

In other needs we are locked in.  Your mortgage may have been sold to Wells Fargo or B of A.  You may only have one choice for health insurance.  I get it.  Your one vote can’t vote the suckers out.  

I urge you to be creative.  Sometimes it is just a matter of denying yourself a bit.  I went to a used book store that had a sign saying noone could come in with a concealed weapon.  I turned around and waited for another day and another store.  It didn’t hurt me a bit.  The only problem was I had driven across town to go to that one business.  Their loss, not mine.

Make someone a loser this week.  It will be better than complaining to someone else who is doing nothing.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-044: Should-a-Beens: Assumptions

An informed citizen can give you the essence of the First and Second Amendments.  Let me share them again for your reading pleasure:

1st Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

                                                                       2nd Amendment

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

If I had my way I would add one, stated clearly, that is spelled out in bits and pieces through the rest of the document:  Freedom of movement.

We enjoy this already and we take it for granted.  I was thinking about this on a road trip.  I crossed three borders the first day and expected to cross three more the next.  At no time was I expected to produce any documentation to prove I had the right to be moving.

The Freedom of Movement has always been with us under the Constitution.  It was made meaningful by Henry Ford when he introduced a gas power motor vehicle produced within the financial reach of the general population.  The automobile is a symbol of freedom as much as firearms.  That is why the elites want to do away with the internal combustion engine.  It is what makes is so easy for people who find themselves subjects in blue states to move to red states so they can be citizens again.

Cherish this freedom.  It allows you to vote with your feet when you live in a blue locale that makes your ballot vote meaningless.  It allows you to live in a safe neighborhood and work in an area you would not want to visit after dark.  It may eventually make it possible to outdistance the zombie hoards.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-043: Fear of the Year Award

Time magazine needs to have a new annual presentation.  I think Time magazine still exists.  It would be called The Fear of the Year Award.

It could be given for the best panic generated the previous year.  You may have seen the meme poster with the long list of panics that had been survived.  Remember Y2K?  That was a classic.

The award documentation could also include a forecast of what could set our engines going in the next twelve months.  They say that sex sells.  Maybe they can say the same about fear.

It could be given to an individual.

The options are endless.

It might even get people paying attention to Time magazine again.

homo unius libri